All About Songwriting

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In order to master the craft of songwriting you must first fully embrace the fact that there’s always something to learn about it.

The more you know, the more you need to learn.

I know of some songwriters that are either bored or restless with their craft. They complain that everything that they do all sounds the same and therefore they feel they’re not expanding and growing as songwriters.

However, in life, there are people that do things and people that don’t. Which category a certain songwriter falls into is not determined by genetics or how much Mercury is in retrograde.

It’s all determined by their attitude and as a songwriter, how you master your chosen craft is determined by you and you alone.

One of my ongoing goals is getting advanced musical theory and guitar lessons. I’ve mentioned this to a select number of friends in the past and they all ask me “why?”

My reply is “why not!”

I have been playing music and writing songs since I was 13 and besides learning clarinet and studying music theory and composition in high school, I have not had any other tuition in my life.

I am mostly a self taught musician.

It would be arrogant of me to think that I have nothing else to learn so I’m going to find out where my learning gaps are and I’m then going to fill them in with some new knowledge.

Doing this can only make me a better songwriter and musician so that’s why I started guitar and theory lessons with Richie Robinson from Guitar Lessons Adelaide yesterday (June 10th, 2021).

I’m really excited to see how these lessons will affect the way I approach music, writing songs and life in general as I believe that how you approach your craft is a metaphor of how you approach your life.

My advice to anyone regarding learning an instrument or expanding their music theory knowledge to help with your songwriting is threefold:

1. If you’ve ever considered learning an instrument then consider no more, start learning. Don’t believe the rubbish that some people will tell you about old dogs and new tricks.

2. If you already play an instrument, consider getting lessons no matter how proficient you are. The more proficient you are at your instrument the more important your choice of tutor will be.

3. If you already get lessons, make more of an effort to practise, learn to love it and find the time to do it. Challenge yourself with the lessons, try to feel your mind expand with the knowledge you gain from it.

Seek out books on songwriting, buy them and read them. Take notes and do what is needed to assimilate the new knowledge into your songwriting process.

Get online and sign up to songwriting resources, forums, and communities. Ask lots and lots of questions.

In your research you’ll come across people you feel comfortable communicating with, keep in contact with them. Network and expand your relationships.

If you want to contact me and ask questions feel free to do so, you can also comment below as well.

In short, get out of your comfort zone.

If you feel you have been spending precious energy complaining and not enough energy doing then stop, re-evaluate and change your attitude towards your songwriting.

It can be done, I know because I have done this for myself.

Reward yourself (and your songwriting) by embracing new knowledge and you will never, ever look back. In fact, let me know how you go with it.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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Here is a very interesting video I found recently of one of my favourite musicians and sound artists of all time, Brian Eno being interviewed by Jools Holland in 2001.

In the video, Eno talks about the concept of his Oblique Strategies cards and how they can be of immense help to songwriters, performers, studio musicians and even brain surgeons.

Speaking about brain surgeons check out what happens at around the two minute mark. It’s very, very funny and a great example of how Oblique Strategies works.

I did a quick Google search and here are some places online where you can find and use Eno’s oblique strategies…

Enjoy the video…

Would you use these cards as part of your songwriting process? I would certainly give them a go.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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Sometimes writing songs is a linear experience.

You come across a possible song title that jumps out at you and after writing the first line of the first verse, a first draft is suddenly completed from start to finish.

Sometimes writing songs is a puzzle solving exercise.

You take a piece here, a song title there, a bit of a verse here and a half written phrase there and, after discovering the common thread that connects everything, a song is eventually completed.

Sometimes writing songs is like incubating an egg.

You finish writing a chorus but find you can’t go any further however, after leaving the half finished song for a period of time something triggers in your mind and the song magically completes itself.

Sometimes you start writing a song from the beginning and work forwards, sometimes you start writing a song in the middle and work outwards and sometimes you start writing a song from the end and work backwards.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you start somewhere.

What do you think?

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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Just think, as songwriters, every time we write a song we start off with a blank page.

It sits there and it waits patiently for us to pick up our pen and pour out our songwriting ideas from our hearts and minds onto its surface however, a blank page can mean one of two things to a songwriter.

It can either be either something to be fearful of, a scary journey into the unknown or, a doorway to infinite songwriting idea possibilities.

Let me ask you this.

