Six Quick Tips For Songwriting

Do you want to start songwriting? Fabulous, here are some tips on how to start!

Title

Having a title for your song can keep you focused on the subject so you won’t get off track while you are writing.

Inspiration Is Everywhere

Look around you, there is inspiration everywhere, in what you see, hear, smell – all these can provide the perfect subjects for your songwriting. Your experiences, anything you want to share, can be used as the basis of a song. By writing about your life experiences you will be able to express true emotions, things that have real meaning to you. Songs based on actual events tend to have more passion and are more meaningful.

Write It Down

Document your ideas, lyrics and whatever comes to mind in a notebook, or your notes app on your phone. Write them down and come back and put them together later.

Lyrics

These are the most important part of a song, and can be the most difficult and frustrating part of songwriting. Try and write down exactly what you want to get across in your lyrics, then later, play about with the rhythm and structure of the song.

Keeping It Simple And Building On It

Keeping your track as simple as possible at first is an excellent way to accelerate the songwriting process and work out the structure of your song. Once you have the basis of the song in its simplest form, you can go about adding drums, strings, brass or any other additional elements afterwards. Don’t make things harder for yourself by overcomplicating your track right from the beginning.

Ask For Feedback

Finally – find someone you trust to give honest advice, and whose opinion you value, and ask them to critique it for you. You might find they have some fantastic insight into how it could be improved. Don’t just play it for someone who might be afraid to hurt your feelings – you want honest opinions, not just yes.

Have you found any of this advice useful? Let us know!

About the author

There’s a lot of music out there - good music. At Essentially Pop our remit is that we cover music that deserves to be heard, with a particular focus on independent artists. That doesn't mean we won't cover your old favourites - rather we hope to give you some new favourites as well.

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