One of the first things I tell my music students has very little to do with music.
It applies to songwriting, poetry, stories, business plans — just about anything creative.
Forget technique for a while. Just write.
Then write some more.
And some more after that.
At first, you probably won’t like much of what you produce. That’s okay. The words may seem awkward. The ideas may feel ordinary. You may read something back the next day and wonder what the hell you were thinking.
Keep writing anyway.
In the beginning, the objective isn’t to prove how good you are.
It’s to find out who you are.
Eventually certain things begin to happen. Certain phrases feel natural. Certain rhythms keep coming back. Certain subjects interest you more than others. Without deliberately trying to create one, you begin developing a style.
You find your own niche.
And that is when the writing starts becoming more interesting, because it stops sounding like an exercise and starts sounding like you.
Some of the old blues guys are a perfect example.
Many weren’t concerned with perfect English or formal writing technique. Some of the lyrics were extremely simple.
But the words fit the singer.
The words fit the music.
And the music carried the emotion.
That was what mattered.
Story. Style. Soul.
That works.
I write things down constantly.
A lyric.
A title.
A strange thought.
A sentence with a certain ring to it.
An idea that may become something later.
I have dozens of incomplete songs lying around. I don’t consider them failures. Some may never become anything. Another one might sit untouched for years until I pick it up one day and suddenly understand what to do with it.
Not every idea has to become a finished song immediately.
Sometimes you’re just collecting pieces.
When I do build a song, I generally come at it from one of two directions.
Sometimes it begins with music.
I’ll accidentally play some little riff that catches my attention.
Then I listen to what it does to me.
What does it remind me of?
Where does it take me mentally or spiritually?
Does it suggest movement?
A road?
A river?
A crowded room?
Something funny?
Something dark?
Once that little piece of music starts creating a world in my head, the lyrics begin to come.
But I can also work in the opposite direction.
Sometimes a line or an idea comes first.
If the words have enough character, I start hearing music around them. Because I have a base in music, I can begin imagining the tempo, the rhythm, the weight of the arrangement and the instruments the words seem to want.
Then the song grows outward from there.
Neither method is better.
Sometimes music creates the words.
Sometimes words create the music.
The important part is remaining open enough to hear where the idea wants to go.
Technique does matter.
But technique is a tool.
It isn’t the source.
The source is the idea, the feeling, the story and whatever part of you is trying to get them out.
So if you want to write songs — or poems, stories, business ideas or anything else — don’t wait until you know all the rules.
Write badly.
Write too much.
Write things nobody will ever see.
Write half a song and put it away.
Come back six months later and discover that now you know how to finish it.
Somewhere in all that writing, your own voice begins to appear.
And once you find that, the technique has something worthwhile to work with.
— JayT