Have you ever felt like your songs were missing something? Maybe a certain element was keeping them from reaching their full potential. Yeah, that’s probably the reason you keep having trouble finishing those lyrics and melodies.
Don’t worry – we all experience similar feelings when it comes to writing music. The good news is, all of us have different struggles and needs for the craft in order to succeed.
Whether you’re just starting out or are already at a point where you want to reach new heights as songwriter, there are definitely ways to help improve your skills . Think of this guide as your personal songwriting tutorial; it will show you how other successful musicians got their unique sound and then give you the tools necessary so that you too can create awesome melodies and lyrics of your own.
Don’t Be Afraid To Show Your Work
When you first start to feel comfortable in the studio, start showing people what you’re doing. Your first step will be to post your song on a sound cloud or at least share it with a few close friends. If you keep your work a secret, you’ll never improve as a musician and you’ll never learn anything new.
Don’t be shy – everyone has to start somewhere, so don’t be afraid to start somewhere as low-key as posting it on a sound cloud account.
If you want to take it to the next level, you can upload your song to YouTube or start posting some of your songs on Instagram or Facebook. Staying active in social media can be a great way to build a community of people who can support you as you grow as a musician.
Write Everyday
A musician’s work is never done. In fact, you should be writing at least a couple of songs everyday. You can’t expect to become a master songwriter in just one day. However, it’s definitely important to keep up with your practice. You’ll never be able to jump on the exponential songwriting growth curve if you never take the time to learn new tricks. Write everyday because it feels amazing to finish something.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have any idea what the song is about. You just have to finish those melodies, lyrics and chords. That’s all you have to do. Writing songs is like exercising your muscles; when you do it on a regular basis, you’ll be able to use those muscles more efficiently in the future. When you start to write songs, you may find that you’re doing things that aren’t very productive. You can avoid this by writing two things that will keep you from doing dumb things.
First, you need to be writing songs that you enjoy. Second, you need to be writing songs that you believe in.
Learn By Listening
As you progress as a songwriter, you’re going to notice that a lot of other successful artists share a few similar traits. While you’ll want to absorb as much knowledge as possible from each of these musicians, you can’t learn everything from just one person. What you can do, however, is focus on what works best for you. While you probably won’t be able to absorb everything that other musicians have to say on the subject of songwriting, you can learn a lot by listening to other songs.
If you’re looking for good songwriting tips, you can’t go wrong by focusing on what works best for other artists. As you listen to other songs, one thing that you can do is notice how they structure their songs. Try to figure out what type of song structure you like the most and then try to apply that to your own songwriting. This can help you create songs that are more similar to other popular songs.
Track Everything You Hear
A lot of musicians fall into the trap of only paying attention to the musical aspects of a song. While this is an important part of songwriting, it doesn’t make up everything. In fact, the lyrics are going to be a lot more important than the melodies and chords if you want your song to be successful. The best way to learn the importance of lyrics is to start recording everything that you hear. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are; you should be recording everything that you hear when you’re outside.
You may be surprised at what you’ll be able to record. If you’re out walking with your headphones on, you may be able to record the sounds of the city. If you’re outside with a friend, you may be able to capture some interesting dialogue. Recording sounds can be a great way to help you learn more about what your surroundings have to offer as a songwriter.
Research Is Key
Now that you’re recording everything that you hear and are focused on lyrics, it’s time to focus on the song’s story and the lyrics that go along with it. If you want to become a better songwriter, you can’t skip the research. The best way to learn about the many different topics that are relevant to songwriting is to research them.
There is no shortage of information when it comes to songwriting. If you want to learn more about a particular topic, you can find loads of information on the Internet. When researching, it’s important to go to unbiased sources that don’t have an obvious bias towards one type of music.
The Song Takes Care of Itself
With all of this information in your mind, it’s time to put it to work. The best way to do this is to keep practicing until you start to see improvements in your songwriting skills. As stated before, you’re never going to become a master songwriter in just one day. Instead, you need to keep practicing until you start to see some progress.
Once you start making progress, you need to make sure that you never stop. You may be surprised at how quickly you start to see results from all of the hard work that you’ve been putting into your songwriting. When you start to see improvements, don’t stop. Keep practicing until you have no other choice.
Conclusion
Making music is a craft, and like any other, it requires practice and dedication to succeed. And while there are no shortcuts to success in any profession, there are some small things that you can do to help you along the way. As you can see, these are some great songwriting tips that will help you improve your skills as a songwriter.
When you implement these tips into your daily routine, you’ll find that your songwriting game will just get better and better.