How often do you write a new song?

[ylyoungblood]

Over the years I have written hundreds of songs, but I can spit them out like crazy as long as life is really sucking at the time, but when I'm happy or content in my life, I have a very hard time writing a song. I am working on my first album, and most of my arrangements are based on songs I wrote decades ago (when life was REALLY sucking), but I'd like some fresh stuff for it, too. Problem is, life is good right now. 

Maybe a silly question, but how many songs does the average songwriter write in, say, a month? Do you schedule sessions to write, or do they just come to you randomly? Do you have to be in a certain mood? Do you have a ritual to prepare for writing a song?

I haven't written a song in over six months, until I finally forced one out of myself the other day.

[PleaseKeepUpright]

Yeah, my quota is usually a song per month. There was a time after me and my band recorded our very mediocre second album, during July of 2015, that I wrote around five songs in a single month. That was the beginning of me getting into composing psychedelic and experimental music, and I just wanted to try everything. That was the largest number of songs I wrote in a given month, with me putting together one every week. Four of those ended up on Iridescence and one I gave to our first EP, Transcendent. Granted, after that it was back to a song a month and has more or less stayed that way since. Sometimes I'll get two in month, sometimes there will be a month where I don't write anything, but usually by the end of the year I've written and completed somewhere around 10-14 tracks.

 

I'll note, I've been writing roughly one song a month as per usual, but I find for the past three months I've been scrapping songs midway through working on them. Personally, I think this was because I was being overambitious about my band's upcoming fourth album. Elytra is gonna be 13 tracks, and we've recorded 11 of them already. Both John and I have just one more song each to write for it, and I must've burned through three different ideas for my last track, got halfway through recording my parts for them, and then said "this is shit" and threw it out a window. This not only drives me more insane as I try to compose something "as good as" the rest of the album, but it also postpones its release more and more. I think this is over now, luckily, considering I'm actually finishing up a track that I have consistently liked, but if this over-obsessive quality control mentality keeps up, I fear my frequency of writing might slow down.

[Just1L]

It all depends on how much time I have to do it. So I don't do it very often. I do however have a fairly large amount of songs, chorus', hooks and lyrics flowing in my head constantly. Which is part of the process for me. I'd say I have about 7 or 8 that I've constantly been playing in my mind over the past 5 or so years. Just waiting to be produced.

[Rudi]

only when I have to. Rarely finish one unless I plan to record.

[Pahchisme Plaid]

I am really inconsistent in how frequently I pop out a song and for me, I have to clarify, that usually isn't a completed song because I have only emerging guitar skills and it takes me far longer to put music to my songs than it does for me to write and put melody to them.  That's a bit of a frustration to me.  I find that I have something similar to you that affects how I put out songs and that's time.  Songwriting is an enjoyable thing for me and I want it to be a leisure activity, yet I want to keep my skills primed, so I write even under not relaxed conditions.  What I consider to be my most quality writes came out of a vacation at a camp while I was sitting on the dock soaking up sun.  Its that sort of thing where I've heard people say that songs come to them when they go to bed at night.  Well, I'm of the opinion that the reason for that is that at night is when activity stops long enough to let your mind roam.  Such it is with me.  I do my best work when I've had sufficient downtime.  That's not to say my most work, that's to say my best work.

 

My most frequent work comes out of seasonal challenges.  These seasons happen to be during times of the year that I (at least partially) do not have to work 8-3 and transport and attend sporting events and concerts and competitions from 3 to whenever.  One I started two seasons ago, the other I started one season ago.  One of them is in February (I had most of February off from work) and the challenge is to write 14 songs in 28 days and the other is July to October (school vacation July to August) and the challenge is to write 50 songs in 90 days.  For some reason, a challenge works for me.  It gets me writing.  For two seasons, I met the quota of 14 songs in 28 days and for one season, not quite 50 songs, but close.  Those could be at any stage from just lyrics, to lyrics and melody, to a song with lyrics, melody and music.  

