You can start your musical journey by examining your influences. You should not only sing your songs but also play them and record the lyrics. Take time to get familiar with song structures and lyrics. This will help you as you embark on a songwriting adventure. A cover band or tribute to personalized gift your favorite artist could be a good idea if either you or an instrumentalist can perform. The band that inspires you may have a special place in your heart.
Use their chord progressions and rhythms as inspiration, read their lyrics, or use them for ideas. No need to copy unless your goal is to pretend to be the band. The idea is to generate interest and then use those ideas to make new songs. The guitar and piano are the most common instruments used by songwriters to compose songs. The guitar, while an excellent songwriting tool, is much more convenient (and less expensive) than the piano. Joni Mitchell has been a songwriter for decades and she often uses unconventional guitar tunings.
She used alternate tuning or open tuning to help her compose songs that were different from others. It will help you understand the music more if learn to use alternate tunings like Drop D, C#, or DADGAD. Standard tuning may be the most common in recorded songs, but it’s always fun to explore and discover what suits you. Cool scales which I never heard of are what appeal to me. Harmonic Minor is one scale I like to use. Although it is sometimes difficult to interpret, its modes sound so good to me. Frank Zappa’s or Prince’s success as writers and composers wouldn’t have been possible if neither of them experimented. They probably wouldn’t. It’s important to experiment, but if the idea doesn’t work out, you can move on.
It is important to experiment and write one song each day. This will help you avoid becoming overly attached. A creative artist can easily become obsessed with his or her work. Don’t worry about it, just keep on making music. You don’t have to keep doing the same thing if you’re not getting any benefit from it. Try something new and get some ideas out. It’s a fact that if we put ourselves in barriers and are perfectionists, the fun will be drained out and soon, it’s not worth doing. This is something you should not be doing to yourself. Writing block is a form of perfectionism. Writer’s block is the notion that anything you do will be a failure, so it should just be thrown away. What I consider to be the major takeaways are: