Finding Your Process and Exploring Other Processes

How do you write a song? Some folks almost go into a trance. You'll hear people talking about being "in flow". But sometimes the flow slows. That's when it's handy to have many ways to write a song. I call these ways "processes." So let's look at some helpful processes.

Processes List

• Music First - You start improvising on your favorite instrument and see where it leads.

• Lyric / Rap First - You start improvising your words or drafting a lyric on a sheet of paper

• Intuition at Play - You start playing your favorite instrument and improvise a melody or rap or lyric over it.

• Beat / Loop / Groove / Riff First - You start with the beat or a loop or a groove or a riff. This could also be called hook first. You're looking to create the "catchiest" part of the song first

• Jam - You get together with other people and jam until chord, melody, a groove and lyrics emerge.

• Title First - You have a cool title idea and you start writing from there.

• Concept First - You know you want to write a song and you know basically what the Theme is. Then you start brainstorming from there, either in your notebook or with an instrument.

The point is all these process starting points are valid. Sometimes, if you're stuck, it helps to try a different process. In any event, different processes yield different results. All are worth a try at least once.