Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of wildeyedboy

August 4, 2009 – If you want to make a living from your music, you have to treat it like a job. This is not to say that you mustn’t like what you’re doing, but you must take it seriously and integrate some structure into the process. If you don’t have a game plan about what you want to accomplish, it’s difficult to write songs.

Outside of the rare eureka moments when songs “just come to you”, many songwriters find that setting aside a regular time slot to write music helps order something that’s hard to order: their creativity. It could be every day, it could be once a week, but it’s a scheduled time for “work”.

Of course, setting a time to write, does not necessarily mean that your ideas will come pouring out when you want to. Try to eliminate as many distractions as you can and focus on the task at hand. Come into your songwriting session with an idea of what you want to do because if you don’t have a gameplan, you will likely find yourself with nothing to show for your time. Without a plan, it’s easy to get distracted.

Here are some ways I may approach a planned songwriting session. I might plan to write a song in a particular style, or I might write a song centred around a specific instrument. I might have a feeling I want to evoke, or I might have a partial set of lyrics that I would like to set to music. Of course, there’s also the soundtrack work that I usually have video or at least still images to go by. For me at least, going into a songwriting session with the idea that I want to write a pop-rock song, versus just setting aside 3 hours for “songwriting”, is a big help for my productivity.

Having a plan for my time is something that I do for things outside music as well. If I were to go to the gym and try to work out without a regiment planned, I’d be all over the place. These tips won’t guarantee that you’ll have a fruitful writing session, but they’ll at least help you on your way. Of course if there’s a good song idea that doesn’t match your intended plan, work on it instead since such ideas usually disappear as fast as they arrive. I usually find that the more I “practice” songwriting, the easier the ideas come, and the easier it is for me to get the ideas down before I forget them.

What are some tips that you use to get the creativity flowing?