Perhaps you might want to also consider why you might not be creating songs. I think I'm eminently qualified to speak on that topic. wink

One of the best ways to not create songs is to wait for inspiration. I've spent years waiting for inspiration to strike, and she never seems to stop by. Fortunately, there's an endless stream of YouTube videos and Facebook posts to keep me distracted while I wait. This allows me to engage in hours of activities entirely unrelated to creating a song.

It's also important to set unreasonable expectations. Sure, I've had some ideas that could be crafted into a decent song, but they weren't really great. I don't want to write a good song, I want to write something great. Discarding ideas that aren't mind-bogglingly fantastic is a good way to stop myself from writing that's merely OK. Discard anything that isn't entirely original.

Speaking of craft, it's also best to treat all aspects of the process as something magical. While there may be a handful of songwriters are successful with a workmanlike approach to composing, it that sort of music inspired?

Spend lots of time looking at musical gear. While there are still some folk who think that a guitar and a pad of paper are enough (I'm looking at your video, floydjane), for the rest of us, we know that it was the cool gear that made other people's songs so great.

You might think that buying music gear isn't the same as writing a song. But that's just backwards thinking - you're just not buying the right gear. Look at all the gear real musicians have. Surely that's the key to writing and producing great music.

Other people's talent greatly exceeds your own! Reinforce this by being hyper-critical of all the perceived flaws in your lyrics/voice/mix. Be sure that you only compare yourself to the best of the best!

Make sure that you do everything yourself. Other people on the forum would be happy to collaborate with you on the process of writing, singing, and mixing. But don't fall for this trap! Can you think of any real musicians who collaborated? I can't. It's important that you be an expert in every step of the process, from songwriting, arranging, singing to crafting a final mix.

Most importantly - songwriting is like dieting: you can start... tomorrow.

Follow these steps, and soon your output can be almost as minuscule as mine! grin


-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?