7 tips for writing a song a week - songwriters chop shop

I know you’re busy. Between work, family, friends, and the many other things in life that are important to you, it can be hard to find time for songwriting. So I want to give you 7 tips for writing a song a week! You’ll have plenty of songs when all is said and done!

Can you make a song in a week?

Technically you can write a song in the time it takes you to play a song.

The real question is, can you write a good song quickly?

Do you want to write your best songs, or do you want to write a lot of songs in the hope that one out of every 10 or 20 will be good?

There is no right or wrong answer here, it’s up to you. I find the perfect balance between writing good songs faster is to spend about a week writing a solid first draft.

How long does it take a songwriter to write a song?

We have all heard the stories of songs coming out of thin air.

How Sia took 40 minutes to write Diamonds…

Lennon and McCartney would write in 3-hour sessions and always have something to show for it.

But songs can take months to write, Mark Ronson’s uptown funk took the best part of 6 months.

So is writing a song a week a realistic goal? Well, it depends on a lot of things. Most of all it depends on you

A lot of songwriting is pure creativity, and a lot of it is technical.

So it’s helpful to understand which part of the process is which.

And then there is the elusive inspiration. Oh, and of course time.

So let’s look at some ways we can write songs “faster” and at some ways that we can maintain the motivation to turn up every day.

#1. Keep your hand warm and your tools sharp.

Many people wait to be inspired to write. Which is fair enough. After all, if you are not inspired, what’s the point?

Having said that, if you want to master the art and craft of songwriting there is only one way to do that.

Write a lot of songs. And the chances of that happening by waiting to be inspired are pretty slim.

But very often, inspiration or at least creativity can be coaxed.

And while it’s fair enough to wait for inspiration, what are you doing while waiting.

Why not practice? Practice becoming a better songwriter so when that inspiration does hit, you can honer it by knowing what to do with it.

Because if inspiration is so important to you, you should honor it.

So honor inspiration by practicing the tools of the craft you will use to shape it.

Do you know the emotional effect your rhymes can have?

How to write songs faster.

The key to writing good songs fast is to first learn how to write songs, How ever long that takes.

When you get down to brass tacks, creativity is about making connections.

In our case, connecting ideas where we didn’t see connections before. That can be practiced.

And that practice can be turned into a habit and a habit is just something you do automatically.

#2. Cultivate a creative mindset.

We have decided to practice our craft and cultivate a creative mindset.

So this will result in producing some material. And producing material and ideas can lead to great songs.

But before it does it will have to make a stop at ‘judgment town’.

We all know judgment town, it’s the stop that comes immediately after ideas Ville.

Maybe this is one of the main reasons artists love waiting for inspiration.

Inspiration can take us on a detour through pure imagination land where judgment town is too far away to care about…”What am I talking about?”

The first step toward a creative mindset is…Don’t judge yourself,

Don’t fall for the lie of perfection. It’s self-editing before you give yourself a chance.

Editing is the final stage of the creative process, not the first.

#3. Let your ideas run free.

You never know what will come out of a song idea by the end.

Even if it’s not a good song, there could be something good about it you could use as a new jumping off point.

If you judge your ideas too soon, you’ll abandon them and you could miss out on something great.

In order to write a song a week you have to write a song.

A verse and most of the chorus isn’t a song. You need to be able to finish.

A new idea feels great, even getting a few lines or a couple of sections together feels great.

Why? Because there is still plenty of potential for that amazing tune.

Once you have finished, all that could be potential is done and you are left with the reality of what is. And what is is hardly ever as exciting as what could be.

That’s human nature. But it’s a huge subconscious block to getting a piece of art finished.

Think of your songs like your children. You do the best you can for them but eventually you have to let them go.

“art is never finished, only abandoned”. But we’d never want to abandon our children, right?

Well to write a song a week you might have to. But that doesn’t mean you’ll never see that child again.

You get to see them on weekends and at the holidays, unless you’re a negligent monster

Do songwriters write every day?

Writing a song every day may not be possible. But carving out ten minutes a day to practice something you love should be easy.

Ten minutes is enough to keep the tools sharp and the hand warm.

This is the minimum you need to do. And there are plenty of songwriting exercises you can do to make this a productive practice.

You may have noticed that many of the big hits on the radio these days are written by professional songwriters rather than independent artists because they know how to produce high-quality content consistently and quickly.

Songwriting is a craft and writers can’t be expected to produce quality work if they don’t take the time to hone their skills.

#4. Commit to finishing songs

If you are onto something good it will stick with you and you can always polish it up and give it the TLC it deserves at a later time.

Songwriting is like a puzzle, get the reference picture first and sort the pieces.

Finishing a song can be done in stages. Get the first draft down and come back to rewrite it later.

This is where working from the big picture to the finer details can speed up the process.

Get to the big idea as soon as possible (title & chorus idea)
Find an ‘objective correlative’
Start at the end (write the last verse first)
Plot the song
Fill in the power positions

#5. Stock up on ideas

Writing a song a week is a journey. And you should always prep for a long journey.

Stock up on ideas…

Titles,

Song forms,

Chord progressions (hooktheory is my go-to for this, check out their free resources section ),

Rhythms,

Arrangements,

Instrumentation,

Melodies,

Songs you can steal from,

DAW sounds,

Loops,

Presets,

Prompts,

Genres,

Time signatures,

Guitar tunings

Remember we are not judging anything, there is no time to judge.

A week isn’t that long to finish a song if you are not used to it.

So stock up on these things and use them.

And if you have just thought to yourself, “well that won’t lead to anything original”,

That’s judgment. You don’t know what it will lead to until you get there.

#6. Time management

Writing a song a week still means you have to move pretty quickly. So make sure you are not wasting time.

Rotate the days into left-brain dominant activities and right brain dominant activities.

For example, Finding rhymes is a left-brain activity. Using those rhymes creatively in your lyrics is a right-brain activity.

Demoing and recording can take a lot of time unless you are used to it.

For every month, write for three weeks. Ask someone trusted which song they think is the best and on week four record that one.

Don’t write a song and ask someone what they think of it (sure you can get feedback) it’s more effective to get someone to tell you which of three songs do you think is better.

#7. Limit yourself

Creativity thrives on limitations. Limit the number of sounds and channels in your DAW.

Try writing a one-note melody, or a one-chord song.

You’ll be writing a lot of songs so this will give you plenty of chances to experiment with writing in different ways.

And you should write in different ways.

Start from different places, chords, lyrics, melody, beat.

Draw a limited amount of elements out of a hat and just use them.

Pick a couple of tools to focus on, eg, in this song I will focus on internal rhyme and imagery…

Set a time limit. Set a timer for ten minutes and see how far you get.

Writing a song a week will be tough at times. So if you end up with only a draft it’s ok.

You got the creative spark lit and learned some songwriting tools, and got out of your comfort zone.

Good luck!