I like to pay attention to the Google search terms that bring people to this site.  Because I write a lot about creative inspiration and songwriting, one of the common themes in the terms that Google associates with this blog is the idea of how to write a song if you’re a beginner.  I see a lot of search phrases in my web stats that look something like this:

How to write your first song
How do you get started writing music
How can you write a song if you can’t play music
How can you write a song if you’ve never done it

When I was surfing through some music sites recently, I came across an article called “How To Write A Song When You Are A Beginner”.

Here’s a little piece of the article:

For many learning how to write song is not so much the issue. However, learning how to find the problems in the songs they do write, is a valuable tool. To start with, new songwriters should just write lots of songs. The best goal is to write 100 songs. Sometimes beginning songwriters need to write a lot of songs to find what isn’t working and figure out how to get them working better. And this is often difficult to do on your own, which is why looking to outside sources can be most helpful.

To read the rest of the article, click HERE

I’ll be honest, I’ve been writing songs for so long that it’s hard for me to think in those terms.  However, it looks like this article came from a blog that is specifically about getting started writing songs.  If you are a beginner who is interested in getting started, you might want to search through the rest of the articles on that blog.  You might find something very useful.

But of course, keep coming back to this one, too. 

Topic Ideas

Hey all

Here are some more writing topic ideas for you.  Use these as writing prompts to exercise your creativity.  Change it up:  Sometimes you should try to write short songs, or maybe poems, or perhaps sometimes you can write a short story about it instead.  The basic ideas is to get the words flowing out of your brain in creative ways.

Try not to look at them literally (unless of course the literal meaning inspires you!) Twist the meaning of the words… see what you can come up with!

-Write about how everything is going perfectly right for you

-Write about what it would be like if everyone wore the same color every day.

-Write about college life

-Write a jingle for a new candy bar

-Write about a widower who can hardly handle the month of March

Click here to see the previous Song Topic Ideas

I love it when people find unusual ways to do “usual” things.  Sometimes that means writing an odd song, playing a rare instrument, or designing your own instrument.

Sometimes it’s taking a very common instrument, and looking at it differently.

Being a guitar player, I love it when people think outside the box when it comes to how to play a guitar.  In the past I’ve looked at creative guitar players such as Erik Mongrain, KT Tunstall, or Andy McKee.   But today I’m going to look at a different idea.

A guitar is obviously typically a one person instrument, made to be played with two hands.

But is that a rule of thumb that can be broken?

Apparently!  Check out this video:

I like when people think differently about things and aren’t limited to the conventional use of a particular instrument.

Song Title Ideas

Hello

Here are some more song title ideas. Try not to look at them so literally. Read the idea, and if nothing usable jumps out at you, try to twist it around and look at it from different angles. Keep in mind I’m trying to inspire some creative thought, rather than just trying to give you some free song titles.

-She’ll Boast Before

-Avoiding Day

-The Angel’s Response

-He Who Watches

-Between Aggression

Click here to see previous song title ideas

CHECK OUT SOME NEW MUSIC

Hey guys, I added a new feature to the site.  If you look at the sidebar on the right-hand side of this page, and you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see a new section that is called “Try Out Some New Music”.

This is something that will update a couple times a day, showing you 5 new songs that have been uploaded to unsignedbands.net.  I didn’t program the widget, and this is the first time I’ve ever tried to use it on a blog, but it seems to fit in well with what we’re trying to do here.  After all, most people would agree that the best way to fuel your own musical creativity is to listen to lots of different kinds of music, right?

Well, from what I can tell, the list will update a couple times each day.  It will only display songs from one genre at a time, but to keep things varied, I’ll try to change the genre every week or so.  Check back often, and use this as your own personal tool to discover new music.

Ever have to deal with Writers Block?

I think everyone deals with it from time to time.  I spend a lot of time reading about creativity, writing, inspiration, and other things around the web, and I came across a great link.  The author listed 33 ways to get past writers block, and what’s awesome is that it’s written from a songwriters point of views.

Here’s a small piece from the article

Put these 33 impeccable ways to the test yourself and experience the magic of inspiration:

1 – Ask why, how, when, where and who?
Ask yourself questions about the subject. If your song is about a suspicious old man then ask the questions: Where does he go? Where did he come from? Who is he? What is he going to do? Who are his friends? Does he have any? What are his interests? What are his dreams? Is he married? What is his history? Why does he act so strange? Ask as many questions as possible to come up with ideas.

2 – Put on some music.
Listen to music that fits the mood of the song you are about to write. It gets you into the vibe.

3 – Don’t try to be a perfectionist.
Just write your story, lower your standards and adjust it later if you need to.
Knowing that you can always alter it afterwards will make you write more fluidly.

4 – Read.
Read books, blogs or magazines on the subject or topic you want to write about.
Expand your horizon.

5 – Take a cup of coffee or nice cappuccino.
Caffeine will wake you up and increases mental faculty.

To read the rest of the article, click HERE

This is an article that I highly recommend that you take time to read and even bookmark so you can come back to it later.  Songwriting is a highly creative task, and it’s just natural that sometimes it’s not easy to force creativity.  Sometimes you need methods like these to get you through the block.

Topic Ideas

Hey all

Here are some more writing topic ideas for you.  Use these as writing prompts to exercise your creativity.  Change it up:  Sometimes you should try to write short songs, or maybe poems, or perhaps sometimes you can write a short story about it instead.  The basic ideas is to get the words flowing out of your brain in creative ways.

Try not to look at them literally (unless of course the literal meaning inspires you!) Twist the meaning of the words… see what you can come up with!

-Write about your first kiss

-Write about a life changing moment

-Write about an island paradise

-Write a song about a girl who always wore yellow lipgloss

-Write about the reasons you hate Saturdays

Click here to see the previous Song Topic Ideas

The RPM Challenge is Complete!

My songwriting group (Blair Hannah Payne… otherwise known as BHP) completed the RPM Challenge this February!

For those who don’t know, the RPM Challenge is a challenge put out to songwriters all over the internet to write a complete album (9 songs or at least 35 minutes of music) from start to finish in the month of February.

For BHP, this becomes even a little more challenging, because we only get together for a few hours every Thursday night.  So for us, we had the challenge of essentially writing an entire album in 5 sittings (we took an extra Friday night to finish it up).

I am quite proud of what we came up with.

I’ll probably be breaking down some of the songs on an individual basis sometime in the future, but for now, here’s a link to listen to or download the entire album.

“Of Fire, Ice, and Rage” by BHP

Related articles around the web

• The RPM Challenge (wiretotheear.com)
• RPM Challenge 2010 (netnewmusic.net)

Song Title Ideas

Hello

Here are some more song title ideas. Try not to look at them so literally. Read the idea, and if nothing usable jumps out at you, try to twist it around and look at it from different angles. Keep in mind I’m trying to inspire some creative thought, rather than just trying to give you some free song titles.

-Invaders Wandering

-My Baby’s Perplexity

-Thieves and Warriors

-Striped Guilt

-Rhyming Beneath

Click here to see previous song title ideas

Song Title Ideas

Hello

Here are some more song title ideas. Try not to look at them so literally. Read the idea, and if nothing usable jumps out at you, try to twist it around and look at it from different angles. Keep in mind I’m trying to inspire some creative thought, rather than just trying to give you some free song titles.

-A Song About Christopher

-Judging Her Admiration

-Your Testy Friend

-From Calm

-The Encouraging Song

Click here to see previous song title ideas