STUCK Writing A Song? Do This:
Do you want to write more music? Do you find yourself being paralyzed when you start writing a song because of the limitless options?
Well, look no further.
This is actually a super common problem that almost every songwriter has at one point or another.
The problem is that many musicians think that when they can’t be creative, or can’t come up with ideas, it’s because they have too many choices.
And when you have too many choices, you fall into analysis-paralysis.
- "Should I write the chorus in major or minor?"
- "I have two riffs, which one sounds best?"
- "How do I write a verse for this chorus?"
While it’s great to have options, when you want to be creative it’s best to limit them, not expand them.
That is to say, if you feel stuck when writing music, it’s probably not because you don’t know what to do, it’s because you don't know what to choose.
Or in other words: haven’t restricted yourself and honed your focus.
("Restricted": so many "artists" hate this word, but it is the key to become an actual artist)
Bu how does this "restriction" business actually work? How can "restriction" make my songs better?
For that, check out the video below and I’ll share how you can start kickstarting your creativity when writing music:
If you want the music you write to be more interesting, a great start is to better your understanding of chords and harmony on the guitar. Check out my Complete Chord Mastery guitar course if you want to learn more about chords and harmony.
Video Transcription
Hello internet, so nice to see you, has it ever happened to you that you are writing a song, and then you get stuck. Because there is too much freedom in front of you, you have your idea. And you can take this idea in 1000 different directions, you can make it bigger, make it smaller, making more epic, make it more intimate, you can do a lot of things with your musical idea. And you don't know in what direction to go. I call this the freedom trap.
And it's a real thing for artists, the more you write music, but in general, the more you make art because it's true for everybody, okay, even even not non musician, even graphic artists or writers. The more you make art and music, the more you realize that too much freedom is a problem, you find yourself staring at a blank piece of paper and you don't know what to do because there is the immensity of the word in front of you.
And you have to pick something and there is too many things to pick from. How do you go about solving that? Well, I had a student of mine, a songwriter asked me exactly that, because it got stuck with that. How do you solve the freedom trap? How do you choose when you can choose everything? And this is the answer I gave him.
Speaker 2 1:19
Can we talk about like some interesting out of the box ideas for creative creativity forcing because when I want to be great creative, I force it.
Tommaso Zillio 1:30
How do you force that? Usually?
Speaker 2 1:34
I don't know. One example is I put away all distractions. I go for walks, long walks, or I even just stare in the in the wall with a piece of paper does the work sometimes, but new ideas?
Tommaso Zillio 1:54
Yeah. Okay. Creativity does not come out of nothing. Yeah. Okay. If you just look at the blank paper, nothing is gonna happen. There is nothing on the blank paper yet. Okay, creativity comes instead from restrictions that you put on yourself. I know it's, it sounds like a contradiction because creativity is being free. But you you want to choose a set of constraints for yourself.
So I'm assuming you want to be creative to write music right now. Okay, great. What is the song about? A woman? Great. What kind of woman? A beautiful woman. Okay, fantastic. And what do you have to do with that woman? Make love. Really good. Okay. We start to specify things. So now. Now you're not going to sing like Cannibal Corpse?
Yeah, because it doesn't fit the theme. Yeah, well. It's good, but it will be a different choice. With this image in mind, beautiful woman, etc, etc. You should start to think about what kind for instance of instrument what kind of rhythm, what kind of chords, what kind of melody would fit. Let me make me make a stupid example. You can make a slow song about a beautiful woman and you can make a fast song about a beautiful woman.
But it still is these are the stills to give you some ideas. Creativity is making choices. You have everything available in the world of music, every instrument, every note, every chord, every combination, every rhythm, everything available. You have to choose what you're gonna use for this song. And so everything you choose as to measure against the idea you have for the song Beautiful woman.
It's these kinds of beautiful woman or it's these kinds of beautiful woman or it's these kinds of beautiful women are the three the first, the second, the third, and second. It's these kinds of or it's these kind or it's these guys are nervous okay, you're gonna ask me, how did you pick this wonderful intervals? I pick three random ones. Seriously?
Think about it. I just put the finger down. Okay. Then you keep going. Keep going over going decisions. I keep building it. Okay, every time you do something, you always have to think does this describe beautiful woman I have in mind the situation I have in mind the story I have in mind. And if it's now, you mercilessly chunk it away. Okay? If it's yes, you keep it. Every time you need to make a decision, is this the verse or the chorus?
Well, it makes sense with the story you have in mind and you always think back of the story or the situation or the emotion or the person or the character, or whatever else you have in mind that you start from the concept. Otherwise, it's impossible to be great. Otherwise, you're just putting together a staff until something happens. Okay? You should be able to get a staff until this there's something you want happens.
Okay, okay, making sense. Now we take a bit of experience, you also will be able to think okay, it's a beautiful woman, I'm going to use probably a major seventh chord for instance, or what's something else it could be that it could be not okay. But if you start to think about what chords will describe more moody, again, with experience, you're gonna build up a vocabulary are one of those things, but you don't need to have it at the beginning. You just need to play something and think it's these on none of these, okay?
And then keep trying until you find something that is this beautiful woman, the situation you have in mind. Then the same if you want to pick a chord progression, okay? It's a beautiful woman. Or it's more like or it's more like or it's more like whatever, okay? But the important point that you keep getting new material in and then selecting this material and getting out only the thing that fits. Okay, okay, the thing that is missing is that rather than looking at a blank piece of paper, write on the piece of paper and write down beautiful woman making love with her.
Okay, and anything else. You if you have a story, write the story. If you have an image write about the image if you have a feeling right about the feeling put down some words on paper. That's the start of your song. The the ultimate thing is all your song is as to measure up to and you keep changing what you have until you hit that. That's how you do it. Okay, okay. Fantastic. Thank you.