By: Kyle Uy
"In the beginning you're going to write a lot of bad songs and then get to one good song, but if you keep that up, you'll be a person who writes a lot of good songs with the occasional bad song."
Some friends of mine have asked me in the past on tips for songwriting - about how I get to writing 15 new songs every month. I'll walk you through my method of doing it and hopefully you find one or two ideas that you can apply the next time you sit down to write some music. Before I begin though, I should define what I mean by "song" and go into some of my philosophy when it comes to the creative process.
Please keep in mind: I'm no professional songwriter by any means, this is just the way I go about it because it works for me.
When I say a song is "written", that means I have a demo recording of the music and lyrics that will be later revisited with my bandmates. Essentially, I'm just going for the sketch of the whole portrait that will be completed later. The process allows me to give the idea life and so when I, or someone else listens to it later, the concept that I was going for can be heard. So when I say a song is written, it does not mean it is final--it just means the basic layout exists and can be worked with.
Professional songwriter and coach Graham English says that when writing music, keep in mind the mantra: "edit later".
Hoping and praying for the song to be completely finished and stage ready by the time I'm done with it really adds a lot of pressure and slows me down - so I focus on just getting the song done so I can move on to the next one.
Why 15 songs a month? I like to listen to and watch interviews from artists and bands that I like. I get interested in their songwriting processes and ideas about writing and see what they can teach me. For guys like Ed Sheeran, and the songwriters of The Fray and Switchfoot, they tell us in their interviews that:
"In the beginning you're going to write a lot of bad songs and then get to one good song, but if you keep that up, you'll be a person who writes a lot of good songs with the occasional bad song."
I like to keep the mindset of a beginner and I like the idea of writing a lot to improve my skills. Like I said at the beginning: this is what works for me, as I get into the details of my process. I hope these through these Tips for Songwriting, you find something of value.
My process looks like this:
Collecting
I'm a thief: I steal words from everything wherever I go during my day. I find it difficult to sit down with my guitar and just say, "I'm going to write a song now" with no ideas to go on whatsoever. There are writers out there who can spill out pure gold on the fly all the time, but for mere mortals like me, I like to have an abundance of ideas on hand that I can pull from to get me started. This is a part of my songwriting process that I call "collecting" and I do this in three different ways:
#1 List Down Ideas In A Notebook
I carry around a notebook wherever I go. During my day, I listen and read for anything that I might want to put into a song. This is my process for never running out of lyric ideas. I just keep my antenna up for words that sound interesting to me. When I read books, blog posts, articles, tweets, or have conversations with friends (over social media or in real life) or watch movies or videos, I keep in mind the interesting words or phrases that were said. Then I copy them into my notebook ,making sure to copy down the source to credit it later if needed (#englishmajor). This is just so I'm never out of ideas when I need a new lyric or song title.
#2 Record Tunes On Your Phone
Sometimes lyrics and melody hit me at the same time. I'll be walking around at school or hanging out with friends when a good hook comes to mind. It's usually lyrics with the melody for me, and sometimes it's just words and much less often, it's just the melody. If it's just the words, I take out my notebook and then I write the words in the book to use later. If it's melody, or lyrics and melody--I go to where no one can hear me (usually the nearest bathroom) pull out my phone and try to sing what's going on in my head and record it. iPhone's have nifty voice memos app that works great for this. I just save that line so I can use it later. It doesn't need to be perfectly in pitch or anything, I just have to capture the idea.
#3 Recall Your Collection of Ideas
I will admit that I'm much more of a lyricist than I am a guitar player, however I do try to stay open when my ear catches something that it likes. Sometimes I like to just sit with my guitar and see what comes out. I try new chords that I might have learned recently, a new tuning, or just fumbling with notes around the neck. When I run into something that I like, I pull out my phone and record it too. As I said, I'm more of a lyric person than a musician and so I don't rely on these as much or have too many on hand--however if you are musician I hope you find this idea helpful.
