The SongCoach Blog
Edwin's Ten Curmudgeonly Counter-Intuitive Songwriting Tips
May 25th, 2010
1. Write bad songs
It's more important to write lots of songs that it is to spend ages trying to make one perfect one. You look at all the good songwriters and you realise they've written hundreds of songs. That's how you get good at it. As Diane Warren, possibly the world's most successful songwriter says: "My secret? I show up. That's it." Six days a week, she writes songs, and has been doing so for 30 years. Her very earliest songs? "They all sucked". So write often, a song a week is a good start. Make time for youself to have a few regular one-hour slots in your schedule to just write songs. And finish them! Even if they're not going to turn out great, get in the habit of finishing ... Expect 10 bad songs for every pretty good one. Yes, that's the kind of stats you are up against. The Outliers book by Malcolm Gladwell suggests 10,000 hours of practice gets you to a high level in pretty much any profession. You do the math! Events like fawm.org and the 50/90 and song a week and so on are really great things for this.
2. Throw away the good bits
Delete, delete, delete. You've written an OK line but it's not going anywhere -- so just scrub it out and move on quickly without a further thought. This is so hard to do but once you see the benefits of being ruthless it really pays off. Many thanks to Stacey Be of Airheart who did this during a cowrite we were doing, it really helped me. Even great lines have to go sometimes as they're just not in the right place at the right time, not right for the song. Always honour the song and it will honour you.
3. Don't write songs
The gold standard is still a great album, so think in albums, not songs. Get a concept and a mood board of ideas and vocabulary and an overall arc the suite of 12 songs has to take. You'll find yourself having to write much more on demand "OK, today we need a big ballad for track 6" and that's a level you need to be able to work at, popping out songs to order rather than just what drops into your lap.
4. Be bad at playing your instrument
Everyone will tell you to get better at your instrument, and as a very primitive musician myself I was very pleased to learn major and minor seventh chords etc, that sort of thing extends your musical vocabulary. But I meet many people who are so seriously trained in their instruments that they feel bad messing around, immediately reject stuff because it breaks some musical theory, worry about making a mistake while improvising etc. That's also bad. Brian Eno also likes the energy and naivety created when the drummer plass bass or the bassist plays guitar for instance. It's pop music, not the LSO. Pick up an unfamiliar instrument and see what comes out. You'll love it.
5. Have poor quality gear
Since about 2005, even cheap gear is plenty good enough. The preamps in your audio interface are likely to be ropey though, so try and do better. But everything else can be in the box and you can't really hear the difference until you are above a thousand quid each for mics, preamps etc and by the time it's all in a mix probably not even then. The songwriting is about a billion times more important than gear. If you want to treat yourself, go to courses and retreats like www.uksongwritingfestival.com or www.londonsongwriters.co.uk and if you do buy, buy good stuff -- it lasts and you can rely on it for 20 years and resell it easily.
6. Songs aren't even important anyway
I'm always inspired by the Brian Eno quote: "What matters in modern music is not the part you can write down, the words and the tune, but the rest -- the texture, the atmosphere, the references and associations" ... think about the overall band message and identity, and craft images, songs and noises that bring that to the listener.
7. Be weird and obtuse
People will tell you to use natural language, be clear what you're saying etc. But distinctiveness is vital, the holy grail. You can't get there by being bland. I wrote a song at the UK SWF08 and had the amazing good fortune to be able to do a playback of it to Richard Thompson who was guest of honour that day. I thought it was quite obtuse already but he urged me to "make it more obscure" -- I had called it "White Horse Hill" but after that I went back to my original concept from the day before and renamed it "Under The Eye Of The White Horse" which nobody I had told it to understood, but I now realise that's actually a good sign -- let people unlock the mystery themselves and they will appreciate it more...
8. Ignore criticism
Many thanks to everyone who ever comments on any of my songs, but let's face it, comments are mostly rubbish: "I like it", "Great bass", "Good singing" etc are very sweet but nothing about the actual song, music, structure or lyrics. To top this, we often only show people songs when we have finished them and are frankly unlikely to make any significant changes. You know if it's a good one. If it's not great, chuck it on the pile or on reverbnation or myspace. Monitor the number of plays now and then as occasionally something you don't expect to be is popular. Be your own critic and editor, no-one else will do it for you.
9. Give up the idea that songwriting will make you rich
Well, it won't make you poor exactly. You will be enriched in many ways and enrich the lives of others. But treat it like a hobby not an income. Don't think that you will make money from having a 'hit' cause that's not how it works nowadays. Professional songwriting is like any job -- a load of hard graft and networking and internal politics and is generally just like the day job you already have and don't like. Letting go of any thoughts of fame and fortune or second-guessing what the market wants is very freeing and allows you to simply have fun and enjoy it. And you'll probably write better songs as a result.
10. Co-writing is great
I actually agree with everyone on this. You might not always make super duper songs (not first time out anyway), but the learning experience from cowriting with others is immense. Eternal thanks to the dozen or so people who have so far co-written with me. Let's do it again! Or drop me a songseed -- a snippet of a lyric or melody idea -- and if it resonates and takes sprout we can see where it takes us!