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6 Ways to Maintain a Steady Stream of New Song Ideas

3430060992_8a26aefb50_z tanaka juuyohA few days after deciding that I’d write 14 songs in February, I started noticing song premises every day.

I hadn’t consciously changed my routine. I hadn’t even begun to put in significant time at the piano. But knowing I’d have to write at least one song every two days, my mind was poised to spring like a steel trap on song titles, interesting phrases, and threads of melody that crossed my path.

This deadline harnessed everything I’ve learned about songwriting in the past ten years. It set all the prepared gears in motion.

Over time, having survived writer’s block dozens of times, having also enjoyed feverishly productive periods, I’ve come to rely on six small self-reminders to keep ideas coming. When I feel blocked, it’s because I’ve allowed one of these to lapse.

6 Ways to Maintain a Steady Stream of New Songs

1. Learn your craft—the more you know about how songs are constructed, the sharper you’ll get at seeing the potential in a single lyric or melodic phrase. Craft also helps you quickly identify gaps and fill them in so that you can finish drafts, stash them, and move on to the next song idea. Study songwriting books, analyze your favorite songs. Experiment with new rhyme schemes and song forms. Also read books on poetry, fiction, copywriting, music theory, and beyond.

2. Read—reading poetry, magazine articles, and fiction can all lead to serendipitous discovery. It’s also an enjoyable way to hone your instincts for description, dialogue, and the rhythms of language.

3. Listen—and I mean really listen. Sit down with earphones and a piece of music—and nothing else. Close your eyes, clear your mind, and listen. This is surprisingly difficult to do at first, but stay with it. Listen to at least one song every day, a whole album if you can.

4. Write every day—on days when you feel dry or blocked, have practice tasks to fall back on. Take out a guitar manual and learn some new chords. Do an exercise from William Russo’s Composing Music. Free write for 10 minutes. Revise one of your earlier songs. Start a songwriting prompt from this site. No need to wait for a thunderbolt—you can make songs happen whenever you want.

5. Set a clear goal and deadline—Deadlines force us to quit procrastinating and produce. Thanks to Album Writing Month, I’m constantly thinking about whether or not I’m on track to complete all 14 of my FAWM songs by February 29th. This exerts constant pressure to keep moving. Why not join the other 6,000+ songwriters and I? It’s not too late.

6. Seek peer pressure—another element that makes FAWM so motivating is the company of fellow songwriters. A group environment provides support and keeps you accountable for putting in your time and doing your work. Since I’m a loner by instinct. I stay motivated by reading books like Do the Work and watching documentaries about military training regimens. The military knows discipline.

Repeat the above steps in a continuous cycle. Build them into your daily life.

To recap:

  1. Study your craft
  2. Read
  3. Listen
  4. Write every day
  5. Set a clear goal and deadline
  6. Seek peer pressure

How do you keep ideas coming?

I’d like to hear about what keeps you sharp and motivated. Noticed any patterns? Leave a comment and let us know.

canal photo by Tanaka Juuyoh

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Push Your Comfort Zones and Write an Album of Original Songs by February 29th, 2012

By February 29th—four weeks from today—you could have an album completed. Written, recorded, done.

During February Album Writing Month (FAWM), songwriters sprint to complete an album’s worth of original songs by the last day of February. It’s like Novel Writing Month for songwriters: a month-long marathon.

FAWM’s great for songwriters who need a shot of adrenaline. If you’ve found yourself stuck, creatively blocked, overly perfectionistic, or otherwise holding yourself back, here’s your chance. Jump in, get your hands dirty, and push your comfort zones.

Without a deadline it’s easy to procrastinate while songs stall and languish. FAWM gives you a deadline; it’s a bullwhip smartly applied to the buttocks.

C’mon, sign up. I dare you.

Here are some common objections to FAWM:

  • I don’t have any ideas. There are plenty of songwriting prompts on this website, and the FAWM website offers ideas as well. We don’t join FAWM thinking “I know exactly what to write!” Instead it’s a commitment to find things to write about. Have faith and take the leap.
  • I don’t have the time. A song every two days is a fast pace for some. If you’re tight on time, you might have to make sacrifices: take an extended absence from Twitter, temporarily nuke your Facebook account, throw your television out the window, stay up just a little later at night, get up just a little earlier in the morning. Need more ways to clear time in your calendar? I’ve got a post for that.
  • I only write lyrics/I only compose music. Either is fine. Feel free to focus on your specialty, or to look for a fellow FAWMER to collaborate with.

