I didn’t think I even liked Auto-Tune, the studio production trick used to create robotic-sounding voice textures on club and dance tracks.

Then I found this fateful video clip on YouTube that uses auto-tune to turn Obama’s ordinary speech into song. At that moment, my friends, I confess… Auto-Tune won my heart.

Check it.

Damn! Obama can sing! I bet he didn’t know he was a songwriting genius.

And I bet he didn’t know he was a songwriting teacher, either.

Unintentional Collaborators

This video is just a more literal version of a process that many songwriters use every day: taking ordinary lines of speech, arranging them in patterns that rhyme, and setting them to melody. Have you ever heard somebody blurt out an amazing idea for a chorus while you’re standing in the grocery checkout line? Take their line, write it down, run home to the guitar or piano, and Auto-Tune it the old-fashioned way (by actually singing).

That person in the grocery store doesn’t know it, but they’re your collaborator. They’re a songwriting expert! Actually anyone you read, hear, or speak to during a typical day is full of ideas. Raw song material is everywhere! It’s in the newspaper. It’s in magazines. It’s in novels. It’s in the air.

Listen to everyone around you like they’re songwriting experts.

The grocery clerk?

Expert.

Mailman?

Expert.

Funny sign?

Expert.

Paper headlines?

Expert.

The president?

…

…

…

…expert.

Related Articles and Links

• The genius team behind Obama’s unintentional songwriting
• Object Writing: Diving Deep for Song Ideas
• Stepping Back: an Introduction to Rewriting Songs