Finding the Kink in Your Song Hose, Part 2: Make Sure the Hose is Attached

In the previous post we looked at some ways to maintain a steady stream of new song ideas.

Today we’re going to examine some common process problems. Process problems are obstacles that don’t arise from the song itself, but from organization issues or other distractions.

The real key, from start to finish, is to stay organized and conscious of what’s in your own pipeline.

1. Make sure the hose is attached.

That’s right, it’s the return of the dreaded hose metaphor!

Now I hate to state the obvious here, but you’ll want to make sure the hose is attached to the faucet before you turn on the water, right? Right.

Even if you get 5,713 great song ideas every day, they’re no good unless you capture them and start channeling them in the right direction.

Now, many of you have read this next bit of advice over and over. So have I. But it’s worth repeating: ideas seldom come when it’s perfectly convenient. Make sure you write them down immediately.

It’s amazing how quickly you can go from telling yourself, “Yeah, I’ll write that down in a second” to “Oh no, I had an idea earlier today. It was brilliant. What was it?!” Often by then the idea is gone forever.

Every songwriter has a different method for recording ideas. Some use Google Docs, some keep computer files, some use notebooks. The medium doesn’t matter—what’s important is that you have a way to quickly capture ideas and then file them away in a centralized place that’s easy to revisit.

Keep drafts separate from your idea file.

As soon as an idea begins to take on more material, you’ll want to move it from your idea file elsewhere. Give the burgeoning draft its own folder (physical or digital) and keep all the related materials together.

Maintain a “Drafts in Progress” list

If you’re the kind of songwriter who writes lots of songs at once (and most are), I think you should also consider keeping a “Drafts in Progress” list of titles. That way you can tell at a glance what’s in the pipeline and what needs work.

I know this seems like a simple idea, but I’ve found that unless I keep a master list of songs in progress and set times to revisit that list, most songs stall indefinitely and I end up with dozens of fragments that go nowhere.

When a song is finally complete, just cross it off .

Collect finished songs together in one place.

Finally, when you finish a song, write its title on a list of completed works—or put it in a binder with your other finished songs.

I hope you’re not as neurotic as I am, but this is another place where I’ve failed many times. Once I finish writing a song, I lose much of my excitement for it and, unless I keep track of completed works, I get distracted by new ideas and never revisit what’s finished.

So oddly enough, I’ve finished lots of songs that never saw daylight because they were finished and I never exercised enough discipline to record them. Keeping a list of finished songs is a great way to stay conscious of what’s ready to record—and with all those titles listed in one place, it becomes much easier to see the potential for collecting certain songs together as an album or song cycle.

Don’t hide your songs from yourself.

For years I was extremely disorganized, with song fragments everywhere. They were scattered throughout notebooks (which were also full of other writings), scribbled on envelopes and scraps of paper,  and they were all over my hard drive with no rhyme or reason. My audio files were also scattered everywhere and very poorly labeled: “file000.mp3, file001.mp3, file002.mp3”… you get the idea.

If you don’t give each project a clear location and keep tabs on it, how can you ever begin to prioritize your own songs and decide what to work on? Keeping things neat is one step toward making the creative process less overwhelming and more manageable.

Beware: your medium can affect your results.

• Songwriting notebooks tend to get crowded. Please feel free to rip out pages when you’re singling out one song to work on. With that page freed, it has room to breathe and grow.
• You perfectionists out there may feel tempted to keep your draft pages neat and clean, to the point where you’re afraid to write anything down for fear that it’ll end up getting crossed out. Loosen up! Use a lyric palette, and don’t be afraid to make a mess of that palette.
• Consider using index cards to draft your songs.
• Keep all your songwriting materials together in one place if you can. Songwriting is full of challenges already—why make it any more complicated?

Focus.

Finally, the best way to avoid process problems and stay focused on the song is to eliminate as many distractions as possible. Beware televisions, smartphones, computers with internet connections, video games, and so on. I’m not suggesting you eliminate all those things from your life—just keep them from intruding on your art.

In closing

Now that we’ve looked at some very common process problems, we can start tackling common obstacles that arise from the actual writing of a song.

After all, starting a song is the easy and most exciting part. The true test comes when you attempt to finish a song.

next up: 13 Ways to Round Out an Incomplete Lyric