Are you interested in writing songs? Are you a seasoned/professional writer looking for some new perspective/tools/ideas to work with? I want to try and help. I’m one of those people that feels great when I can share my experience in a way that helps others. I guess we all want to feel of value at the end of the day.

I’ve been writing since I could pick up a pen/pencil. For me it’s an emotional and creative outlet. There is such a sense of satisfaction in completing a song and then sharing it with my audience. Music/songs are what move us to do things –from dancing/exercising – sleep/relaxation –inspiration – ceremonies it’s the air we breathe through our ears and feel throughout our entire being.

A common theme I hear from well-known singer songwriters is that they had to fake it until they made it, and some songwriters who have been doing it for decades  (such as Paul McCartney, James Taylor…) say that the songwriting process is still this mysterious, magical thing that sort of happens through trial and error. I must say, I fully agree that songwriting has a strong element of chance – the stars aligning just right to get those lyrics to truly speak over the melody. But here is the deal: there are ways to help bring about that inspired lyric or melody. The challenge is to find which catalysts work best for you. Maybe writing while having a particular album playing in the background gets your juices flowing or maybe mumbling some sounds into a recorder to see what words you hear on the play-back. There are many ways to get those words to come out. To get your message out as minimally contrived as possible –that’s the challenge.

If I were to distill the songwriting process down to a few simple elements it would be frequency (writing as often as you can) and freeing your mind from thinking too much.  The more you write the better you will get and be able to effectively discern what’s good and what isn’t so good. Although many artists (as I mentioned above) took the fake it until you make it approach (and it worked just fine) – I believe at some point you need to get past that phase and mature/evolve as a writer and start to discover your own identity/style. You need to effectively free your mind from trying to write like this artist or that artist. You need to simply not think about what or how the song should be but more about what you have to say on a very honest level.

If you would like to set up a songwriting session or be a part of a workshop, please send me an email or give a call at (518) 369 2150.

Good luck with your writing but be sure to do it as much as you can!