When it comes to recalling ideas, especially in that of songwriting, I don't trust my memory. I find myself extremely frustrated when I try to recall how a melody went or a how a lyrics feels. With my notebook and my phone, I don't take any chances and I write and record everything. I also don't use everything that makes it into my pile of ideas. Some are used and some will never go beyond the page they are written on, but knowing they're there gives me confidence that there are many more songs to be written.
Writing
I'm the type of person who can dwell all day about if a lyric is right or if the chord progression is perfect for it. This slows me down when I don't give myself a limited amount of time to get the song finished. In order to counter this tendency, I keep a strict limit on my time to write, that way I have to just keep going with what sounds good and keep in mind that I can always go back an edit if needed.
Before I begin, I make sure my guitar is in the tuning that I want, I get out my songwriting notebook and a pen with my notebook of ideas and my phone. I like to do 90 minute writing sessions in which I write as many songs as I can.
The CEO of Success Magazine, Darren Hardy gave a speech once called "Productivity Strategies", in which he outlined certain ideas that the world's greatest achievers had to become more productive. In this speech, Hardy described what he called "the jam session". Hardy says that if you do one 90 minute "jam session" of uninterrupted work in a single day, you will have done more on that day than the average Fortune 500 CEO who is working a full day but is constantly side tracked by other issues in the company and the distractions of social media.
In applying this to writing, I allot myself a set amount of time where I only focus on the songs and nothing else. In setting my timer, I put my phone on "do not disturb" and then let the timer roll. I don't always go for an hour and a half, some days I only allot an hour or 45 minutes, but in any case, the ticking clock reminds me that after this session, I've got to stop and do something else.
Going forward is my actual developing of ideas into a song. These are loose guidelines, even for myself. Songs don't develop from the same place every time for me and that's part of the fun. At the end of the session, I just want to know that I have strived to write as many songs as possible.
Ready, set, GO! *Timer starts*
The first ideas that I usually begin with are the ones recorded on my phone. Because these are ideas are essentially an audible part of the song and are more developed than the words in my notebook, the lyrics and the melody that I have saved usually tell me which section of the song that I think it is and so I try to fit chords under the melody. I just go with my gut and see what happens. I listen to the recording I have and think how the line or section can be developed. I'll write what I recorded first on the page and finish that section. More often than not, it's the chorus of the song that comes first for me. After writing the chorus, I have a pretty good sense of what the song is going to be about and I can develop the verses and the bridge around that idea. If I can't think of anything to go along with the section I've just written, I go into my notebook and look for something that might accompany what I've written already and build the next section from there.
If the recorded ideas have been exhausted, I then turn to my notebook. I flip through the pages and skim the lines and phrases that I've collected and look for what jumps out at me at the moment. When I find something that I like, I take my guitar and I scat sing the line. I just throw some chords under the words that might work and adjust accordingly to where the phrase is going. After a few run throughs of the line, I can get a melody with the lyric and a chord progression under it and from there I can build the rest of the song.
When I'm out of these ideas too and there's still time on the clock, I turn to the recorded guitar I ideas that I might have or pure scat singing and chord playing. I loop chords (playing the same chord progression of a section over and over again) and just sing some words - or even a phonetic mess until I find something that I like. When I get to a line of words that I feel I can work with, I write that down and then go from there.
I do this process with the only goal to finish the current song and then move onto the next one. After I have written and demoed a song, I immediately go on to the next idea that will start the next one. I'm trying to write as many songs as I can in one sitting - so this means no overthinking of ideas, I just work to make sure that the sketch of the song is ready to be demoed.
Demoing
Now I take the song that I have written and do a one take recording of the whole thing either on my phone or my laptop. As I go about finishing sections of a song, I sometimes record the section with both the vocals and the chords so I don't forget what the part feels like when I go to record the whole thing. When I do this, it's not about getting the whole thing perfect, it is a demo after all, and I just want something that I can store in my laptop that I can hear again and work with.
