Hello All

[thestig220]

After joining the Air Force, I seemed to have lost that young creativity and naievity that made me a decent lyricist in high school.. I guess now I am just hoping to rekindle it. I have new motivations in life, especially after meeting my now Fiancee' Courtney. I want to write a song for her, and I guess now I am just trying to seek help to write it. Nice meeting Yall!

[john]

Welcome to Songstuff

Well it is good that you at least see that rekindling may not be straight forward. What you describe can often happen to people as they move through their twenties and thirties and beyond anyway, never mind something quite so transformative as the military. The military trains, trains and trains to make tasks as un-emotional and reflexive as possible, quite the opposite of the needs of songwriter.

Experience alone can leave us feeling that our experience has made us grow beyond youthful naivety. We learn to look back more with hindsight than we had as teens, less believing in silver linings, and with a growing realization that wherever we tread, many others gave gone before.

So we often censure our ideas far more before we even start writing, thinking a topic is cliche, or done to death or unbelieavable or so common place that people will not want to hear it.

But that is our cynicism talking. We have learnt to be guarded in what we say out loud.

The fact is it is a trick of the mind that what we could say is somehow less valid.

Let me instead say that the discipline you learnt in the military will stand you in good stead. Becoming a better writer is about learning, drive and discipline... plus some good insights into what to improve and how.

It's also about creativity and emotions. You'll need to get used to expressing both, but you probably already know that.

Life gives us plenty of experience of many kinds to draw on. The trick is to let it play out by not stopping ourselves from exploring emotions and topics, by writing and committing to getting ideas down, learning to develop them and polish them, and that means taking some risks... simply to connect and learn.

Topic wise your life is no doubt full of rich inspiration. Don't fool yourself that people don't want to hear it. They do. Have they heard people talk on the topic before? Almost certainly yes. Is that a bad thing? No. I isn't.

How many love songs have been written? Millions. A million shades an perspectives. However the problem isn't about the topic, or even the perspective, though some are no doubt more interesting than others. It is all about being creative in how you express yourself, and learning how to connect with listeners so that you keep improving with every song you write.

It sure isn't anything instant. The more you listen and consider feedback, the more you try to understand what works, what doesn't and why, the more you really want to connect, the better, as they are all good attributes in a decent songwriter. They all help nurture one thing very well - awareness.

Good luck with journey. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine.

[Janeva]

Hi

 

Welcome to Songstuff

 

Jan