Getting your creative juices flowing can be difficult when you’re not inspired or motivated. When it comes to creative output, artists tend to experience times of abundance and times of drought. Unfortunately, those times of drought can last a little longer than we’d like. You could try to let yourself naturally come out of writer’s block. Or you could try jumpstarting your creativity by challenging yourself to write.
There are many things you can do to challenge yourself to write.
- Plan to write each day at the same time for a certain length of time.
- Participate in songwriting challenges.
- Join songwriters groups or network with other songwriters.
- Listen to or learn other people’s music.
- Journal.
In my opinion, journaling is the best, specifically using a songwriting journal!
Journaling is one of the best things you can do to capture your thoughts while at home or on the go. It can also help you organize your thoughts and stanzas so that it doesn’t stay jumbled in your mind. Having a journal to keep all of your songwriting notes in keeps your thoughts all in one place and provides an easy way to refer to them at a later time.
A great way to make use of a songwriting journal is to partake in songwriting prompts. Songwriting prompts are tasks involving writing down content that follows a certain topic or guideline. For example, a songwriting prompt could ask you to create a scenario between your two favorite mugs and write a song that describes their day-to-day experiences. It’s quick, easy, painless, fun, and puts you into a writing vibe whether you actually use the lyrics in a song or not — bonus points if you do!
Here are 10 Quick and Easy Songwriting Prompts to get your creative juices flowing…
Easy Songwriting Prompts for Singer-Songwriters
For each topic, write a song or a series of paragraphs. Try to write it in stanza form. It’s not necessary at this stage to utilize rhymes, but it would be most helpful when/if you decide to turn your new material into a song.
- What is your favorite flower? Share its experience in the first person.
- Explore common phrases…
- If these walls could talk…what would the Berlin Wall tell you?
- A picture is worth a thousand words…Choose a picture. What story would it tell?
- To Hell in a handbasket…What’s that journey like?
- What’s been your scariest experience ever?
- What questions do you have for a higher power?
- If Mother Nature could have a conversation with mankind, what would she say?
- Pick a day of the week and share why you like it or not. What are the best features of that day? What are your least favorite things about it?
- If you could go on a dream date, where would it be? What would you do? With who?
- If Cinderella’s step sisters gave her an apology, what would they say?
- Give directional instructions on how to get to utopia.
- What is your favorite breakup song? Now re-write that song from the other person’s perspective.
A Few More Thoughts on Songwriting
When utilizing writing prompts for your songwriting sessions, try not to spend too much time overthinking. Write out your first thoughts without hesitation. Then spend some time tweaking the words to flow a bit more. Then glance over it a third time to incorporate rhyming and patterns into your writing.
When it comes to songwriting, I often get stuck in making the flow perfect the first time around. I end up overthinking it and I get caught up in trying to make each phrasing meet some arbitrary standard I have set. But that interferes with the flow of the writing process and creates a roadblock. Consequently, I have learned to get out of my head and let my heart speak. After those initial thoughts are written out, then I can apply some reasoning to it to make it flow better.
Songwriting Journal for Women
Never forget a verse or stanza with this fiercely feminine journal for musicians and poets to keep track of all the artistic thoughts in your head. This songwriting notebook is small enough to carry around as a handy way to write down lyrics and poetry on the go. Get it for yourself, or buy it as a gift for the creative musician or poet in your life.
Writing prompts help me to introduce variety into my songwriting. I often find myself writing about the same things – relationships, problems or disappointments, and happiness. Alternatively, there are so many interesting things to write about. Using writing prompts has helped me to open up my songwriting pallet to create more complexity and layering in my songwriting. I once attended a show and the performer shared a song he had written that was inspired by carving pumpkins.
PUMPKINS! And the song was good too!!!
I was really impressed with his ability to come up with such an awesome melody and a great story from such a basic task as carving pumpkins. At the time, that seemed out of my reach. Engaging in songwriting using prompts has opened up a whole new world of songwriting.
What’s your songwriting process? How do you incorporate complex ideas and variety into your songwriting flow? What’s your process when it comes to adding music after you’ve written up your lyrics?
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