Worth repeating- A documentary on songwriting.

Worth Repeating is a documentary with Nashville songwriters Steve Moakler and Stephanie Lambring that talks about their process of writing songs and doing it for a living. 

Life is a constant stream of inspiration and material. Songs come about when you are sure of something or unsure of anything. its a grey area. when you write songs, its a picture in your head of what you want to say and then its put into words. 

I spoke to someone a while back on their process of writing, she turned to me and said, very seriously... 'My songwriting is therapy, instead of paying someone to listen to my problems, they are paying to hear it.' 
I was quite taken aback by this, but then it occurred to me how true this is. People look to songs to provide clarity, to feel and hear someone else is or has gone through something similar. 

so, how do you start writing songs/melodies or lyrics? There is a blog from Sharon Goldman that i have been following for a while now and in one post she talks about working with songwriting prompts and deadlines. The aim of prompts is provide you with a bit of inspiration, be it a word, phrase or colour. 

In a nutshell, prompts are good because: 

1. Inevitably inspire some kind of idea or reaction — if you allow your mind to wander for a bit.

2. Differ for everyone — each songwriter is going to come up with something different, often drastically so. It’s fun to see what comes up!

3. Are easy to come up with — just open the dictionary or thesaurus and randomly point to a word; look at your favourite daily newspaper headlines; or scroll through a beautiful photo site.

4. Combined with a hard deadline, give you a no-fail framework and formula for finishing a new song!

With the foundation of direction, and a bit of a push, you are not limited to what you want to write about or what you can or cant do. These Prompts are not restricted to songwriters but can be used for all creative writing fields. 

What is your process of songwriting? share some of your thoughts and ideas with me and get a chance to feature on this blog! 

'til then


Romy