Conclusion: The Numbers Game
On a really good day, using these tips for songwriting, I can write up to three songs in a single jam session. It is the repeating of this writing process a few times a week that gets me to 15 songs by the end of the month. I like to keep up this method because of the numbers game side of it. If I'm able to write 15 songs a month, that means in a year I will have written 180 songs. Granted, most of those songs will never be heard beyond the demo recording but that's ok. At the end of the month, I don't need all 15 songs to win me the Grammy Award. I write 15 songs with goal of finding two or three really great ideas that I can work with and develop and eventually bring to the stage or make a better recording of.
For some beginning writers, they attest to only being able to write when the inspiration hits them. I admit that the 15 songs I get to aren't all products of jam sessions. If I'm hit with a great idea or just had this great or terrible experience that I want to write about and I have my instrument nearby and the time to crank it out - I go do it. The issue with DEPENDING on this method for me though is that I go from being a songwriter to what Graham English calls a "song-WAITER". Inspiration is great, but I think it is only great when it is accompanied by perspiration, and that means really putting in the time to develop the skills to be the best you can be.
When I started writing in this way, I would get incredibly disheartened when I would listen to the demo and realize, "Wow, this song really sucks". In time though, I came to be OK with that and I invite you to be OK with that result too.
First of all, if you're writing 15 a month, that's just one song and you've got 14 other shots to make something great. Secondly, it's not about writing a hit song every time, I believe that the skills of lyric writing, of creativity, and just getting the emotion captured have already been developed in writing a song - even if its the worst song ever.
So, whether or not you decide anything in this article is valuable, please don't give up on being a songwriter. It doesn't matter if you're Ed Sheeran's status or just beginning to get the words on the page and sung - don't quit, because you have a unique voice that the world wants to hear. I've always believed in the power of music and you never know what your next song might do for someone else. Never underestimate the power of your creativity, a blank page, a pen, and your instrument.
Best of luck to you.
Please keep in mind: I'm no professional songwriter by any means, this is just the way I go about it because it works for me.
When I say a song is "written", that means I have a demo recording of the music and lyrics that will be later revisited with my bandmates. Essentially, I'm just going for the sketch of the whole portrait that will be completed later. The process allows me to give the idea life and so when I, or someone else listens to it later, the concept that I was going for can be heard. So when I say a song is written, it does not mean it is final--it just means the basic layout exists and can be worked with.
Professional songwriter and coach Graham English says that when writing music, keep in mind the mantra: "edit later".
Hoping and praying for the song to be completely finished and stage ready by the time I'm done with it really adds a lot of pressure and slows me down - so I focus on just getting the song done so I can move on to the next one.
Why 15 songs a month? I like to listen to and watch interviews from artists and bands that I like. I get interested in their songwriting processes and ideas about writing and see what they can teach me. For guys like Ed Sheeran, and the songwriters of The Fray and Switchfoot, they tell us in their interviews that:
"In the beginning you're going to write a lot of bad songs and then get to one good song, but if you keep that up, you'll be a person who writes a lot of good songs with the occasional bad song."
I like to keep the mindset of a beginner and I like the idea of writing a lot to improve my skills. Like I said at the beginning: this is what works for me, as I get into the details of my process. I hope these through these Tips for Songwriting, you find something of value.
My process looks like this:
- Collecting
- Writing
- Demoing
Collecting
I'm a thief: I steal words from everything wherever I go during my day. I find it difficult to sit down with my guitar and just say, "I'm going to write a song now" with no ideas to go on whatsoever. There are writers out there who can spill out pure gold on the fly all the time, but for mere mortals like me, I like to have an abundance of ideas on hand that I can pull from to get me started. This is a part of my songwriting process that I call "collecting" and I do this in three different ways:
#1 List Down Ideas In A Notebook
I carry around a notebook wherever I go. During my day, I listen and read for anything that I might want to put into a song. This is my process for never running out of lyric ideas. I just keep my antenna up for words that sound interesting to me. When I read books, blog posts, articles, tweets, or have conversations with friends (over social media or in real life) or watch movies or videos, I keep in mind the interesting words or phrases that were said. Then I copy them into my notebook ,making sure to copy down the source to credit it later if needed (#englishmajor). This is just so I'm never out of ideas when I need a new lyric or song title.
