Why Songwriters Struggle to Finish Songs (And How to Keep the Music Moving)
If you spend any time talking to and hanging out with songwriters, you’ll hear a familiar topic of conversation. “I’ve got hundreds of ideas… but very few finished songs.” This would mean voice memos full of melodies. Notebooks packed with lyric fragments and snippets of half finished chord progressions. This isn’t unusual. In fact, it’s […]
Object Writing: The Daily Exercise That Can Improve Your Lyrics
If you listen closely to the songs that stay with you the longest, you’ll notice something interesting. Great songs rarely deal in vague language. Instead of telling you someone is lonely, they show you the empty room. Instead of telling you someone is heartbroken, they show you the silence after the door closes. This ability […]
Why Songwriting Drafts Die And How To Bring Them Back To Life
You see, every songwriter has an ideas graveyard. It lives in notebooks, phone notes, voice memos, half-finished DAW sessions, scraps of paper, and old lyric files with names like “new song idea 7” or “verse chorus maybe.” For me, I have a folder called “WIP” which stands for “works in progress” and it’s HUGE. Inside […]
The Notebook: A Songwriter’s Most Underrated Songwriting Tool
“See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a […]
Why Songwriters Struggle to Finish Songs (And How to Fix It)
If you’re like most songwriters, you probably have a graveyard somewhere. Not an actual graveyard of course… but a folder on your computer, a notebook, or a voice memo list filled with half-finished songs (I know I do). Starting songs is easy but finishing them? That’s where things get interesting. Recently I came across a […]
How Wide Should Your Musical Listening Be as a Songwriter?
If you want to become a better songwriter, one piece of advice comes up again and again: “Listen to more music.” But what does that actually mean? Should you stay inside your chosen genre and master it? Or should you explore everything from jazz to metal to electronic to classical? If you go too narrow, […]
How To Be Inspired By Other Songwriters Without Losing Your Own Voice
Every songwriter has that moment. You hear a song and think “Man, I wish I had written that.” The melody feels effortless. The lyric hits something a raw nerve. The structure feels tight and intentional. And suddenly you’re inspired… and at the same time slightly intimidated. Here’s the truth: no great songwriter develops in isolation. […]
How To Deal With An Overactive Inner Critic When Writing Songs
Just imagine… You’re halfway through a verse. The melody feels promising and the chords are sitting nicely. There’s something there. And then it starts. The inner critic has entered the room. Uninvited, loud and confident. If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken. You’re writing songs. Every songwriter, from absolute beginners to seasoned professionals, deals with […]
You Finished a Song… Now What?
That moment when the final chord rings out is addictive. You sit back. The export bar hits 100%. The demo is done. The lyric is locked in. For a few minutes, it feels like you’ve climbed a mountain. Then comes the strange part… Silence. No brief. No deadline. No next step written on the wall. […]
Writing Through Fear: How to Finish Songs When Self-Doubt Kicks In
You sit down with your guitar. Or you open your DAW. Or you stare at a blank lyric sheet waiting for something brilliant to fall out of the sky. And then it happens. “That’s not good enough.”“This sounds like someone else.”“Why can’t I write something better than this?” Self-doubt doesn’t knock politely. It barges in, […]