I’m curious to hear how other musicians write songs. Better yet, I’m curious to hear the details behind ANY artist’s creative processes. As a poet, do you find a cozy spot in the woods to sit down with your pen and paper to tell riddles of nature? Or do you come up with little puzzle pieces of ideas that you allow to free-float around in your brain until finally one word or thought ignites your neocortex and you’re able to tie it all together?

What about painters and sculptors? Do you park yourselves in front of paints, marble, and clay while saying, “what should I create today?”

I have a couple different approaches I take towards music, and although each has its pros and cons, I haven’t found one all encompassing process that I love.

1.) I’m going to write a song – This is my least effective process. This is when I sit down in front of my piano or guitar, harmonicas, pens and paper with the goal of creating a new song. It usually ends in one of two ways.  A.) I’ll actually write a song that has already been written, either by myself or someone else. I won’t notice it until I get all excited it’s done. I’ll play it back to myself and say, “Wow, that sounds a lot like a Dave Matthews Song.” “Hmm, those are actually the same exact chords as Crash Into Me just played in a different order.” “Dang it, these are pretty much the same words. I just replaced adjectives.” Or, B.) I’ll get MAYBE one or two lines of okay material, get frustrated, then play all my old stuff for a couple of hours.
2.) Feeling Inspired – I’ll go through phases of extreme inspiration. This usually happens when I’m either going though some life changing experiences (heartaches, deaths, births, breakups, new relationships, etc) – or I’m getting out to a large number of music shows (local and national levels). Either way, I find a guitar sitting on my lap a lot more frequent around this time. I love it when I get in these moods, but the drawback is I can’t always control it.
3.) The Gift – This is the most effective process, and if I could bottle it up and tap into it whenever I wanted, I’d have a slew of successful songs released. The Gift is when there’s no indication or clues, but I just pick up the guitar and magic comes out. Words I’d never thought about stringing together find their way in line. When this happens, I notice it immediately and usually try to isolate myself somewhere with a pen and paper. When the moment passes, it’s hard to get it back. I have a song on my upcoming album called “Familiar Face,” that came to me like this. It took me about 5 minutes to write, but every word that came out felt important, perfect, and irreplaceable.

If you’re a creative person and are willing to share your processes, please feel free to reply to this post. If you would like it to stay a bit more private, you can send me a note via the Contact tab.

Comments

One Response to “Songwritting”

1. sis says:

   September 4, 2009 at 12:50 pm

   I think you’re very artistic and talented!! My creativity (I feel) is from JESUS who is the greatest artist of all!!!

   Reply