Songwriting Tips Project – An Update

By Don • Category: Inspiration, Site News, Songwriting Resources, Songwriting Tips

The Group Songwriting Tips Project has been a fun project over the last couple of months. We have 50+ tips in the archives right now. You can view the songwriting tips by category, as well as just click through all the songwriting tips one at a time.

Got a songwriting tip of your own? If so, submit it using our Songwriting Tips form. As a thank you, we will link liberally to an of your own projects, CDs, websites you specify. Check out this guy’s songwriting tip as an example.

Here’s a couple of my favorites over the past month

Songwriting with the 90/10 rule

The best tip I ever got was from an incredibly clever lecturer from my university. He advised me that the most ‘successful’ music tends to be 90% familiarity, 10% originality.

This helped me to stop worrying about trying to be revolutionary with every rhyme, rhythm and chord change (which, by all accounts, seems to be impossible these days in the wake of so much progress).

I got back to a songwriting style that was more about expressing an idea I believed in, or an emotion I needed to offload, and let the originality come from the fact that it was me saying it. (Ego-alert!). (Link)

Here’s another:

If you are a songwriter, you should keep a recording device on you at all times

I usually pick up an instrument and start jamming a little, finding a little chord progression I like, and at the same time I’ll just be mumbling words or phrases of whatever I’m thinking about at the time. If I feel like I have a particularly cool progression I’ll turn on my little hand-held cassette recorder (Radioshack) to get the original idea and/or melody and/or cool lines on tape. My memory is horrible and I have a lot of ideas, so recording them helps me focus the original inspiration AND just plain remember it a day later. How many times have I played something that I thought was really good only to forget it the next day? Too many. That’s why I got the tape recorder. Cell phones also come in handy if you have a good idea.

Just call yourself and leave the idea. (Link)

No more excuses. Get the new eBook and FINISH YOUR SONGS:

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Don is Don is the Founder and Editor of Blogging Muses. He writes songs and lives in Asheville, NC
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Comments! Comments!

  • http://www.jeffsongwriting.com Jeff Oxenford

    Great tip about having a recording device handy. Emphasize at all times.

    Yesterday I purchased a small a hand held recorder for my car, that I can also bring with me hiking and skiing. It’s amazing how many song ideas come during those long times on the road or on the trail.

    At home I have a digital recorder. In the past I have used a cassette recorder and even a video camera when I was really desperate to remember something.

    It’s amazing how those tunes appear and disappear in a flash!

    Jeff

  • http://www.tebomusic.com Tebo

    My cel quickly phone became my favorite tool for capturing ideas. In the early days, my cel phone was pretty crummy, but when inspiration would strike, usually in the car (my best ideas come to me in the car for some reason), I’d call my home line and leave myself a vocal message … which of course wouldn’t work to well when anyone was home to pickup the phone.

    Since then, I put my hands on a nicer phone that actually allows me to record audio without having to place a call. I’ve also got the record function on a hotkey so I can quickly grab my cel and sing away to my heart’s content.

    Jeff is right, those ideas can come and go pretty quickly, and I’m glad to have an easy way to capture every idea that comes to mind. Miss an idea; miss another chance to make a difference!

  • Mat

    There is a fine line sometimes in trying to be original and playing something ‘catchy’.

    The mistake I make alot is trying to be too scientific in my aproach to songwriting, when keeping it simple is all it needs.

    There is this fear that it sounds too much like something else or thinking “No, I’ll never get away with that!”.

    Most of the best or memorable songs just use simple chords progressions and fewer chords so don’t try and baffle people with technical stuff all the time.