The important thing to remember is that FAWM is all about process. It’s not about creating perfectly crafted work; it’s about taking songs from idea to execution quickly and completely.

Immersion teaches well, and FAWM will hone your songwriting skills by putting them into immediate action. Even better, though: you’ll learn what you’re capable of when you’re determined.

You have 29 days to write 14 and 1/2 songs. Go!

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Burn Your File of Song Ideas and Start Over (I Dare You)

4346741050_57f5e30565_z by la pluie et le beau tempsLosing my life’s work in 2011 was one of the luckiest spins I could’ve hoped for. All those half-finished songs? Gone. Failed novels? Outta here! Awful sonnets? Ciao!

For a decade I’d been starting lyrics, poems, recordings, even books—and then dropping everything to chase more ideas before the previous ones were finished. I was forever in Limbo, in transit from project to project to project until my hard drive was like a labyrinth of stale, rotting, half-eaten songs. Horrible.

Eventually I shattered that hard drive on a wooden floor, and all those tangled loose ends were cleanly severed in an instant. Looking back now, I wonder whether I subconsciously drop-kicked that laptop on purpose just so I could finally get free of my own past failures.

If your notebooks are cluttered with dozens or hundreds of half-finished songs like mine were, consider throwing it all out the window.

No, really. Call your own bluff. If you were going to finish that song you started a month ago, you would’ve done so already. If you were going to take action on that lyric idea you scribbled on an envelope last May, you would’ve done so. Last May. Stop slowing yourself down with dead weight. Pack up those old ideas and get them out of your workspace.

Box them up, move them to the back of your closet, drop them into a new folder on your computer called “Archive”. Whatever it takes. Just like that, all your unfinished work is now cleared away.

What happens next is the best part.

It’s just you, a cleared writing space, and a virginal notebook. Now you can breathe again.

Now you just need one song idea to pursue all the way from 0:00 to the double barline. With nothing else on your plate to distract you, you can focus on that one song and do what it takes to finish. Even if finishing means you have to write some dummy lines.

There’s nothing wrong with having multiple songs in the pipeline—unless your pipeline’s clogged. If you find yourself with five or more songs that stall out in the middle, pick just one to devote all your energies to. Otherwise, it’s way too easy to jump from project to project whenever one of your creations gets difficult.

Life’s short. Finish the songs you start.

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13 Questions to Ask Yourself in the Harsh Morning Light of 2012

I hope you’ve had a great New Year so far. While the year is young, this is a great time to reflect a bit on 2011 and start thinking about what you want from 2012.

Here are some questions you’ll want to ask yourself to take stock of last year. Do yourself a big favor and try to answer them as honestly as you can; be straight with both your successes and your shortcomings.

1. Did I achieve the resolutions I set for myself in 2011?

2. How many songs did I finish? Don’t list any fragments or half-finished works here. They don’t count.

3. Could I have finished more songs than I did? Have I been procrastinating?

4. How happy am I with the quality of the lyrics, melody, etc.?

5. In what ways did I get my songs heard by others this past year?

6. When I did sit down to write, did impatience and lack of focus scatter my energy?

7. In what ways did I upgrade my skills in composing melodies, arrangement, and lyric writing during 2011?

8. Have I taken time to listen to new music and learn from the strengths of musicians and lyricists I admire?

9. Have any bad habits or addictions held me back?

10. How much time did I spend on the web, watching TV, playing video games, or otherwise consuming idle entertainments? How does that compare to the amount of time I spent writing songs and honing my craft?

11. Did I schedule and manage my time to make sure I could devote time to songwriting?

12. How badly do I really want to write songs? Is it my true artistic calling?

13. Am I holding myself back with fears of commercial or artistic failure?

If you sit down and spend some reflective, quiet time with these questions, you’ll likely discover that you haven’t yet harnessed and focused all your creative powers. This is good news—it means your best work is still ahead of you.

Stay tuned. In a few days we’ll arm you with all the tools you need to make 2012 your breakthrough year.

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Are You Strangling Your Best Songs?

Obvious to you. Amazing to others. from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.

AVC: Do you generally feel like you have a good sense of what your best work is? Because obviously you have fans who love songs that you’ve recorded but never released.

Ryan Adams: At this point, I would say that I definitely don’t know. I used to think I did…

With this record, these are the songs that really stood out for people around me that love my music, that are close to it, and that I respect. I think I got the picture for the first time. I think I understood that it was those songs that happen by accident when I’m not thinking that people like best. So I’m probably not a very good judge. But I like the irony of it.