Are you free to create whatever you want, whenever you want without second guessing, self-censorship or prejudice on your part? Or, are you a songwriter that feels shackled by the belief that you must obtain some sort of quantifiable result every time you put your pen to paper?

Which headspace would you rather be in?

I know that I’m asking a lot of questions here but as songwriters, this is something we face every time we sit down to write a song and as our answers to these questions are automatic and unconscious, we wonder why at times we don’t write anything.

This is when we start blaming things like songwriters block.

So, try this simple exercise the next time you sit down to write a song. Look at that blank page in front of you as your friend and playmate.

You see, just the very thought of sitting down to write a song means that there is possibility that the muse will knock on your door and ask if you can come out to play.

It just takes a shift in our perspective

We need to remind ourselves that writing a song can be one or more of these three experiences:

  • A linear experience – You come across a possible song title that jumps out at you and after writing the first line of the first verse, a first draft is suddenly completed from start to finish.
  • A puzzle solving exercise – You take a piece here, a song title there, a bit of a verse here and a half written phrase there and, after discovering the common thread that connects everything, a song is eventually completed.
  • Like incubating an egg – You finish writing a chorus but find you can’t go any further however, after leaving the half finished song for a period of time something triggers in your mind and the song magically completes itself.

Sometimes you start writing a song from the beginning and work forwards, sometimes you start a song from the middle and work outwards and sometimes you start writing at the end and work backwards.

When it comes to songwriting, it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you start somewhere.

Just remember, a blank page is not proof that you’ve not written a song. It’s merely the doorway to an infinite world of songwriting idea possibilities and all you need to do is have the courage to walk through it, regardless of the outcome.

So get out of your own way and allow yourself to be free to create.

Okay, take a deep breath… How is that blank page looking now? Let me know if shifting your perspective towards the blank piece of paper works for your songwriting process.

It certainly does for me.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure

James Lane Allen

When it comes to writing songs, nothing blocks the flow of songwriting ideas more than two small but very powerful words…

FEAR and DOUBT.

The fear comes first. I’m talking about the fear of…

  • Not being good enough
  • Being ridiculed by online trolls
  • Being found out as not being an expert
  • Not having anything to say
  • People not liking my output
  • Exposing myself too much
  • People not liking me and my music

With the doubt following soon behind it making me…

  • Play down my achievements (false humility)
  • Sugar coat my message to please others
  • Writing songs that lack confidence and conviction
  • Second-guess everything that I do
  • Strive for the unattainable, the perfect
  • Become an expert at procrastination
  • Not finish anything

I know that at one time or another, we’ve all experienced this dance between fear and doubt in some form or another.

I continue to do so every single day. In fact, fear and doubt have been the two main reasons why I haven’t gotten as far with my songwriting as I could have.

One of my main regrets in my life so far has been to let fear and doubt get the better of me over the years.

I’ve imagined many, many times what I could’ve achieved if I had not let fear and doubt get in the way of my professional and personal progress as a songwriter. Have you felt this way too sometimes?

Well, the next question to ask is… “What do we do about it?”

For me, I find doing these three things help a lot…

  • Acknowledge the fear
  • Encapsulate the fear
  • Take action in spite of the fear

Acknowledge that having fears and doubts is an essential part of being a songwriter.

In fact, both are essential parts of being a human being.

Used wisely, fear is a great mechanism for assessing risk and therefore it needs to be exercised carefully but not all the time. You do need to train yourself to not feel the fear in creative situations but to embrace the play that creativity brings to the table.

I do this by just recognising that I have these fears and doubts and I have the courage and skill to deal with them when they arise.

Encapsulate your fears and doubt by writing them down.

The fear and doubt lists demonstrated above are from my own journals and already from that list I can see how silly these fears and doubts look on paper.

That’s what I find to be the beauty of writing these things down, I get a much more realistic perspective of the situation and I feel more detached from the fears and doubts because I have physically plucked them from my mind and put them down on paper.

Just take action anyway, plough through the fear and doubt.

Once you’ve written down what your fears and doubts are, the desire to create overrides the fear that comes with creation and you end up doing what you most want to do at that moment… CREATE!

If I find that if I’m feeling a fear and doubt attack coming on, I open up my journal and write down what I’m thinking and feeling.

