Songwriting: Songwriting Challenges – Part I

Especially if you often write a lot of songs, it can be difficult to start a new song from scratch. But that is also possible if you don’t write that often and have become a bit rusty. There are many ways to start writing a new song. At the songwriting lessons at the Wisseloord Academy you will learn ways to get rid of this problem from many experienced songwriters.

We will present you with a few ideas so that you can already benefit from them!

First make a whole instrumental

If you normally work from songwriting as a songwriter before you start arranging, it can be interesting to work the other way too. Let go of the principle of the text, the story, and the vocal melodies. Open your DAW and start experimenting with creating an instrumental piece of music. In the beginning you don’t have to focus at all on applying a real song structure. It is important that you first let yourself go completely in arranging the music, let go of all your ideas and try everything that comes to mind. Once you’ve done that, you can take ingredients from all of this to create a song structure. Make sure you leave enough space in the verses, for example, to get creative with your songwriting for the lead vocals. Perhaps the newly created music will bring you new lyrics and melody ideas.

Painting

You can not only hear a well-written song, but also see it as soon as you close your eyes. Just listen to your favorite song in terms of lyrics. Probably the situation, the story is described so well and beautifully that you can just see it in your mind.

What if we did it the other way around? If you start looking at a random painting, you can start thinking about the story behind it. In fact, you can come up with your own story behind the painting. One image or painting can tell a whole story.

You come up with very nice stories and lyrics if you convert this into a song yourself. Find any painting, artwork, or image, write down the story you think is behind your chosen subject and later turn it into a song. An interesting story guaranteed, give it a try!

Movie or series

Almost every movie or series often has one specific song that functions as the title song or theme track. This song often conveys the essence of the play’s story. If you sometimes have trouble coming up with inspiration for a certain concept or story for your song, you could of course get the inspiration from a movie or series. The story is, of course, there for the taking. Take in the story, but also listen to the music that can already be found in it. That way you taste the atmosphere, and you know what fits well with such a storyline. Turn this into your own words and music, and there you go!