How to Generate Lyrical Ideas for Songwriting | Songwriting Academy

Hi there it's Martin Sutton here founder of  Songwriting Academy and in this video I'm gonna be   doing a tutorial on how to generate lyrical ideas  the reason I'm doing this I have so many people   contacting me saying where do I get my ideas from  why am I just not able to even start a song and   this is what I call meandering when people sit in  a room with a guitar or a piano and hope for the   best they're just waiting for the muse to come to  them well there's no need for that ever to happen   where you just hit a brick wall and you can't even  start a song and the way that I do this is that I   have in my pocket in my phone on my laptop I have  loads and loads of lyrical one-liners and just   an idea about what the plot might be behind those  one-liners which means that every time I go into a   session either by myself or when I'm collaborating  with people it means I can put forward a load of   suggestions about what we can write about on any  given day so I never ever get writer's block from   that perspective of course it doesn't mean my  collaborators are gonna like my ideas but at   least I've been professional and presented loads  and loads of different suggestions so where do we   get these ideas well I've got to tell you they're  absolutely everywhere you've just got to open your   eyes and your ears and find these ideas and I'm  gonna tell you just a few of my go-to places for   getting these ideas so first of all movies and TV  instead of just watching a movie and when there's   a great line in a movie like "you had me at hello"  or "you complete me" or "we're gonna need a bigger   boat" or "you can't handle the truth" instead of  just going oh my gosh what a great line that was   write the damn thing down put it on your list of  ideas I'm still amazed that nobody has written a   song called "you can't handle the truth" everybody  knows this quote from the great movie A Few Good   Men and nobody's written it yet but you know  what if there was a title if there was a line   in a song that when "you can't handle the truth"  people would all automatically just feel familiar   with the song and I've got to tell you that I've  had several hit songs from lines that I've seen   in movies TV shows they've generated a whole  kind of plot for me that I've then gone on to   sell a bunch of records with so instead of just  going oh what a great line right the thing down   and put it on your list of ideas secondly personal  experience is of course that's going to be one of   the things that we write about the most because  this is something that we feel you know when we   get our hearts broken when we fall in love when  we lose somebody when we find somebody these are   all big moments in our lives and we're writing  about the human condition so when things are   happening to you I would suggest write down your  feelings about what's actually happening and so   you can remember the feeling that you had at that  time and that's also great ammunition for songs   conversations I saw this great t-shirt that once  said I'm not eavesdropping I'm a songwriter this   is research so listen to conversations between  other people obviously within the realms of the   law but also really listen to the conversations  that you're having with other people and listen   to the the way that they say certain things the  way that they express their feelings there's been   again so many lines that I've had that I've turned  into songs from conversations that I've had with   other people and people don't know the general  public don't know that often they're speaking   in wonderful lyrical terms so again write these  things down one of my favorites is going into   a book store or you can go online and look at  bookstores online and look at book titles now   if you think about this the public when they're  looking at book titles are attracted to certain   books just because of a few words written on that  front cover so if the public can be attracted to   a title of a book and inspired to pick it up  and start reading it then think about how that   might be as a song title as well this is a great  place to find different ways of saying things that   really really fire the imagination up so book  titles are great for this and speaking of the   written word newspapers are a great source of  song titles as well especially the really cheap   newspapers with sensationalist headlines what  they do is that the newspaper companies actually   pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every year  to have people do these headlines the wordplay   itself and so you'll often find very familiar  phrases that have been twisted around so they   look familiar however they're twisted around to  have a different meaning and so check out the   newspapers and while you're in the newspaper go  to the horse-racing pages because horse names are   great as well I once saw a great horse name called  hollow heart and immediately I was thinking oh my   gosh that's a great song title I saw another  one called hands of stone and again you don't   always have to know what the song is about but  when something appeals to you then write it down   I still don't know exactly what hands of stone  would be about but it's a great it feels to me   like a great title so hopefully you're not gonna  steal that one and write it yourself so yes go   into the newspapers I would say my biggest source  of inspiration is when I collaborate with people I   used to go into a session and say here are all of  my titles bang bang bang bang and just throw them   all out there and of course we used to be able to  write something but there's nothing as interesting   as real life so when I go into collaboration with  someone before I pick up a guitar before I pick   up a piano what I'll be doing is I will sit down  and just talk to my collaborators about life the   universe and everything and I've had so many  occasions where I've taken the time to do this   and something dramatic has been happening in that  person's life and as we're talking through it I'm   making notes about what's going on in their life  and usually at some point a title will just pop   out and I know that when we write that song that  it's gonna have resonance to the person that I'm   writing with there's going to be a lot of passion  a lot of desire for this to be written from that   other person because everybody wants to express  themselves and my