Often times close friends of mine ask me, “where do you get the inspiration to write songs?” or they will tell me that when they write, it just doesn’t feel or sound right to them. In the early stages of my songwriting, I was at that point but by following these steps, I was able to improve my song writing over the course of time. I wanted to share with you my personal experience in hopes that you might be able to improve like I did. Step one- Maintain An Open Mind The ability to have an open mind can be perceived in many ways, and you might ask how this involves with song writing. The answer is, without having an open mind you will lose the ability to adapt and follow along to things you aren’t normally used to. Wether you player guitar and sing, write lyrics, or arrange songs having an open mind will allow room for improvement. In simpler terms, this means allow yourself to listen to music you wouldn’t normally listen to, and be open to other peoples ideas. Step Two- Know what your intentions for writing are Usually, you are learning to play, or are writing songs for some sort of reason. Wether it be for taking lessons to pass the time, or writing to express thought and emotion to other people. Make sure you know what you want before you begin writing. With a clear vision, comes a clear song writing process. Step Three- Persistence and Practice Now that you have an open mind, and a clear vision what do you do? The third step in this guide is probably the most fundamental. Without practice, there is no room for improvement. You have to sharpen your skills, and learn through experience. Practice, practice, practice. Just like you may have heard a sports coach tell you in the past; “practice like you play”. Learn good practice habits if you want to improve and keep it consistent. Step Four- Play with other musicians A problem I used to run into when it came to my song writing was always playing by myself, in doing that I began to develop a certain style that I found hard to get out of. However, when I started playing together with other groups of musicians you begin to adapt to other peoples playing style, which in turn can create a lot of personal growth in your songwriting after time. I can’t stress this enough, jam! Dylan Roberts writes songs and gives advice on different aspects of music. Do you want advice on anything musically? Check out his blog for more tips and tricks!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 7:50 am and is filed under Free Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.