Listening to the same things over and over again can kill your creative process, warns Taylor Swift.
“I think you need to change up your influences,” she recently told USA Today. “I think you need to be inspired by different things than you were inspired by before.”
Swift, who is about to start working on new songs for her next album, revealed that she often scraps new ideas if they sound too familiar to her. “I may like it, but if it’s going to sound like the last record it is going to get thrown away,” she said.
She also confessed that her songwriting is often spurred by anxiety. “When the anxiety starts, the writing happens right after, usually,” she said.
Many leading songwriters agree that is important to seek inspiration by listening to plenty of new things – even genres that you haven’t considered before. It can help you to start thinking differently about your own songs.
For example, Taylor’s good friend Ed Sheeran recently revealed that his follow-up to his 2011 debut album is likely to include a broad mix of influences. In an interview with MTV News, he even hinted that it could feature some hip-hop and rap-metal songs. He recently recorded a track with rapper and hip-hop star The Game.
“I’m actually writing very specific songs to genres at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got a whole album of one genre and enough to make another of another genre.”
US singer-songwriter Ben Harper also feels it is important to listen to other kinds of music. “That’s how new ideas come,” he said, “and how musical inspiration is passed on—through other music and other brilliant artists. Listen to whatever pulls you in different musical directions so that you don’t start copying yourself.”
Critically-acclaimed British songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson once told Innerviews magazine: “Someone very wise said ‘Copy everyone except yourself’. Looking at other people’s ideas and twisting them to fit your own style is a good thing.”
He added: “It’s important to keep searching and not go for the obvious idea.”
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK) or HERE (Australia).
Emeli Sandé won two awards at the 58th Ivor Novello Awards in London today. Her song ‘Next to Me’ (co-written with Hugo Chegwin, Harry Craze and Anup Paul) was voted the ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’. The same song also won the PRS for Music award for ‘Most Performed Work’.
Calvin Harris was voted Songwriter of the Year, while Randy Newman, Noel Gallagher, Alt-J and The Maccabees also won big at the prestigious event which is staged annually by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA), in association with the UK collection society PRS For Music.
The ‘Ivor’ awards are judged by the British writing community and are designed to celebrate, honour and reward excellence in songwriting and composing. They are regarded as the most important awards for UK music writers.
Full list of winners at the 58th Ivor Novello Awards:
Best Contemporary Song – ‘Pelican’ (written by Sam Doyle, Rupert Jarvis, Orlando Weeks, Felix White and Hugo White).
PRS for Music Most Performed Work – ‘Next to Me’ (written by Hugo Chegwin, Harry Craze, Anup Paul and Emeli Sandé).
Best Television Soundtrack – Lucian Freud: Painted Life (composed by John Harle).
The Ivors Inspiration Award – Marc Almond
Album Award
Alt-J’s An Awesome Wave (written by Thomas Green, Joe Newman, Gwilym Sainsbury and Augustus Unger-Hamilton).
The Ivors Classical Music Award – Errollyn Wallen MBE
PRS for Music Award for Outstanding Achievement – Justin Hayward
Best Original Film Score – Anna Karenina (composed by Dario Marianelli)
Best Song Musically and Lyrically
‘Next to Me’ (written by Hugo Chegwin, Harry Craze, Anup Paul and Emeli Sandé).
International Achievement – Gavin Rossdale
Songwriter of the Year – Calvin Harris
Outstanding Song Collection – Noel Gallagher
PRS for Music Special International Award – Randy Newman
Watch the official video for Emeli Sandé’s ‘Next To Me’ HERE…
Watch the official video for The Maccabees’ ‘Pelican’ HERE…
Watch the official video for Alt-J’s ‘Tessellate’ HERE…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music).
In an earlier story, we asked How many songwriters does it take to write a hit song? According to US singer-songwriter Ke$ha, it only takes a pair!
She recently told US TV chat show host Conan O’Brien that it’s her breasts that write most of her hit songs.
When Conan asked Ke$ha to explain how she writes her songs, she revealed that her latest songwriting technique involves turning off the lights, lowering her boobs over her piano, and bouncing them on the keys to create a melody.
“I just let them tickle the ivories,” said Ke$ha. “It started as like a joke, but it seriously has produced some of my favourite songs on my new record.”
So, another songwriting duo for Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman Jimmy Webb to consider for an award.
And another songwriting team to add to that prestigious list that includes George and Ira Gershwin, Bacharach and David, Lennon and McCartney…
Watch Ke$ha explaining her new songwriting process HERE…
What titles would you suggest for some boobs-written songs?
Photo: Becky Sullivan
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music).
The urge to express yourself is one reason why many songwriters start writing in the first place. And if you can also touch other people’s emotions by writing about a personal experience that they can relate to in their own lives, then it’s usually the sign of a good song.
Katy Perry has revealed that she takes this a stage further by pouring out her darkest secrets and concealing them in her songs. Many of her songs actually contain cryptic truths about her life and relationships, she says.
“They all stem from the truth inside me,” the 28-year-old singer and songwriter recently told OK! magazine. “Maybe I’m not so specific with names, but that’s my lockbox, where all my secrets go.”
Katy also revealed that she initially struggled with songwriting because of her conservative Pentecostal upbringing. In fact, having had very little exposure to mainstream pop music in her strict childhood, she started out pursuing a career in gospel music as a teenager. She didn’t start to open up as a writer, she said, until she met Glen Ballard, her mentor and producer.
“I was at that point in life where I was scared to write about certain subjects because I was still virginal,” she said. “I remember I wrote a song called ‘Nothing Like the First Time’ and I was really scared to present it because it had some risqué lyrics.”
She added: “Glen was like, ‘You can write about anything, anything you feel, just write them.’ I was so free by him allowing me to do that.”
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK) or HERE (Australia).
For a song to become a great song, it must be able to reach out and touch listeners and stimulate an emotional response within them. It should take them on a memorable and emotional journey. It should make them feel something.
That’s why Amy Grant, the Nashville-based Christian singer-songwriter, believes the greatest compliment a songwriter can receive is to have someone tell you that your song captures exactly what they’re feeling inside.
“The challenge of a songwriter is to articulate – in an accessible way – things we go through, if what you are trying to do is to make people feel connected to their own life, ” says Amy. “I’m inspired by specific situations and try to capture in a song what people feel.”
On May 14, the six-times Grammy award winner will release her first full album of all-new songs in 10 years.
Titled How Mercy Looks From Here, the new album was produced by Marshall Altman and includes guest vocalists James Taylor, Carole King, Sheryl Crow, Will Hoge, and Eric Pasley (who wrote the only song on the album not written by Grant). Amy’s husband, Vince Gill, also makes an appearance.
Watch the official video for Amy Grant’s 1991 hit ‘Good For Me’ HERE…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 