Songwriting Process – How I Do It

“Writing a song is like fishing. You have to bait the hook to get a bite.” – CS

I thought it was about time I put onto paper how I get my songwriting ideas. What works for me may not work for you but give it a go anyway. If it does work for you then let me know.

Ok, let’s go fishing.

1. Make sure that you have a tape recorder/dictaphone and notepad handy.

You’re about to bait your hook and throw the line in so you better have an audio and written recording device ready when the songwriting idea bites your hook

2. Pick up your instrument of choice, and start noodling.

What I mean by noodling is, don’t play anything in particular just improvise. Let your creative juices start flowing. Dont worry if what you are playing sounds like something else and dont worry if you are playing your favourite chords.

Just enjoy the moments between you and your instrument. You have just thrown your line into the sea of infinite songwriting ideas.

If you feel like singing some improvised, non-sensical lyrics to accompany your noodlings that’s fine too. Engage yourself in the rhythm of the words not the meaning of the words. If some meaning comes out of it, that’s a bonus

3. Pay attention to what you play. Be prepared to go off on tangents.

The more you noodle you’ll notice that what seems familiar at first will become less so. If you stumble across something which makes you say to yourself “ooh, that sounds nice”, run with it, explore it.

This leads to the next step.

4. Stop noodling and start exploring.

You’ve got a bite. A songwriting idea has taken your bait. Now is the time to reel it in and make some sense of it. Play it over and over again. What you’re doing here is formulating a skeleton structure of the songwriting idea.

5. Put it onto tape and write down the chords on paper

Start playing the songwriting idea onto tape. If in your noodling you were singing some nonsensical gobbledigook at the same time and some lyrical hook comes into mind then write that down. If anything, it will enable you to tell one songwriting idea apart from another.

6. Leave it alone and start noodling again. Go back to step 1.

What you’ve put onto tape is not meant to be a completed masterpiece. It is the concrete beginnings of a songwriting idea. Put it down and go onto the next one because the time to refine the idea is not now, it’s later.

When you are fishing you dont catch a fish and then stop everything to prepare it to be eaten. You store the fish and continue. It’s the same with songwriting ideas.

How long you want to keep fishing is totally up to you.

As I mentioned before this is the way I gather my songwriting ideas. It may not work for everyone but it works for me. I would be interested what people think of it so if you have any questions and/or feedback then feel free to let me know.

And another thing, dont be concerned with getting a result. If you start noodling and all you do is noodle then that’s fine. You can always try again next time.

Practice makes perfect but the most important thing is perfecting your songwriting process not the end result.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: songwriting, songwriter, songwriting help, songwriting idea, songwriting tip, songwriting blog, songwriting resource, corey stewart

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