How To Write A Song In A Single Day

Guest post by Sammy Hakim. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper.

You’re sitting down in your home studio with a cup of coffee in your hand, and your guitar on your lap, and it hits you: writer’s block. Rather than power through it, it makes more sense to take a day off and find a way to get re-inspired, right?

Wrong.

Ask any writer in Nashville and you’ll quickly find out that waiting for inspiration can be a quick death to your career as a songwriter. In fact, even in the Los Angeles and New York markets, writers can often have between one and four co-writing sessions a day — meaning that if they can’t write, they might not be paid.

So how do you train yourself to be able to write a song a day?

Click to read more ...

Songwriting Workflow: What A Month Of Daily Releases Taught Me

Guest post by Martin Fowler. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

Every year, the shortest month comes around, and at the forefront of my mind is the plethora of songwriting challenges which permeate the internet at large. Some of my favorite artists have famously committed their time in this dreary month (at least here in New York) to hunker down and dedicate serious hours to composing new material.

Every year I think of how outlandish an undertaking that month must be for each of these artists, taking tens or hundreds of hours to build a whole new world, and create the kind of consistency in their day-to-day life, even in the shortest month of the year, to get it done. And every year I’m shocked at how many actually come out the other side with a whole new body of work!

Click to read more ...

5 Out-Of-The-Box Ways To Hone Your Songwriting Craft

By Rorie Kelly, Co-Executive Director of GoGirlsMusic.com

It can be tough to find time to sit down and write songs with all the career-building tasks musicians have these days. On top of that, switching gears is hard and writers’ block is real. What do we do when we’re no longer beginners but we still want to grow, or need to rekindle that love affair with musicmaking? For those who are sick of the usual advice, here are five out-of-the-box ways to hone your songwriting craft.

Click to read more ...

Lessons In Nonsensical Songwriting From Elvis – The King

Do you write lyrics that could be considered unintelligible or nonsensical based on the laws of English? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Elvis Presley, who is undoubtedly one of the greatest artists to have ever lived, is famous for spitting lyrics that defied natural language or comprehension, but resonated with millions of fans around the world.

Click to read more ...

How The Right Lyric Can Fortify The Listeners' Creative Mind

The lyrics in a song are much more than just content. Constructing well-timed and well-placed lyrics is an art, which can set apart great songwriters from the average.

Click to read more ...

Why It Is Important To Keep Your Songwriting Clean And Basic For Your Listeners

In creating songs, one of the best things you can do is to keep your songwriting as simple as possible. Keeping it simple does not mean lightweight or nonsensical or adding a lot of fluff, it simply means maintaining clarity so that your listeners don’t have to be doing mental gymnastics to keep up.

Click to read more ...

How Cultivating A Sense Of Wonder Helps Your Lyric Writing

Have you ever wondered what makes children the precious creatures that they are? Their sense of wonder is what makes them so majestic and imaginative. This sense of wonder is what makes them these creative little people that see the world in such a unique way that adults are often left curious as to what makes these little people go. If you are a parent, you may have even caught yourself wishing that you could just read your little one’s mind to see what they are thinking.

Click to read more ...