job as a songwriter especially   when I'm collaborating with an artist is to  facilitate their feelings into a song because   I know that if it's something that really matters  to that artist and we write about it they're going   to go back to their record label their manager  and their publish and say I have to release   this song because it's really important to me so  really take time to talk to your collaborators   about life the universe and everything and just  make notes as you go along that's a fantastic   way to to find real life song titles that have  resonance to people the final one is something   called free writing you know when we're sitting  in the collaboration and we're talking to people   we're asking them questions about themselves  it's far easier to do this if we're practiced   are asking the right kind of questions and to do  this it's really important to know ourselves as   well so free writing is an amazing way to get  to know what's going on inside your head and   it's also an incredible way to release all of the  subconscious thoughts that you have and often this   titles to be found in there so let me explain  with free writing this is an exercise where you   sit down with ideally a pen and paper rather than  sitting on a laptop because with a pen and paper   things just seem to float far more easily and  you know that the computers not correcting your   spelling as you're going and putting you off it's  a different kind of thought pattern to actually   using your computer so anyway you sit down with  a piece of paper a blank piece of paper and a pen   and in a silent place if you're sitting on the  tube you can do this but put on something like   his cancelling headphones don't have any music  in the background don't have any TVs any voices   putting words into your mind your brain and  right at the top of the page a suggestion of   a title so one of my go-to is what matters to  me so if you were to write what matters to me   at the top of a piece of paper and then for three  minutes just write and here are the rules of free   writing don't worry about grammar don't worry  about spelling don't worry about punctuation   just write and don't take your pen off the  paper even if you find yourself wanting to   do that and you're running out of things to say  then just say I seem to be running out of things   to say and that will actually keep the gates  open of this stream of conscious so write for   three minutes solid about that and you might be  really surprised about what's really going on   inside your mind I know it sounds a little bit  hippy trippy but I've got to tell you it is an   amazing exercise to do other things that you can  free write about are things like what would I say   to myself is a seven-year-old child or what would  be the last thing I want to say when I leave this   planet how do I want to change the world what  does love mean to me what does life mean to me   what does that mean to me there are so many things  that you might want to ask somebody else but very   rarely ask yourself so I suggest you have a list  of these titles these little headings and maybe   every single day you could do this and find out  what's going on inside your mind believe it or   not you will also come across some incredible  titles that without thinking about it without   really consciously trying to think I must  write a title you're just coming out with   them so it's an amazing way of really getting to  know yourself what I talk to our members about   in terms of all of these generation techniques  of lyrical ideas is to really open work it like   a muscle like when you go to the gym the more  you work a muscle the better it works and with   me it's my obsession I see and hear song titles  absolutely everywhere it's like the sixth sense   you know it's like I see song titles they're  absolutely everywhere they're on Billboard's   they're in adverts in the underground system  on the sides of buses the adverts on TV people   are paying advertising companies thousands  to come up with great one-liners so switch   on this muscle and every day try and think try  and create five brand new lyrical ideas for your   songs they don't necessarily have to end up as  the titles of your songs but they can certainly   be amazing springboards for them so if you do  five new lyrical ideas every single day that's   a hundred and fifty a month okay that is a lot  of song titles every year that you can work on   and this means you need never have writer's block  again so I urge you to try these techniques every   time you're watching TV and movie write down the  ideas the great lines same with books same with   book titles same with the newspapers conversations  life experience eavesdropping on other people's   conversations they are absolutely everywhere so  don't ever come come to me and say I can't think   of an idea it's because you're not looking so get  out there write down five new ideas every day and   at the end of the month you can be looking at  these ideas and pick your favorite ones the ones   that really fire you up write a song post it up on  https://thesongwritingacademy.co.uk/ and say this   came from free writing Martin or this came from  a newspaper I'd love to hear where these go so   this is just one of the many things that we talk  about in https://thesongwritingacademy.co.uk/ and   if you want to find out how to actually take  these ideas and turn them into fully fledged   songs then click on the link below and download  are completely free no strings attached song   writing planner the song planner or you can go  to https://thesongwritingacademy.co.uk/planner   and you can download it from there it's a PDF  that you can use to take this lyrical idea and   then develop it all the way through using a really  simple seven step methodology that will guarantee   that you will never get writer's block again  I urge you to try this and I'm really really   looking forward to hearing the results from  your lyrical ideas that you're finding out   there in the big wide world have great fun with  it and I'm looking forward to hearing the results

Channel: The Songwriting Academy

Views: 185,090

Keywords: How to write songs, generating song ideas, beating writer's block, how to become a songwriter, ed sheeran songwriting tips, john mayer songwriting tips, how to make music, writer's block, songwriting ideas, songwriting tips

Id: 7hxg18EPskk

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 01 2018