Source: A.V. Club Interview with Ryan Adams

 

One of the prime challenges of songwriting–and performing–is hearing yourself objectively, the way a listener hears you. No listener sits and agonizes over every lyric, note, and syllable the way the song’s writer does. The subtle touches that make one of your songs great might go entirely unnoticed while your simplest material flourishes.

The song you’re most invested in personally might not be the one that grabs everyone by the ear hairs. The experience of writing is much different from the experience of listening–which is one of the reasons that collaborating with other songsters and musicians lends an advantage. It narrows the gap.

Filed Under: Cowriting & Collaboration, Process, Songwriter Interviews Tagged With: ,
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Just Because it’s Fun to Play Doesn’t Mean it’s Fun to Hear

258037364_f74f473a58 by Elizabeth Table4Five

Alas. As the title of this post says: just because a song is fun to play doesn’t mean that it’s fun to hear.

Given that unpleasant truth, if you can manage to hear your own songs as though they were written by somebody else, you’ve given yourself an amazing advantage.

Attempting to experience your own song like a stranger allows you to objectively see what’s working well in your song—and what needs improvement. It allows you to fix what’s broken, and to strengthen what is already strong. To put it simply: it’s like looking in the mirror before you leave the house… just to make sure you don’t have half of your lunch dangling from your spectacular folksinger whiskers during a gig.

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How to Finish Writing the Songs You’ve Already Started

“What do I want to write about? What do I have to offer my listeners?” These are troubling questions, especially if you expect yourself to come up with a clear, complete idea on the spot.

Somewhere out there, right at this very moment, a songwriter is feeling frustrated or guilty about their notebook of half-finished songs and scraps.

“Why the hell can’t I finish anything?” The songwriter moans.

It’s actually good to have a mess of lyric fragments–but it’s common to feel as though you’re just spinning your wheels, getting nowhere.

Relax!

Every song is written one word at a time. If you’re waiting for a complete idea to fall out of the sky into your head, perfectly formed, make sure that you’re comfortable right where you’re sitting–it’s going to be a long wait with nothing but a clean, white, virgin notebook to keep you company.

Here’s a recent, drastic improvement in my life as a writer and songwriter: the realization that a mess is a good thing.

Unfinished ideas are starting points. They can be generated en masse, played with, tweaked, split, combined, scrapped and reimagined. The more of them you have, the better–you’re giving yourself more ideas to choose from. Remember that they don’t all have to get written.

Pick any one of your song ideas and try any of the following:

1. Set aside a period of time without any distractions so that you can focus. This is not an easy option for everyone, so if you’ve got a day job and six kids, don’t worry. Even five or ten minutes could be long enough to write another line.

2. Go about your day, but keep the song in mind as you go. If you take five minutes in the morning to read your idea and fix it in your mind, you’re priming yourself to work on it half-consciously all day. You might try carrying it around with you in a little notebook or on an index card–just jot down ideas as they come to you.

3. Connect the dots. Gather all your scraps, ideas, and finished songs in one place and start reading–you may have already written and forgotten a potential new direction for your stalled masterpiece.

4. Freewrite. Write anything that pops into your head about the song-in-progress on a separate sheet for 10-20 minutes. Write quickly, in stream-of-consciousness style, without inhibition. You never know what you might uncover if you keep working that spade.

5. Learn about songwriting. Read songwriting books, read articles by pro songwriters, attend classes, analyze songs from your favorite artists, and do everything you can to learn about the craft of songwriting. This art form requires lots of specialized knowledge–and the more you learn about it, the more likely you are to stumble upon some brilliant piece of information that gets your song unstuck.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

If you spend some time on one of the strategies above and start feeling blocked or frustrated, just move on to another, and stop whenever you’ve had it “up to here” or when the song is finished.

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Nicholas Tozieris an independent singer, songwriter, private music instructor, blogger, and recording artist centered in Gardiner, Maine. His first album, A Game with Shifting Mirrors, is slated for self-release in Fall 2010.

 

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33 Ways to Make More Time in Your Life For Music-Making

1. Disconnect. Power down your computer–or if you absolutely need the thing for some reason related to your practice and studies, sever it from the internet. Switch off your router. Close all unnecessary windows. You might even consider setting up a new user account with a bare-bones desktop and easy access to the tools you need, nothing else.