This is essential for clearing the block that was preventing me from writing a song in the first place as I recognise that, most of the fears and doubts that I concoct inside my head are just that… INSIDE MY HEAD.

They are not real, they are not based on any facts, it’s just me being a little more vulnerable and overly cautious about my abilities as a songwriter and what I have to say at that moment.

How do you deal with your fears and doubts when it comes to your creativity? Feel free to let me know as I’m always fascinated with the stories of others faced with the same situation.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

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I, like many, many songwriters have a problem with my songwriting process…

It’s called “perfectionism” and along with an extremely over-zealous inner critic, this problem has plagued me my whole songwriting/music career.

I have tried many times to snap out of it and to some extent have been temporarily successful numerous times over the years but at the end of the day, my default songwriting position is of being paralysed by too much choice.

My main curse is that I don’t finish things. I absolutely love to start things but I’ve never really finish things… Songs, tasks, projects, activities. I rarely finish things to the standard that I’d would like but then again, maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe, I set impossible standards for myself.

Anyways, I stumbled across an article all about this very problem of perfectionism in songwriting and the author was going through the very same issues as I am, right now.

Reading David Silverstein’s article Why It’s So Important To Finish Your Music And Share It With The World resonated with me on so many levels. In regards to his situation of not finishing his music he writes…

I realized that finalizing and sharing my music was the part that scared me the most. I was afraid. I was afraid of marking something complete because then I would have to answer to my own work. I could and would be held accountable for the result, which my perfectionism was never going to be happy with. If I was going to wait until I was 100% happy with something, I was going to be waiting a very long time.

BINGO! Therein lies my issue… Fear of being accountable for my work, fear of being criticised and the fear of having to answer to trolls online.

He goes on by offering some suggestions as to how to get past this fear and for me, the first things that I need to do is to stop setting outlandishly unreachable goals for myself. My goals should be smaller and happen more often.

Maybe what I need to do is to stop looking at my songwriting process as a series of sudden bursts of productivity and try to create a songwriting process that is more streamlined, organised, consistent and sustainable.

More than ever, good music needs to be written and shared with the world so why should fear and doubt in my own abilities get in the way of me sharing my music with the world?

David Silverstein finishes off his article with a simple quote from Leonardo da Vinci…

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

I’ll be using this COVID-19 downtime I find myself in to finally conquer my songwriting fears and doubts. I hope to be finishing a lot of songs.

Do you have the same issue? Love starting off projects but don’t take it to completion? Let me know what experiences you’ve had with this and how you managed to work around it. I’d love to hear from you.

Peace,

Corey 🙂

Check out the original article: Why it’s so important to finish your music and share it with the world

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Let’s look at the word SONGWRITING for a minute. The dictionary meaning of the word is the “… writing the music and words of songs.”

Now that should give us a clue but I think the definition it goes deep enough. I reckon the meaning of the word SONGWRITING should be something like…

“The process in which a song is created using words and melody”

The word itself is comprised of two words, song and writing. The song part is the end result of a process and the writing part is the process itself.

Get it… Without the writing there is no song.

It seems like a simple concept doesn’t it? But it’s amazing how many songs aren’t written. They are started but never finished.

You see, you can talk all you like about verses, choruses, middle-eights, bridges, pre-choruses, the length of the intro and hooks and so on but without the physical activity of writing the song, all of that theory is meaningless.

Introducing the Songwriting Process

Personally, songwriting is much, much more than the song itself. The act of writing a song is a whole process in itself. It’s a discipline, a meditation and for me, a way of life.

Without a songwriting process, a song (being the end result of the process) would not exist at all.

If we, as songwriters didn’t have our own songwriting process, then all of our thoughts, feelings and songwriting ideas will become random, haphazard and lacking in organisation.

How would you be able to maintain a creative and sustainable songwriting environment with all that disorganisation going on?

Pablo Picasso once said that “… inspiration exists, but it has to find you working” and I think that sums everything I’ve been trying to say in this post nicely.

In future posts I’ll be writing about how you can create, adopt and manage your own songwriting process and in turn write more songs rather than just waiting for inspiration to come your way. Plus, I’ll be giving you insights as to how I write my songs.

What does songwriting and the process involved in writing a song mean to you? Feel free to let me know as we all have something to learn from each other.

Peace,

Corey 🙂