Songwriting Zen Article DirectoryHand Picked Songwriting Articles For Your Reading Pleasure :)

Writing lyrics is all about words isn’t it? Therefore to be a good lyricist you would need a healthy respect for the English language and how it can be juxtaposed to tell a story, describe something or put across a point of view.

You would need to become very interested in what you read, speak, see and hear around you. First of all lets start with the humble newspaper.

Mindfulness and observation are two of the most important qualities that a songwriter needs to have to be able to come up with songwriting ideas on a more consistent basis.

Let me attempt to expand on that premise just a little bit.

First of all to become interested in words you need to actively seek them out. Words are all around us yet we don’t see them.

We just take words for granted.

We especially take for granted what comes out of our mouths. The promises and commitments that we make, the way that we relate to people and the way we assimilate information.

Actively seeking out words does not mean getting a dictionary and reading it from cover to cover but it does mean increasing the amount of reading and listening you currently do.

If you are like me you would be saying to yourself ‘but I have no time to read’. My answer to that is ‘who says you don’t have time?’

As a songwriter we can’t afford not to have the time to read and slow our lives down a bit so we can pick up on what is happening around us.

Start by getting the newspaper every day and really take note of what you read.

You are looking for something that jumps out at you. A headline may make a great title for a song, a quote may make a good line for a chorus, an article theme may make a great song story and so on.

Have a look at the letters to the editor.

I personally find this section most entertaining and it also shows everyday people writing (mostly complaining) about everyday things in everyday language. I find this an absolute goldmine for songwriting ideas.

In the letters to the editor you find people at their most witty. It’s these witticisms I find make great songwriting fodder.

I know someone who only writes songs when she is angry about something. If this is you then reading the newspaper will be the equivalent to finding a vein of gold.

For the rest of us its a good opportunity to just take some quiet time out, grab a notepad and pen and allow the ideas to enter us from the ether. This is a great example of brainstorming for ideas.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what you write, but the writing that matters.

If you “tune” yourself into specifically looking for songwriting ideas you will find them. It’s amazing what the brain will find if we allow it too.

This exercise is not a guarantee that a song will appear the first time but (with any songwriting idea generating technique) with practice comes mastery and from mastery comes effortlessness in creation.

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