2. Banish Television. On your deathbed, will you regret not seeing this particular episode of “Generic Man and his Comical Family”? Alright then.

3. Timer. Every day, set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Within that time, work on a particularly mundane task related to your instrument or music theory. This is perfect for memorizing dry material inside and out over a long period of time, in small daily installments.

4. Noodle Control. This one’s for guitarists: lay the guitar down on your lap to avoid the temptation to noodle while you’re supposed to be learning chord forms, scale fingerings, or the note names on the fretboard. Thanks, Ted Greene. Again, just a few minutes of this every day will advance you.

5. Shut off your cell phone. You don’t need the added distraction of incoming texts from National Geographic’s Twitter account. Unless you’re writing about giraffes or the indigenous peoples of New Guinea.

6. Take Your Song to Lunch. Seal off your office during your break or take lunch at a weird hour so that you can work on some music. If you work a conservative day job, just imagine how cool this’ll make you look to your staff or coworkers: guitar on one knee, tie roguishly thrown over one shoulder…

7. Refuse Dead-End Gigs and Mind the Big Picture. If you’re out there churning out cover songs, you’re not working on the original material that has the potential to actually form your legacy. Say no to gigs that don’t pay enough, that aren’t fulfilling, or that don’t advance you down the path of what you really want to do. Stay true to your talent.

8. Purpose. Before you pick up your instrument, ta

ke a moment to decide what you’ll be practicing. Fix it clearly and firmly in your mind. Then get to it! Stick to your plan and don’t allow yourself to wander.

9. Sufi. Sit down and do not get up until you’ve completed one specific task or goal: 2 chapters from a music theory book, for example, or a new chord progression for songwriting.

 

10. Set a timer for 15, 30, 60, or 90 minutes… however much you can stand. During that time, chip away at the tiny corners of a big, intimidating project. Don’t think about how much or how little progress you make. The goal is not to finish anything in that block of time, or to achieve perfect results—just spend the time.

11. Want the Worm? No need to fish around in the bottom of a tequila bottle. Instead, try waking up just ten minutes earlier to warm-up or practice before breakfast. Even ten minutes is enough to awaken your writing, composing, or performing instincts… and leave you thinking about art all day long. Pat Pattison, Berklee professor (and Gillian Welch’s lyric writing teacher) recommends writing first thing every morning in his excellent book, Writing Better Lyrics.

12. Redecoration. Try making musical instruments, music books, and recordings focal in your home. This is sometimes a process of cleaning up all the other clutter and sometimes a process of putting your instruments, books, or notebooks where they’re easiest to grab and easiest to use. If you suddenly find your banjo in your hands every afternoon when you get home, you’re doing well with this.

13. Reclaim Your Loose Change. Our lives are pecked away one dime at a time: long checkout lines, waiting rooms, commercial breaks, rambling and unclear public speakers. To counter this, carry a tiny notebook full of little factoids, scales, chords, etc. that you need to memorize. Whenever you’ve got a spare moment—in line at the store, etc.–pull out the notebook. Memorize concepts. Visualize certain scales and chords as though you had your instrument under your fingers. Take back your time.

14. Pavlov’s Dogs. Give yourself a treat every time you complete a task or goal. The road to advanced jazz harmony is paved with honey-roasted peanuts.

15. To be Continued. Don’t stand up from any practice session until you’ve jotted down some notes on what you’d like to do and learn next, what you need to work on, any questions you’d like to investigate, etc. Take a moment to reflect, review, and apply what you’d learned.

16. Make Yourself Want it. Write inspiring quotes from musicians you admire on your walls. Post them above the shower. Listen to favorite recordings and see yourself on stage performing them. Play air guitar (even if you play real guitar). Imagine how amazing it will feel to be able to fluidly and easily execute the level of technique and artistry that you desire. Make yourself want it.

17. Consolidate and Review. Put everything you need for practice and creative work together in one place. Songwriters: pick up every scribbled idea and loose line, gather them all together in one box, and glue or copy them into a specific notebook or computer file. You can’t build on an idea if you’ve forgotten it exists, and if you suddenly get an idea for developing one of those little seedlings, you’ll want to be able to find the original before the new spark burns out. I also did something similar with my recording setup: gathering all the cables and equipment together on one table significantly boosted my recording time. Make it as logistically easy as possible to do what you find most fulfilling.

