I’d like to make a bold claim.

I can write a good, commercial song at will.  Any time I choose.  I don’t have to wait to be inspired by my muse.

I can do this because I have learned how to overcome and altogether avoid things that cause song writers block.

Like many musicians I started out playing covers with a band and dreaming about writing my own songs that might one day be hits.  At the very least I wanted people to enjoy my original material and come back to a show one of my bands played.

I clearly remember being fifteen years old, in my first band, and agonizing over a sheet of blank paper trying to come up with lyrics.  This was my first lesson, that staring at a blank piece of paper is one of the quickest ways to create a song writing block.

Then one day I happened upon a creative secret.  The secret that really inspired creativity comes more from the subconscious part of a persons mind. 

The band I was in was done rehearsing cover tunes and just muscially doodling, pretty soon the doodling became a free-form jam.  As the singer I just sang whatever came off the top of my head.  Pretty soon everyone was falling into a logical structure or a verse chorus pattern  typical of a lot of songs.   

It happened to turn out as one of our best originals tunes.  To this day I’ve found that if you are in a band this is one of the best ways to write original tunes.  Just free jam and have everyone bounce off of each other.

It’s easiest if you just start with a beat.   The beat is the key to unlocking internal rhythm.   When you unlock your internal rhythm and go with it the music and lyrics often come out of your with very little conscious thought.   That is if you let it.

The second really big key here is not to let your inner critic come into the picture at all.   You don’t want him around until it’s time to put a final polish on the song.  

You should just flow with the music and the beat and let whatever comes out, come out.  Don’t let any musical thought or subject be taboo or off limits, or not of the right style.

With a band just keep bouncing off of each other until you have two really good parts. Generally most songs have two main parts, which are repeated over a number of time dictated by the structure.  The verse and the main hook or chorus.   If you are really flowing you may even finish a song in free jam mode.  

When you’ve done all you can with that free jam, then the next step would be to involve some of the conscious mind in arranging the parts you do have.

It’s very simple.  Just decide on a structure and play it that way and see if it sounds good.  The easiest structure is verse/chorus X3.   You can experiment with intros, outros, breaks, musical breaks, and bridges. 

I find it is best to structure songs around the lyrics as the singing it what most people key into and follow the most on a song.   If you don’t understand structure the easiest way to learn it is to simply pick up lyric sheets of your favorite acts and write out the structure as you listen to the songs.   You can use these as templates for your own originals.  Nothing wrong with this as all bands use the same song structures with different content.

So, basically you do free form jamming to make up musical parts that sound inspired.  You let your subconscious mind do the creating.  Then when it comes time to polish it and make it easily followed by a listener you use your conscious mind to take the inspired material and structure it.

What if you don’t have a band?

Well, I often write songs just using singing and lyrics or with my bass.  

Again we engage our internal rhythm.  If you have been playing music for a while this will be easy.  Just tap your foot, snap or clap a steady beat.

Then just sing out whatever comes to mind.  It may be singing. It could be an idea for a musical rhythm and singing at the same time.  However, you should have some small recording device going while you do this so you can capture your ideas as they happen so that you don’t lose them if you suddenly go in a different direction.

It’s the same as the free jam idea.  After you get a couple of things you like structure them into a song. The real key here is the beat.   If you don’t have a good internal meter,  (You probably don’t unless you’ve been playing music for years) then you should use some sort of drum machine or drum machine software.   

I find that if you play in instrument it’s often best to sing it out first using the above approach.   The human brain works quicker that a player would be able to translate his thoughts to the instrument.  You might end up meandering off in a different direction if you just try to play on the instrument without singing the full thought out on to a recorder.

Then when you have the ideas play it out on the instrument. So, it is more like being a composer.  This is where perfect pitch would come in very handy.  As, if you sing out the part first you would be able to then find the notes right away on the instrument of your choice.    This is not to say you need to have perfect pitch to do this.  It would just make it that much quicker.  

I don’t have perfect pitch, but I can still find the notes I’m looking for on my bass guitar.

Trying to write a song while you stare at your fretboard, or keyboard, is a lot like staring a blank piece of paper and trying to make a song come out.  It just won’t happen.

To make a real inspired song come out on demand you need to start your internal rhythm and let the subconscious mind have free creative reign.

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