 

In between I probably pop out between 3-7 a month, depending on whether or not I'm working.  I'm not very consistent.

I had some decent emerging guitar skills last year, but when I started working a grant supplied job, it left me little mental and physical energy and time to practice and I'm afraid my skills have suffered.  

[MikeRobinson]

If possible, at least once a day.  Sometime, several times a day.

 

My iPhone ... and, thus, my Mac ... is full of "Voice Memos" of various inspirations that have wandered past my brain.  And, in the very best tradition of every field biologist, I have "stuck a pin through each one of them, and speared them onto a board."

 

 

I plug in my phone next to my bed, and, whenever I am half-awake from a dream and reach for it to record "another something" even while I am half-awake, my wife graciously pretends not to wake up.  (As do I, when she does exactly the same ...)

 

Each of these in due time gets "at least, the preliminary 'treatment.'"

 

[gradual]

How often do I write...I don't have a definitive answer to that question, because there's so little consistency to my routine. How often I finish a song is a different story. I can say on average every three months is how often I finish one. And that's from a song's inception, all the way through sitting down and recording and mixing it in my DAW, because I'm always making little adjustments to it as I go. I wish it took me less time, but becuase I have a full time job, most of my music making happens on the weekends.

 

Because finishing just one takes me so long, I tend to focus on only one project at a time. So usually I find little reason to write a whole bunch of them at once. When I've finished my last one is when I begin thinking, "Hey I haven't written one in a while, better get to it again." That's when I pull out my notebook and start working on lyrics. (I'm a lyrics-first guy.) 

 

I can't really relate to the notion of finding it difficult to write when happy. For me, that's the easiest time to write. Not that I necessarily have to be Happy with a capital H, but I do have to feel calm and balanced. When I'm feeling too bad or too negative, I find it hard to focus. Maybe it's because I've never used songwriting as therapy, or as a way to purge my innermost feelings. For me it's more like building something. I'm more interested in the craft side of it. I may use bits of my life for lyric content if I think it'll make a song work. If not, I'll just make stuff up (which inevitably will be filtered through my own life and experiences, so they're always gonna be about me in some way, whether I like it or not).

 

 

[Ray888]

I mainly write when I receive a melody that inspires me. I more or less stopped writing lyrics on their own a while ago although I do get a lot of lyrics running through my brain but rarely write them down nowadays. I find it much easier to craft a lyric to a melody that grabs my attention and what I mean by that is I can feel the lyric and subject matter the music and melody will underpin. I like to be on my own in my studio and I will always leave my phone outside so that I can quietly meditate myself into the listening zone without any distractions. 

 

I receive many melodies on a weekly basis and in different music genres but I can't write to them all so have to be selective where I put my energies because I wear a few other hats that keep me pretty busy. Sometimes I will write several in a week and other times I may only write one within the space of a month or two. Like some other writers I sometimes have to put a melody on the shelf for a while until I feel in the right zone to craft it. From the year 2000 I went for a period of 11 years without writing a single song because I had retired in 2000 due to an emotional trauma and never thought that I would ever pick up a pen again. Circumstances brought me back to the industry in mid 2011 and I have been co-writing ever since. I think that each individual writes according to how driven they are at any particular time in their life. I know of one lyricist who is extremely prolific who completes one or two every day.

[dislocatedlove]

I religiously write daily, but that's definitely not suggesting that every day is as fruitful as the good days. Whilst my rate of composition is a constant, how long it takes is forever changing. Sometimes i can write and record a full band rock song in 2/3 hours and other times i'll labour for six hours over a simple singer/songwriter type affair. I'm definitely an advocate of the notion that songwriters should be writing every single day, no matter how little, to keep those claws sharpened.

