Songwriting has always been something I have had a high regard for, and I have always been impressed by artists who could write their own music instead of relying on songwriters to do it for them. I have loved music for years, and found inspiration in it. I eventually wanted to learn how to write music of my own.
If I wanted to learn how to write music, I needed to take steps in order to get there and I knew I personally wouldn’t be able to write a good song overnight (I tried that a couple times, and both songs came out really bad). I felt like poetry was the foundation for all music, therefore I should learn all I can about poetry before I try to write a song. After searching the library for books on poetry, I went to Half Price Bookstore to find affordable books on poetry. Out of all the books I bought and looked at, the one book that really stood out to me and I really learned a lot from was The Art and Craft of Poetry by Michael J. Bugeja. That book was and still is my favorite book on poetry, and it explains everything so well and makes it easier to figure out what to write about and how to write it. I still go back to the same book to re-read certain chapters from time to time.
After learning how to write poetry, I continued to write and practice poetry for about a year before I wrote my first song. While learning poetry I would read about the different parts of a song and what the differences were between them instead of just calling everything a “verse”. I didn’t want to rush into writing a song, and I didn’t want to force it especially if I didn’t feel inspired. By the time I came around to writing my first song, I was writing a poem but felt like it would be better expressed in song form. I felt a huge amount of inspiration and felt like that was when I needed to write my first song. As I wrote the song, I didn’t really even have to think too hard about what I was writing; the words seemed to just flow from the pen and onto the paper. My first song is not my best song, I have improved in my songwriting over the years but it was definitely the first song I felt confident about writing.
I still feel waves of inspiration to write a song, and most of my songs are inspired by the Bible. My songs are not considered worship songs, but they are my thoughts and perspectives from a Christian point of view based on the Bible. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to figure out how to write about a topic I feel inspired to write about, but I feel like that is going to happen with anything. I know that as long as I continue to practice, I will continue to improve and become more experienced as the years go by.
Moral of the story? If there is something you love and find interesting, don’t be discouraged by steps you may have to take before you reach your goal. It could take some time, in my case about a year to write my first song. Everyone is different, it may not even take you as long as it took me to write a song. It can apply to anything as long as your patient and continue to work hard to achieve whatever it is your goal may be :).
Below is a link to one of my songs, it’s not my first song(I don’t have that one recorded) but it is one of my early songs that I wrote not too long after my first one.
You’re basically Taylor Swift
[…] shared a link to my favorite how-to poetry book in my blog on songwriting, the book is called The Art and Craft of Poetry. This book really inspired me and I’ve read […]