Associated Content has published an article called Finding Your Voice As A Songwriter. While nothing new, it does emphasize some important points.

Charlotte Martin on her new singer-songwriter angle:
This collection finds Martin taking a decidedly different musical path than on her past albums and EPs, and she is wondering aloud this morning how her audience will react and respond to it.

“I stepped away from the acoustic piano for a large part of this album and sort of indulged myself in experimentation with synthesizers and drum machines. ‘Stromata’ IS a very electronic album, but it’s NOT electronica,” she said, stressing the point that she has not attempted to become a dance club diva.

YouTube Launches Unsigned Band/Songwriter Music Video Contest

“YouTube is on a quest to find the most talented and entertaining unsigned musicians and bands out there. Submit videos that best represent your group’s musical, lyrical and video-making skills. The YouTube community will vote and decide just who rules the YouTube Underground.”

The fabulous singer-songwriter M. Ward talks to a couple of newspapers (via LargeHeartedBoy):

First the Arizona Star:

“I feel like my job is to experiment with songs and musical ideas, and if it ends up crossing some sort of line where people start to look at it in a political realm or a social realm is not really for me to say,” he said. “I’ve never been someone who makes music a tool to get something off my chest. I’ve never been convinced that anyone really needs to hear my angst. I’m more interested in creating something that’s good. I think if you create something that good, then it’s going to eventually trickle into these other social realms.”

Then to the San Diego City Beat:

“Getting rich and being in everyone’s household was never the goal,” says Ward earnestly. “The way I look at my job description is just as someone who experiments with sounds and musical ideas.”

Singer-songwriter Kaki King gets interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I simply left the solo guitar idiom behind,” King said about her new musical direction, talking by cell phone from a bus as she kicked off her current tour. “That’s really all it took, and it didn’t take lot of thought. I was feeling that I’d reached a creative lull with that type of music.” (via LargeHeartedBoy)

Corey Stewart’s Songwriting Blog talks about organizing songwriting ideas:

At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter how you protect and/or organize your songwriting ideas and final drafts as long as you do it. Having an organized songwriting process means that anything that you do can be accessed in the shortest space of time.

Sean starts The Songwriter’s Journal:

“It is all about finding out the songwriters behind the songs on the Billboard charts.”