[DaveKell]

My most prolific writing spurts are drug induced. Wait, what did he say!! Not what you might think. Our second son was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder while in kindergarten. While that has been a controversial diagnosis that is often criticized, my wife was a kindergarten teacher also in his same school and was in total agreement with it. I should add that his behavioral issues evaporated on the medication and he went all through school always near the top of his class, graduating 6th out of a class of about 200 kids. I objected to the diagnosis and took an active part in questioning the doctor and reading all the literature. I recognized nearly all of the same traits in myself used to diagnose ADD and also learned it can be largely hereditary. So, my doctor let me try out the stimulant medication for it. I gave it up very soon because of how it throttled my heart.

 

About a year ago I did more research for myself because of my rampant forgetfulness and inability to concentrate. I was intrigued by one paper I read on how some adults are prescribed a drug called Provigil for Add which is not stimulating at all. It's also said to be the drug that was the fictional Limitless pill inspiration for the Bradley Cooper movie of the same name. I asked my doctor about it and he readily prescribed it for me. I didn't become a superman like the guy did on the Limitless tv show, but every area I struggled with all my life vastly improved. I learned that trauma doctors in hospital routinely use it for the long shifts they work under great stress. Also the US Air Force gives it to fighter pilots and others flying long distances. It's also rampant among silicon valley employees, many of them claiming they had their most innovative ideas while taking it. Also it was reported Hillary Clinton had her staff research it during her campaign for President. I'm assuming she never started taking it.

 

For me, it has literally caused ideas to flow at at the speed of light and many moments where I couldn't believe the songs I had written. I write in minutes instead of hours usually. I recommended it to a friend who was a retired songwriter and the first thing he did was compose a musical that I think is being considered for production. It's just that good, for me at least. Some people get no benefit from it. So there ya have it, I write under the influence! Best part is no side effects.

[songbird52]

Whenever I spend the whole day alone, I probably write at least part of a song. I spend a lot of time practicing singing and playing the songs I have already written, and during that time I often get ideas for new ones.

 

And I also go back to old songs and re-write them, or finish them if they were never finished.

 

Spending time alone is really the main thing, for me. I never try to write songs, because I can't do it by trying. The ideas have to just come to me. I usually hear at least part of the song.

 

Because I am retired, or semi-retired, I get to be home alone a lot. That is the key to writing songs, for me. It probably also helps to be sad. I lost a very close friend recently and that inspired a lot of sad songs.

 

It also helps to have chances to perform the songs I write, so I play at a lot of open mics. Especially songwriter open mics. I don't want to repeat the same songs, so I feel motivated to keep writing new ones for the next open mic. Not that I "try" to write them, but I am open to them.

 

Getting approval for my songs also seems to be a motivator. But for most of my life, I never performed, so I never got any approval, and I wrote them anyway. But I write a lot more songs now than I used to. Partly because of having more time, and partly because I like to perform and I love it when someone appreciates a song I wrote.

 

 

[Driftwood]

     You will probably get quite a few viewpoints on how to get yourself in the frame of mind of writing, but first I ask, why the dead line? And, how many songs are you needing to complete your project? Are you open to recording other peoples songs? And I mean people within this community? Or is collaborating off the table?

    If you want to maintain the self contained artist thing, I get it. But writing songs shouldn't be looked upon as a griddle to bun proposition. This is something that you're putting your name on and releasing to the public in some form or fashion(I suspect). Why cheapen it with forced songwriting?

    I kinda chuckled and could relate as far as coming up with material during uncertain times in my life too. I get that.😄 But perhaps if you can, try drawing upon those experiences back then to mine even more material. Think of the tension and strain and uncertainty you were feeling. Also, look at subjects or plots for story telling that you might not of tried before. Sometimes that will jar loose a groove or melody that was maybe in your subconscious but never shown itself til something you thought about unearthed it.

   Also, I dont know your method or instrument you play musically, but I found going from guitar to keyboards or piano can give you a different perspective too as far as coming up with melodies.

  As far as inspiration, it's not lost on me to listen to music I love. What better way to have an "ah ha" moment than listen to a song you like and discover something new about it.

  Anyways, if you play in a band, maybe ask band members to co-write. You never know.....