Songwriting Sunday: Taking Some Time

Songwriting Sunday: Graphic includes sheet music, the URL of the author’s website, www.musictherapyworks.com, and the text, “songwriting Sunday.”
I would really like to have some dedicated time to work on my songwriting, but I just don't do it. This is a situation where my brain thinks something that my heart just isn't interested in. My brain has many of these types of thoughts.

Writing songs, even the types of songs that I write, takes time.

There is no way around that. To get a song from concept to print, it takes time. I need at least an hour to take an idea from concept all the way to publication every time I sit down to write TMEs or just to write songs.

Now, my songs are not complicated. They tend to be no more than 30-36 measures, they have lots of replicated elements, and my music is not extremely sophisticated. That is what my clients respond to the most, so that's what I write. Easy songs for my clients to understand and to sing. So, if my songs take at least an hour, imagine what the songwriting experience is like for longer, more complex songs.

One of the things that I have learned through my songwriting experiences over the past several decades is that nothing happens unless you take the time. I have learned how to help myself by using specific strategies to decrease time. I have also learned that there are some things that I will never really do, and I have learned to be mostly okay with those things.

I will never write a top 40 hit. That's okay. I can tell you that there are many folks out in the world who sing my songs because they learned them from me. That is a humbling thought. They might not know that the song is mine, but they sing the song to their clients or their children. My music has reached beyond me and my sessions. That is very cool.

To write songs, I use my songwriting kit and my ideas book. I do my best work when I write as part of it all, so I do. I use my pencil to write down melodies and to attempt rhythmic notation (still investigating composition apps to find what I want to use most of the time). I write down lyric ideas and chord progressions. Things progress from chicken scratched ideas to sheet music with a bit of work. I want to try some dedicated composition time, but I am not sure that my brain will cooperate with dedicating that time. We will see.

Nothing happens without work.

If I don't set aside some time to compose, then songs will not be composed. They don't just happen - it takes time, energy, and effort.

I'm going to stop writing about the time it takes, and spend some time actually composing. See you soon! 

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