18. Earbuds. Fill up your iPod or similar device with inspiring and informative material to listen to while you shop, mow the lawn, shower… etc. If you’re looking for something to listen to, what a coincidence! I’ve got a new podcast launching later this week! Oh happy day! (UPDATE: a few songwriting audio programs are now up)

19. Ditch Eeyore. Hang out with other creative types and positive people.

20. Groupies. Imagine how cool you’ll look rocking out in front of all those cute boys or girls. If you’re a more subtle, sensitive performer, imagine the starry-eyed admirers who’ll hear your songs and think you’re a true poet and ask you to sign their copy of Anne Sexton’s complete works. Whatever.

21. Geek Out with New Tools and Toys. Buy a new piece of gear or a book about your art.

22. Slow Down. Oddly enough, it’s typically more efficient to slow down and develop accuracy and knowledge before speed. Don’t rush through things; make sure you understand each new concept or can play each new musical phrase cleanly and in tempo before moving on. In the long run, this can streamline your entire course of study.

23. Don’t Hide Behind Your Day Job. Unless you really want your day job more than you want your dreams. I work full-time, write all the content on this site, practice guitar, write songs, and study—and I still have time left over for a social life. Practice whether you’re tired or not. Write lyrics whether you want to or not. Think long-term.

24. Use Ben Franklin’s method for tracking adherence to desired habits.

25. Find a practice buddy. Hang out frequently with musicians and other creative types—you’ll find yourself thinking about your own art much more often, since it’s more likely that such topics will come up in any group of consciously creative people. Share what you learn with one another and the whole group will be better for it.

26. Create a Points System. 5 points for a new chord form! 10 points for a new scale! 5 points for an idea for a song title! 7.23 points for a verse written! Set yourself a particular number of points that you must fulfill every day. Having a menu of choices will help you sustain some momentum while giving you freedom to pick and choose what you feel like doing on any given day. This is great for inspiring healthy competition against your own high scores.

27. Reverse Psychology. Set a strict rule for practicing (see #26, immediately above). You are not allowed to rack up any more any more than 30 points’ worth of music every day. Nope, not even 31. No more than 30 allowed. If you’re like me, you’ll soon start bargaining with yourself: “Well, that song idea isn’t that great. Really it was just worth 3 points, not 5…humph.” Or you could take suggestion #3—setting a timer—and tell yourself that you have only that much time to learn something new.

28. Quit Hitting Yourself. Fellow music teachers have given me funny looks for this one, but I stand by it: do not guilt yourself if you skip a session, and do not make yourself do double duty next time—instead, just consciously choose not to practice today. Look your piano right in the… keys (or look your guitar right in the soundhole) and choose to do something else instead. And if you do have to fulfill obligations or do something fun instead, feel good about it. If you torture yourself about lack of self-discipline, you’ll come to associate music-making with guilt and feelings of inadequacy. What good will that do? This goes for my students as well: when you don’t practice between sessions, I’ll always be able to teach you something cool or interesting regardless. Hopefully you’ll be left feeling a little more inspired this time… ;)

29. Integrate it Into Your Existing Schedule. Chip away at a few things while dinner’s cooking every night. Leave time for songwriting right after every workout. Sit down in your pajamas with your instrument every night right before bed. If you embed a new habit into an existing one, you may find that the new one is easier to maintain.

30. Keep Out. Post a skull and crossbones symbol on the door to a quiet room, lock the door, and make sure everybody else who lives in your home understands exactly what you mean when you hang that sign.

31. Books, Videos, Lectures, and CDs. Fill up your shelves with media related to your art. Bookmark helpful websites (cough cough) and make sure the shortcuts are visible in your browser or on your desktop. Take pleasure in reading the RSS feeds of music blogs or scan a page in a songwriting book when you’ve got a spare second.

32. Rig the Game. Here’s a particularly evil, self-flagellating, and ridiculously elaborate tip: to enhance your points system (see #26 above), give your favorite tasks odd numbers of points that won’t quite add up neatly in the daily sum. When you’ve set yourself a goal of fifty points per day, and on Wednesday night you end up with 47, the desire for perfection might spur you to do something extra that puts you well over your daily benchmark.

33. Goals and Deadlines. Set yourself a measurable, tangible goal: brainstorm ten song ideas, write the full first draft of a song, and so on. Short, medium, or long-term goals are all fine—but choose only one, make it manageable, and do whatever it takes to get that goal completed. Write reminders on your calendar. Program them into your cell phone, complete with irritating alarm tone.

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