How To Get Better At Writing Songs (3 Songwriting Tips For Beginners)

After beginning to write music for a little while, you might be wondering "how do I get better at writing songs?" Which is totally natural, and a good indicator that you enjoy this stuff! Today, I want to share my "Betterment Blueprint" with you. These are the best 3 steps you could take going forward, in order to improve yourself as a songwriter / producer (in my opinion) and move from the beginner to intermediate realm of creating your own songs.

Step 1: Write More Songs

The best way to write better songs, is to write more of them. Earth shattering, right? There's just no way around it, the best path to make better songs is traveled by committing to make more songs on a consistent basis. The only songs you don't grow from, are the songs you don't make. This means nothing is wasted. Every time you create something, you're practicing. Even if the end product doesn't sound the way you had in your head, that doesn't mean you didn't make any progress at all. I've been guilty of this thinking, and it robs you of enjoying the process. One step at a time, 1% better with each song. Ira Glass sums this up perfectly in the video clip I share, he says there's this "gap" between your current ability level and what you hear in your head. The only way to close this gap is by "creating a large volume of work." By committing to a schedule and creating deadlines of daily, weekly or monthly songs you make. The gap is totally in your control to close. So go make, and most importantly, FINISH songs!

Step 2: Create More, Consume Less

We've already admitted that to get better at writing songs we have to actually make songs. And a lot of them. This is going to require additional time in our days, weeks and months to accomplish. This can sound daunting because any spare time we have to be creative is already limited. I think there is a way to get back some of this precious creative time, and anyone in any situation can do it. Stop consuming so much information... instead, spend that time on practicing things. Tutorial overwhelm is real. The pieces of content are never ending, and a new teacher/guru/coach seems to pop up every day (myself included– hey there, nice to meet you! 🙃). It leaves us paralyzed, because we're trying to execute on like 17 different strategies and ways of doing things. We need to focus on creating and practicing things WAY more than loading up on all the information, tutorials and best practices out there. I suggest limiting the number of teachers you learn from, and only taking in new information after the last thing you learned was practiced at least once. If this means we need to part ways for a while, no hard feelings at all! I want you to succeed way more than I want you to watch my videos. Maybe we can catch up someday in the future.

Step 3: The Ultimate Hack | Pillars Over Pieces

Brace yourself, this is some intermediate level thinking: not everything you hear in a song is responsible for its awesomeness. Just let that sink in for a second. There are elements of songs that carry more weight than others. There are elements most responsible for how the average listener interprets a "pro sounding track." Things that don't carry much weight, if any at all, are things like finding the right reverb. Or adjusting the time of a delay. Things like "realistic sounding" VSTs (virtual instruments) and the latest production fx. These things are cool and I'll totally nerd out with you over them as a fellow traveler in the song-making world. But if we focus more on these kinds of "pieces," over the "pillars," we are really going to slow down our ability to progress. The pillars are things like vocal performance, melody, the concept, rhythm, etc. These are the heavy hitters. The average listener can't feel the right reverb, but they can feel a vocal performance. They can't feel the difference in VST sounds (which are totally subjective anyway), but they can feel the lack of rhythm. Again, these are some next level thoughts – but the ultimate hack is spending your time learning about and practicing the pillars instead of the pieces for a while. Since the pillars carry more weight, you'll notice your songs getting better faster because you aren't getting side tracked with all these less important things.

I hope you can see the compounding effect of this Betterment Blueprint. We’ve decided to write more songs, which means we need to spend less time consuming and more time creating. And in our time creating, we’re going to shift our focus to improving the elements of song making that carry the most weight.

If you’d like a system to help you accomplish this, download my free guide to finishing songs below. It’s your companion guide to all of this. It’s your training system, and it’s free. It’ll help you get that focused practice in, which will lead to more songs, which means more opportunities to make your best song yet!

You've got this!

– Nathan