Writing a song should come naturally! It should come from a place that´s vulnerable, personal and truely yours! So far so good! But writing something honest, authentic and interesting is not as easy to do as we think sometimes!
If you are a songwriter yourself, I am sure you have come up with great lyrics, catchy word plays and poetic rhymes. But once you started writing music to your words, you went nowhere good!
Likewise, we sometimes come up with great chord progressions or catchy melodies, but once we put words to it, it all sounds boring and dull!
So how do great songs happen?
I´m sure every writer has their trick…for me it is a combination of the following steps, that may or may not lead to a good song! (Every good song I write is a successor of plenty of bad songs…It´s not like you find a secret weapon that makes each song a stunner!) But the following tips have helped me a lot of times. Ok, here we go:
1) No pressure
This is a general rule, that almost all writers recommend: Don´t panic! Don´t force things and don´t expect every song you write to be good. Try writing out of fun or because you want to get something off your chest! Try to consider songwriting more like journaling or writing a diary. Don´t think of anyone reading it! Be honest, true and playful! If the song doesnt satisfy you, that´s fine! Not every step we take is meant to takes us somewhere specific! It´s good to have goals, but art is not meant to bring you down or enslave you! Art is a way to express things, not to make things look or sound pretty! If pretty is the result, our work has commercial potencial. But don´t let that be your primary goal! Let love and curiosity be your fuel and allow yourself to just play for a while! The hard work comes afterwards. Once you´ve got your song skeleton, you can spend hours and hours trying to colour it with arrangements, sounds etc. That´s where the picky you may truely shine!
2) Relax
I´ve noticed something interesting in myself. Whenever I´m on vacation or enjoying the Christmas holidays (which usually consist of me being in my PJ´s all day and staying up super late), I come up with plenty of song ideas….they just come out! Just like that! I´m not saying every idea is brilliant, but I do have to say that the more relaxed and playful I am, the better the material gets! Whereas, when I´m caught up by everyday chores, stress at work or in my private life and to many tasks on my to do list, my writing is usually very poor! Some people say that making writing a daily habit (no matter what) is super important, but I personally think my writing sucks when I force it too much! I don´t like technical writing! But that´s my artistic choice.
I´m pretty convinced though, that being calm and relaxed allows for your inner voice to increase its output gain 😉 ! And that´s what we´re ultimately after, right?
I don´t write well when I´m discontented or stressed out! I do write well, when I feel depressed though! Strangely, that´s a whole other story!
Anyhow- bottom line is: Relax! Don´t stress over your life, your songs or your work ethic! This won´t make you productive at all!
3) Write for a reason
Writing for a reason is very crucial to the authenticity of songwriting. A motivation could be “expressing yourself”, “sharing a memory” or just “writing someone elses story”. It can be all about expressing YOUR emotions, or likewise it could be about trying to understand and capture OTHER people´s (the audiences) emotions….
It makes a big difference whether a song is born out of autobiographic experiences, or whether it is born from other people´s experiences. Both processes work, but they change the way you write. You either allow people into your life, or you ask them permission to enter into theirs. In both cases, we ultimately always try to connect with people!
One last rule:
There are no rules! You might work 10 minutes on a song and come up with something brilliant, or you may work 10 years on it and it might eventually become brilliant too! Likewise you gotta allow yourself to let go of songs as well! Once you loose the feel for it, you better let go! And move on! But then again- there are no rules! Anything is possible in songwriting!
So, go ahead and start writing your own today!