Note from the editorSongwriting

Make songs come, don´t make them run

Songs will come to you, if you invite them, songs will run from you, if you chase them!

Isn´t this the case with anything in life?

Here´s the thing! While I am an advocate for writing songs every day, or at least as often as possible, I am not saying writing a “good” song every day is in it!

A lot of times, when sitting down to write we expect something good to come out of it! Something that meets our standards. But by setting up such a high expectation, we do not allow ourselves to truly explore! Exploring something with a clear expectation of an outcome is very limiting!

So instead of expecting to write a good song and automatically applying certain ideas, I urge you to just sit down at the end of each day and reflect on what happened that day and how things made you feel. If there was something that evoked a strong emotion, go deeper and think about why this hit you so much! This will not always lead to a good song, and it doesn´require you to write about that specific topic…but it might trigger a mood…it might inspire you to play a certain groove or certain chords….and sometimes an actual song idea might result! But more often than not, you will just toss those “summaries of your day” ideas.

Go inward

However, my point is that by listening to our inner dialogue, songs do in fact come to us more easily. By exploring what we can hear, we sharpen our ears to hear the songs of our soul! The ones that already exist deep within and that are waiting for us to bring them to the surface.

Chasing expectations though, will most likely cover up your true emotions and close the door to authentic songs! Whenever you chase something, you take on a tunnel vision. You might miss the relevant spots!

With this being said, I urge you to slow down, write a little every day and only refine the songs, that truly feel relevant to you! Those are the ones you were meant to write in the first place! Give them time to unfold! Also read our post on Getting over your fear and making room for true creativity

Much love,

Katie

 

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