PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Songwriting inspiration and creativity

For me, the main sources of inspiration or creativity are:

2) Your mood or emotional state - not very often, but I remember a time in the early 2000s where I stayed up late into the early hours while the family was asleep, and began writing a song - and I got on a roll. I am convinced that the tiredness of staying up late had a creative effect and was the reason why I wrote 3 songs (including lyrics) in that single night.

7) Title or phrase or quote - definitely helps me with lyrics, but not so much musically. Even though it is not my preferred starting point (a chord progression or melody line is usually the start for me), the few times I have written 80% of the lyrics first have sometimes been my most successful.

9) Listening to other artists, new songs - this is a significant motivation. Hearing a new song that I like will motivate me to write something, and not necessarily a similar song. I can still remember listening to Jack Johnson's album 'In between dreams', and in particular, the song 'Never know'. I rushed off and wrote songs in days after listening to it. Same with Paul Simon, Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, Thirsty Merc, Blur, Stornaway, The Jayhawks.

13) Using tools and tech e.g. BIAB, loop station, effects pedals, plugins - this is where BIAB styles are very influential for me. I might have a chord progression, then choose a style, and if I find something good, the style itself will inspire or influence a lot of the song. I reckon about 30% of my songs have been inspired this way.

14) Playing for fun, jamming - from 2000 to 2012, I collected the chord sheets of over 2000 songs, and playing these and understanding the chord progressions and lyrics fed into one of the most prolific times of my songwriting.

16) Co-writing, collaborating, responding to a songwriting challenge or idea - for the last 3 years of so, I have been meeting up with a couple of guitarist mates who were aware of my songwriting and wanted to start themselves. We took turns to set a songwriting challenge that we would have to play our song when we re-grouped 5-6 weeks later. The challenge might be based on a title or song lyric; a chord progression; a style; a time signature; or a melody. It is amazing what a deadline will do and none of us have ever failed in completing over 20 assignments. What's even better is when we all join in to play and sing each other's song.