songwriting excercises

It is important to get your creative juices flowing before you start writing quality songs, and these warm-ups will help you streamline your creative process!

Boost Your Songwriting Abilities: Daily Songwriting Exercises

Written by: Egoslim
January 14, 2021

 

Daily exercises are guaranteed to help you perfect your songwriting process. It is important to get your creative juices flowing before you start writing quality songs, and these warm-ups will help you streamline your creative process! Here are 5 daily songwriting exercises:

 

Write a song in ten minutes

Whether this song is good, bad, funny, or sad, this will help you in your songwriting process. Don’t plan for this song to be on your next album, and don’t expect to sing it live at your next concert. Just write! The purpose of this is to train your mind to write music without worrying too much about monetizing.

 

Write about random words

Pick three to four random words and write about them for a designated period of time. For example, write about the word “book” for five minutes, write about the word “yellow” for one minute, and write about “grass” for thirty seconds. Again, don’t think too hard about what you are writing—just let the words flow! Once you are finished, go back through what you’ve written and circle keywords or phrases that you like. Whether you end up with new lyrics or built momentum, this technique is sure to help exercise your wordsmithing skills.

 

Pick apart your favorite songs

Once a day, pick a song that you love and dismantle it. Ask yourself: what makes this song so good? Is it the song structure, or the lyrics? If you love the lyrics, figure out what makes those lyrics so special, and how you can apply that to your own songwriting.

 

Turn random sentences into lyrics

Whether you’re reading the back of a cereal box or passing a billboard as you’re driving, try to reimagine those phrases and sentences as lyrics. Structure them so that they read like lyrics—this can mean adding line breaks where you see fit, determining what words would sound best for the chorus, and what words would sound best for the bridge. This exercise is great because it allows you to focus more on song structure and melody instead of getting held back by the lyrics themselves.

 

Analyze the titles of your favorite songs

Choose a song you like, then analyze how the title serves the purposes of the song. Is the title repeated in the chorus, or does the name of the song seemingly have nothing to do with the subject matter? Write out questions that the song title alone raises, then determine how the lyrics—or melody—of the song answers these questions. This exercise is helpful when it comes to choosing a cohesive theme and story for your own songs.

The key to all these songwriting exercises is to avoid overthinking or picking apart your process. There will be days when you pump out five songs in a row, and there will be days where it feels like you have nothing—but don’t give up! Just like anything else, with hard work and dedication, you can master the art of songwriting.

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