2009 Songwriting Resolutions. What Are Yours?
By Don • Dec 22nd, 2008 • Category: Songwriting Articles
Have you made yours yet? If the muse has exerts some control over your life then there is no doubt you have at least given it some passing thought.
My 2009 Songwriting Resolutions
- Song quota. I will write at least four songs per month in their entirety and record them.
- CD. Complete strangers are asking me for copies of my CD’s – of which I have none. I will complete an EP of my half-dozen original songs for distribution and sale at shows.
Now it’s your turn! Out of ideas? Here are a few resolution ideas to get 2009 started right – whether you have songs or not:
Ideas for Resolution … If You DON’T Have Songs
- Crank out songs. Jonathan Coulton’s Thing A Week Project and Ari Hests 52 Project. These guys put out a song a week. It helped their songwriting immensely. The group Bishop Allen put out an EP every month for a year. Think you could do something similar?
- February Album Writing Month (FAWM.ORG). This project that happens February of every year
- Collaborate. Kompoz, Jam Junky, Songfight.org, and others provide opportunities for you to get together with other songwriters regardless of geographic location. Give it a shot!
Ideas For Resolutions … If You DO Have Songs
- Record songwriting demos. Contributing author Cliff Goldmacher has written some phenomenal articles for Blogging Muses offering real world tips on demo recording and the strategies you should employ.
- Play out live more. Test your songs at open mics. Try an open mic tour. Get some other musicians together and put together some live song arrangements.
- Host a SongPull. Songpull.com has some great tools and exposure opportunities for those of you looking to network and share songs.
- Enter a songwriting contest. While winning a songwriting contest doesn’t necessarily validate you as a songwriter, it is a tremendous opportunity for networking and exposure.
- Selling Songs. TAXI, Broadjam and others offer channels where they match your songs with the needs of filmmakers, ad agencies, and soundtracks.
- Get your songs up on iTunes. Tunecore is currently making it possible to get your songs on iTunes for under $25. How cool is that? It involves some paperwork and jumping through a few hoops, but it’s a New Year. Make the resolution!
No more excuses. Get the new eBook and FINISH YOUR SONGS:
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Don is the founder, writer and editor of BloggingMuses.com. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
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I actually wrote, recorded, and put to video, a song a week over the last two college football seasons. And I think I’m a worse songwriter because of it. Your milage may vary, though. This next year will be quality over quantity.
Great post. Lots of awesome links here.
My 2009 resolution is definitely to do something along the lines of a song a week… I think it’s true that nothing is more effective and rewarding that getting up and DOING and not letting things fester and sit around unfinished.
@Brian: Sounds great! Look forward to hearing some of your stuff over the coming year. Happy holidays!
@John: Sorry to hear you feel your songwriting has suffered. You’re definitely in the minority. But you might just be getting the bad songs out of the way, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I remember reading an article about Travis Tritt and he said he usually wrote a couple hundred songs per year, yet only 10-12 ended up getting recorded and put out for public consumption. So my advice is don’t let that get you down.
-DM
Thanks Don! I’m sure you’re right. I was getting paid for those songs, which is a good thing. But they weren’t the songs I wanted to be writing. You have to start at the beginning and work your way back to see that things got to be very stale. As much as anything, it got to be a drain on my time. http://www.fanhouse.com/tag/CollegeFootballSongbook/
[...] This article at Blogging Muses also just happened to pop in my RSS reader this morning. Talking about resolutions for songwriters in 2009, the idea of giving your writing routine an energy boost by setting strict guidelines for song turnaround time comes up along with several links to other songwriters doing the same thing. [...]
[...] it a try. Next week we’ll be releasing a “2009 Songwriting Resolutions” article, and perhaps with the New Year many of us songwriters will add some constraints to [...]
My resolution is simply to get at least enough material together for an EP, hopefully for an album, and to get a working band together.
My resolution is to take all of my finished songs and bits of songs and record at least demos to keep track of them all and give to friends. I also really liked your ideas for playing out live and submitting to a songwriting competition. Thanks!
Gabe
When you have an EP together let me know. We’re gonna start posting reader’s MP3s if they want to make them available. Stay tuned for details!
Andy
Your resolution is very similar to mine. Keep us posted on your progress.
-dm
Setting resolutions is great “if” you stick to them. The bad news, just like losing weight and quitting smoking, most resolutions never see the spring let alone see it fulfilled. I am in that boat myself. I remember deciding one year that I was going to release a CD. I wanted to write all new songs then record and release the CD. That was back in 199-something. Can’t remember. I renewed that resolution at least half a dozen times since, and every year “life” got in the way. In my case I was recording other people, mixing and mastering other people’s songs and doing very little on my own. I built a new studio and was even working on writing my book – I was doing everything BUT writing and recording my own songs. I soon discovered it was the ‘resoltion’ that was the driving force and not the big picture. And, it’s really hard to see the big picture if it’s too big or too far away. We need smaller resolutions to get us through (AKA goals).
If your main goal is to release a CD, then you first must set a date. WHEN will it be released? Take that date and divide it by the number of months between now and then. If your CD has 10 songs and you gave yourself 12 months to do it, you have a song a month to write and record, leaving you a 2 month window to mix, master and produce the final CD. Not a difficult task really IF we stick to it. But saying “I’m going to release my CD in 12 months” but you did not break that goal into smaller, manageable goals, chances are down the road ‘life’ will start to chip away at your resolution until all that remains is the opportunity to make yet another resolution. I know…been there, done that.
Writing all new songs sounds like a daunting task and before we even get started Writer’s Block and host of other ‘stuff’ has us crippled. I wrote a weekly newspaper column on songwriting and recording and if you’re interested in reading my take on Writer’s Block and the tools you need to overcome it, check out http://kenncrawford.blogspot.com/2009/07/songwriters-guide.html
This year I am not making another resolution – I’m just going to write and record my songs instead.
~Kenn
[...] it a try. Next week we’ll be releasing a “2009 Songwriting Resolutions” article, and perhaps with the New Year many of us songwriters will add some constraints to [...]