Do This And Write 52 Songs Per Year
Picture this, it’s another Wednesday evening. You get home from your exhausting job, and you’re excited to make some music. You sit down, pick up your instrument and start writing.
While you're searching for a melody or chord progression to base your song on, you receive 5 messages. You pick up your phone and check what's new on Instagram/TikTok alongside.
In a blink of an eye, it’s already 10 pm, and you need to go to bed. The only thing you have written was 1 guitar riff and a loose assortment of drum hits you can hardly call a drum groove.
That was me, some years ago.
I made a daily effort to write music but lacked the focus and attention to go after it in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, I got frustrated.
In the time I finished one of my songs, my favourite bands released 1 Album and 3 EPs.
How can they work that fast? What am I lacking?
Why are there musicians that can turn out songs one after another, and you’re stuck with one for months?
If I ask other musician these questions, I get the same answer. They have a lot more time to write music and can spend weeks in recording studios.
It’s an easy answer to give without think about what you might do wrong.
The problem is not time!
It's focus!
You lack a reliable workflow for writing songs in a distractionless environment.
Songwriting is like any other skill. Read this quote from SIA (9 times Grammy Nominated Songwriter)
“I don’t think that I’m necessarily like a super-talented songwriter. I think I’m just really productive. One out of 10 songs is a hit. So where a lot of people will spend three weeks on one song, I will write 10 in three weeks.” — Sia (from Tim Ferris Podcast)
Like starting out on a new job. At first, you stumble through your workday without getting much done. After some time, you get more confident in your actions. You find shortcuts. Task that needed half a day to complete, take you only an hour now.
Writing songs can be like this too if you train it.
How to establish a songwriting workflow?
Start with your room. Create a space that is only used for songwriting. Set up your instruments so you can use them in an instant.
Eliminate distractions! Everything that isn’t needed for writing needs to go.
You phone.
The plate of half-eaten food you eat yesterday.
The books/magazines you read.
They need to go!
After you established a physical workspace. You need to establish one in the digital world.
Open your DAW and create a new session/song. Before you jump into writing you need to set up your session. Remove any friction that might pop up.
That means, create tracks for instruments you use and arm them with the needed Plugins.
I usually write for a full band arrangement. I prep tracks for Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Piano/Synths, Drums and some samples. Everything I need can be used with one click.
Now that every instrument is in place, we can start writing.
Tip: If you got some mixing skills, set up the session to sound like a well produced song. This will boost your confidence and motivate you to keep writing from the start.
The Songwriting
1) Starting The Song
Without dragging out this newsletter, I want to make this short.
You need to gather as many different approaches for writing a song as possible. You want to start a song from any instrument and as many ways as possible.
Start every song in a different way to train this.
Plan out what you want to write about:
What's the Topic?
What emotion should the song feel like?
What pictures do relate to the song?
Thinking about this early will help you guide your creative decisions. You will always think about the big picture and won't get distracted by ideas that don't support your core message.
2) Developing ideas
After writing the first section. People get stuck and don’t know to follow them up.
The best way to deal with this is to develop ideas. This is a technique where you take your idea and change parts of it to create a different but fitting part. It’s an important skill to learn. I would encourage you to do some research on it.
If you're still stuck, then try intelligent imitation.
Intelligent Imitation is where you take ideas from other music and apply them to yours.
Listen to a song you enjoy. Look at the section you like most or is missing in your song, for example the chorus. Analyse how it’s structured. What do guitars, bass and drums play? What's the rhythm? …
Take 1 or 2 of these piece and write your own section with it. Please don’t copy everything. Taking too much will end in plagiarism!
I would caution you from copying the main vowel or any other distinctive melody of a song or section. These are the parts that define a song most and are often the foundation for copyright lawsuits.
Stay away from these. Copying the strumming pattern or a chord progression is fair game.
I can already hear some of you yelling at me that this is unoriginal copying. I want to give you a short quote to sum up my opinion on this:
“The only art I'll ever study is stuff I can steal from. “ — David Bowie
If he can do it, so can you!
3) Finish The Song
After you got a solid song structure, it is time to finish your song.
What do I mean with this?
I don’t mean that this song is to be released. Your goal is to create a song that can stand on its own. 80 % of a song is its structure, rhythm, melody, and lyrics.
The other 20% are the icing on the cake that is done in post-production. It's where you refine your ideas, add elements that enhance the song.
The best way to finish songs is to set yourself a time limit. I like to spend about 8 hours on 1 song that I write in the span of a week.
This limit forces you to only work on elements that push your song forward. It keeps you from adding sound effects/ear candy that don’t play a major role in the song.
Force yourself to only write music. Sound design should be done before starting a session. If necessary, keep the sound design short to move on quickly.
These sounds can be refined after finish your song.
4) Processing the Results
After you've finished your song, it's time for the most important step. Analysing the session and ask yourself these questions:
What worked?
What didn’t work?
What have you learned from this song?
What would you change or do differently the next time?
Did you discover something interesting, like a chord progression…?
Take your time here. The steps you take here, will have the most impact on your future songs.
Everything that created friction needs to go.
What I learned from my first sessions, is that my lyrics don’t connect to the rest of the song. So I made it a priority to start lyric writing as soon as possible.
Wrapping things up
In short,
create a distractionless environment, in which you can work with focus.
Set up your physical and digital workspace so you get your ideas recorded as fast as possible.
Limit the time you spend on a song. This forces you to focus on the part that matter. I like 8 hours per song.
Analysis of your session. What would you do differently next time?
Start anew
Level up your songwriting skill by creating a daily habit!
Set aside 30 minutes or 1 hour a day to work on your songs.
If you’re consistent, will have written 26 Songs in a span of 6 Months. Compare your first and last song, you will see that you have improved a lot!
— Max of Current Mindset
