The simple idea of this article is that if you can keep making progress with your songwriting each day and have a system for coming up with great work, you will wake up one morning and realize that your music has reached the tipping point of quality.
Then...rather than having to spam your stuff all over the web to try and get some attention, all you have to do is just send a simple Tweet out or post up a YouTube video and your fans will spread the word like a viral cupcake.
Step 1 – The Music Ideas Recharge
Jump onto Ultimate Guitar and play through songs that you love.
Notice the chord structure and how the melodies work together, and get a feel for why the song has such an impact.
You can also look at news websites and Twitter to see what’s going on and affecting people in the world.
As you recharge you need to actively be taking song ideas down in some kind of notebook.
Step 2 – 25 Minutes of Music Fun
When you’re feeling all inspired set a timer for 25 minutes and hit record on your dictaphone.
Now you just let it all out, start to play with lyric ideas, melodies and chord sequences...after a while you will hit upon something that makes sense and can run with it.
But you should never judge what you write at this point...we’ll polish things off in the editing stage.
Step 3 – Editing
The trick is to leave what you have recorded overnight and forget about it. If you try to turn it into a song right away you will get burnt out.
The editing process is simple…
You just sit down with your recording and write up everything that you came up with using Google Docs or your word processor of choice.
There will be a lot of different options for choruses, verses and lyrics to choose from, and also listen for half mumbled lyrics that you can rewrite and turn into something profound.
Once you have all your ideas down you want to start moving things around and looking for the very best bits. This is the point where your natural perfectionism might creep in so get it done ASAP.
IMPORTANT: Don’t move onto another song until you’ve finished.
Step 4 – Post It
The final step is to make a simple recording and post it on YouTube.
This will be a cool document of your progress, and will also be a great promotional tool as you start to dig up some musical golden nuggets.
Almost everyone who got popular online just woke up one day and decided to start posting!
The other great reason to put your work out in the world is that it’s a good feedback mechanism to see what connects well with your audience.
There will usually be a couple of songs that get way more attention and you can then go to town on those and make a real nice recording, because you know that the track has great potential.
Final Thoughts
I was trying to think of a sexy way to end this, but I’m going to keep it simple...
Because if you work on a song everyday of your life chances are that you’ll end up writing a couple of hits.
To me that’s all the motivation I need.
Just remember that what you write might suck at first and that’s cool because the same thing happened to John Lennon
Your only mission is to turn up everyday and keep making progress.
So go get your timer and GET TO WORK!
Good luck, I’m rooting for ya.
- Ben
Then...rather than having to spam your stuff all over the web to try and get some attention, all you have to do is just send a simple Tweet out or post up a YouTube video and your fans will spread the word like a viral cupcake.
Step 1 – The Music Ideas Recharge
Jump onto Ultimate Guitar and play through songs that you love.
Notice the chord structure and how the melodies work together, and get a feel for why the song has such an impact.
You can also look at news websites and Twitter to see what’s going on and affecting people in the world.
As you recharge you need to actively be taking song ideas down in some kind of notebook.
Step 2 – 25 Minutes of Music Fun
When you’re feeling all inspired set a timer for 25 minutes and hit record on your dictaphone.
Now you just let it all out, start to play with lyric ideas, melodies and chord sequences...after a while you will hit upon something that makes sense and can run with it.
But you should never judge what you write at this point...we’ll polish things off in the editing stage.
Step 3 – Editing
The trick is to leave what you have recorded overnight and forget about it. If you try to turn it into a song right away you will get burnt out.
The editing process is simple…
You just sit down with your recording and write up everything that you came up with using Google Docs or your word processor of choice.
There will be a lot of different options for choruses, verses and lyrics to choose from, and also listen for half mumbled lyrics that you can rewrite and turn into something profound.
Once you have all your ideas down you want to start moving things around and looking for the very best bits. This is the point where your natural perfectionism might creep in so get it done ASAP.
IMPORTANT: Don’t move onto another song until you’ve finished.
Step 4 – Post It
The final step is to make a simple recording and post it on YouTube.
This will be a cool document of your progress, and will also be a great promotional tool as you start to dig up some musical golden nuggets.
Almost everyone who got popular online just woke up one day and decided to start posting!
The other great reason to put your work out in the world is that it’s a good feedback mechanism to see what connects well with your audience.
There will usually be a couple of songs that get way more attention and you can then go to town on those and make a real nice recording, because you know that the track has great potential.
Final Thoughts
I was trying to think of a sexy way to end this, but I’m going to keep it simple...
Because if you work on a song everyday of your life chances are that you’ll end up writing a couple of hits.
To me that’s all the motivation I need.
Just remember that what you write might suck at first and that’s cool because the same thing happened to John Lennon
Your only mission is to turn up everyday and keep making progress.
So go get your timer and GET TO WORK!
Good luck, I’m rooting for ya.
- Ben