#2 Record Tunes On Your Phone
Sometimes lyrics and melody hit me at the same time. I'll be walking around at school or hanging out with friends when a good hook comes to mind. It's usually lyrics with the melody for me, and sometimes it's just words and much less often, it's just the melody. If it's just the words, I take out my notebook and then I write the words in the book to use later. If it's melody, or lyrics and melody--I go to where no one can hear me (usually the nearest bathroom) pull out my phone and try to sing what's going on in my head and record it. iPhone's have nifty voice memos app that works great for this. I just save that line so I can use it later. It doesn't need to be perfectly in pitch or anything, I just have to capture the idea.
#3 Recall Your Collection of Ideas
I will admit that I'm much more of a lyricist than I am a guitar player, however I do try to stay open when my ear catches something that it likes. Sometimes I like to just sit with my guitar and see what comes out. I try new chords that I might have learned recently, a new tuning, or just fumbling with notes around the neck. When I run into something that I like, I pull out my phone and record it too. As I said, I'm more of a lyric person than a musician and so I don't rely on these as much or have too many on hand--however if you are musician I hope you find this idea helpful.
When it comes to recalling ideas, especially in that of songwriting, I don't trust my memory. I find myself extremely frustrated when I try to recall how a melody went or a how a lyrics feels. With my notebook and my phone, I don't take any chances and I write and record everything. I also don't use everything that makes it into my pile of ideas. Some are used and some will never go beyond the page they are written on, but knowing they're there gives me confidence that there are many more songs to be written.
Writing
I'm the type of person who can dwell all day about if a lyric is right or if the chord progression is perfect for it. This slows me down when I don't give myself a limited amount of time to get the song finished. In order to counter this tendency, I keep a strict limit on my time to write, that way I have to just keep going with what sounds good and keep in mind that I can always go back an edit if needed.
Before I begin, I make sure my guitar is in the tuning that I want, I get out my songwriting notebook and a pen with my notebook of ideas and my phone. I like to do 90 minute writing sessions in which I write as many songs as I can.
The CEO of Success Magazine, Darren Hardy gave a speech once called "Productivity Strategies", in which he outlined certain ideas that the world's greatest achievers had to become more productive. In this speech, Hardy described what he called "the jam session". Hardy says that if you do one 90 minute "jam session" of uninterrupted work in a single day, you will have done more on that day than the average Fortune 500 CEO who is working a full day but is constantly side tracked by other issues in the company and the distractions of social media.
In applying this to writing, I allot myself a set amount of time where I only focus on the songs and nothing else. In setting my timer, I put my phone on "do not disturb" and then let the timer roll. I don't always go for an hour and a half, some days I only allot an hour or 45 minutes, but in any case, the ticking clock reminds me that after this session, I've got to stop and do something else.
Going forward is my actual developing of ideas into a song. These are loose guidelines, even for myself. Songs don't develop from the same place every time for me and that's part of the fun. At the end of the session, I just want to know that I have strived to write as many songs as possible.
Ready, set, GO! *Timer starts*
The first ideas that I usually begin with are the ones recorded on my phone. Because these are ideas are essentially an audible part of the song and are more developed than the words in my notebook, the lyrics and the melody that I have saved usually tell me which section of the song that I think it is and so I try to fit chords under the melody. I just go with my gut and see what happens. I listen to the recording I have and think how the line or section can be developed. I'll write what I recorded first on the page and finish that section. More often than not, it's the chorus of the song that comes first for me. After writing the chorus, I have a pretty good sense of what the song is going to be about and I can develop the verses and the bridge around that idea. If I can't think of anything to go along with the section I've just written, I go into my notebook and look for something that might accompany what I've written already and build the next section from there.
