Writing A Good Song
By Panda wooT (Katy McCool)
My mom, a woman who’s never written lyrics in her life, was the one to give me the best advice about writing a song: “It has to come from something real”. It’s easy to make words rhyme, but the real art is in the exposure of the Pandora’s Box of your soul. I used to think, “But then everyone’s looking into my diary and judging me!” Well, that is true. Yet, the other art about rhymes is that they are easy to turn into riddles- unbreakable by anyone who hasn’t entered that same truth into their diary. So, who are they to judge?
Another important thing that I’ve taught myself over the past 9 years of my songwriting is that no lyrics are bad lyrics. You may not ever use them, but you should NEVER throw them away. Always date them as well. I have a very tall stack of notebooks filled with doodles and lyrics, most of which I’ve never even strummed a chord to. They are the best inspiration I’ve ever found for writing something good. There’s nothing like flipping back in a notebook to a random page, reading those lyrics, and wondering how you’d ever came up with such an epiphany.
Lastly, I have to say how important your relationship with your instruments is. My guitar is my bebe, the piano pulls me into another dimension, and my voice makes my vision complete. I have so much fun using them. They always do what I want them to. If I’m disappointed in the noises they make I know that it is my own damn fault. It only means I need to practice that more. When you hit a snag in your own song, don’t dumb that part down. Only you know how your song goes, and only you can make it sound that way.
To write an epic song you have to challenge yourself, just as in life you have to climb that wall if you want to get to a higher ground. I’ve found that the only person who cares about how good you get at making music is YOU, and the only one who can make that happen is YOU.
!gnidaer rof uoy knahT
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