If the recorded ideas have been exhausted, I then turn to my notebook. I flip through the pages and skim the lines and phrases that I've collected and look for what jumps out at me at the moment. When I find something that I like, I take my guitar and I scat sing the line. I just throw some chords under the words that might work and adjust accordingly to where the phrase is going. After a few run throughs of the line, I can get a melody with the lyric and a chord progression under it and from there I can build the rest of the song.
When I'm out of these ideas too and there's still time on the clock, I turn to the recorded guitar I ideas that I might have or pure scat singing and chord playing. I loop chords (playing the same chord progression of a section over and over again) and just sing some words - or even a phonetic mess until I find something that I like. When I get to a line of words that I feel I can work with, I write that down and then go from there.
I do this process with the only goal to finish the current song and then move onto the next one. After I have written and demoed a song, I immediately go on to the next idea that will start the next one. I'm trying to write as many songs as I can in one sitting - so this means no overthinking of ideas, I just work to make sure that the sketch of the song is ready to be demoed.
Demoing
Now I take the song that I have written and do a one take recording of the whole thing either on my phone or my laptop. As I go about finishing sections of a song, I sometimes record the section with both the vocals and the chords so I don't forget what the part feels like when I go to record the whole thing. When I do this, it's not about getting the whole thing perfect, it is a demo after all, and I just want something that I can store in my laptop that I can hear again and work with.
Conclusion: The Numbers Game
On a really good day, using these tips for songwriting, I can write up to three songs in a single jam session. It is the repeating of this writing process a few times a week that gets me to 15 songs by the end of the month. I like to keep up this method because of the numbers game side of it. If I'm able to write 15 songs a month, that means in a year I will have written 180 songs. Granted, most of those songs will never be heard beyond the demo recording but that's ok. At the end of the month, I don't need all 15 songs to win me the Grammy Award. I write 15 songs with goal of finding two or three really great ideas that I can work with and develop and eventually bring to the stage or make a better recording of.
For some beginning writers, they attest to only being able to write when the inspiration hits them. I admit that the 15 songs I get to aren't all products of jam sessions. If I'm hit with a great idea or just had this great or terrible experience that I want to write about and I have my instrument nearby and the time to crank it out - I go do it. The issue with DEPENDING on this method for me though is that I go from being a songwriter to what Graham English calls a "song-WAITER". Inspiration is great, but I think it is only great when it is accompanied by perspiration, and that means really putting in the time to develop the skills to be the best you can be.
When I started writing in this way, I would get incredibly disheartened when I would listen to the demo and realize, "Wow, this song really sucks". In time though, I came to be OK with that and I invite you to be OK with that result too.
First of all, if you're writing 15 a month, that's just one song and you've got 14 other shots to make something great. Secondly, it's not about writing a hit song every time, I believe that the skills of lyric writing, of creativity, and just getting the emotion captured have already been developed in writing a song - even if its the worst song ever.
So, whether or not you decide anything in this article is valuable, please don't give up on being a songwriter. It doesn't matter if you're Ed Sheeran's status or just beginning to get the words on the page and sung - don't quit, because you have a unique voice that the world wants to hear. I've always believed in the power of music and you never know what your next song might do for someone else. Never underestimate the power of your creativity, a blank page, a pen, and your instrument.
Best of luck to you.
Blog Contributor
Kyle Uy is singer/songwriter from California, U.S.A, of the band Fear Is For Yesterday. He is currently studying in Manila, The Philippines. Aside from dedicating his time for his Taekwondo scholarship at the De La Sale Univeristy of Manila, he plays at World Extravaganza Open Mic events frequently.
Visit his blog here.
Follow him on:
Instagram: @fearisforyesterday
Twitter: @FI4Yesterday
Snapchat: k4leuy"