The 7 skills of Songwriting

Hi there, nice to meet you. My name is Peter, and I am making a new program for singer songwriters, giving out free tips & tricks along the way. This is not really for the experienced singer songwriters, who finish songs with no problems along the way. Feel free to chip-in though.

This is for the ones who have started and find it hard to complete creating  their own song. Or those who would like to learn different skills within this process. Or just want to see where we can go with this. ;-)

How did I think of that?

Having worked with  singer songwriters in the last couple of years, I noticed a few specific similarities with all of them. They all wanted to finish their songs, but they didn't always know how to achieve that goal. Besides missing several techniques from different stages of songwriting, they had difficulty to overcome their insecurities. The same applies from the recording point of view.

This made them unsure, and they started to second guess their choices. ​
At some point, it became that 'BIG' thing, with the result of wanting to quit.  This so called writer's block is a well known outcome, that is the result of a build-up from the earlier mentioned process. Many singer songwriters will recognize this.

Of course it didn't start out like that,  but at some point, gently and very sneaky it became this way. The creative flow stopped. 
​​I am not a psychologist, let me make that clear first. I do have years of experience on guiding, coaching and training people in new skills, in a variety of workplaces and skill sets.

'When in coaching, I came across a situation, where the employee could have used that technique on a few occasions to get a job done, but didn't, I would ask them about it, and tested if they knew how to use it'.

Let me take you back to my corporate experience for a moment. I found that the most common things that happen along the way are tracked back to basic knowledge of understanding how to improve certain techniques. And in addition, on how to re-apply these techniques that don't seem to be very effective. At first, the techniques are being dismissed  most of the time as not valuable, for different reasons. For example: A technique is hard to master, and seems not needed to get the job done, so they stopped using it. When in coaching, I came across a situation, where the employee could have used a certain technique on a specific occasion to get a job done, but didn't, I would ask him about it, and tested if he knew how to use it. When he was confronted with not applying a learned technique, not able to explain why, he wanted to talk his way out of it with a large variety of reasons. It turned out he did not know how to apply the technique properly. When I asked how come, we found out he really wanted to get the results, but without putting in the effort. Within the coaching sessions, I asked if he would be open to learn and apply the technique again if I could guarantee the result. If the answer was yes, I gave him  the chance to learn and apply the techniques again and even helped him with extra training and time in becoming successful at the technique. And when he really saw the success he got with adding another technique to his skills set, he thanked me for pushing him and giving him the trust and time to apply the new skill. Sometimes he was a she :-) 

But how does the above apply to songwriting? 

If you are coming to work with me on your songwriting, I will not be so strict as I just described above (unless you want me to. LOL). 
We have the same goal, and that is developing your skills as well as learning new techniques. We first start with analyzing what you already know and apply in your songwriting process. This way you get clear where you're at. And you know right away, what you can do to improve on. 
So, are you ready to find out what sections I'll be guiding you on? Here they are:

• A: Lyrics
• B: Melody
• C: Chord Progression
• D: Rhythm
• E: Genre
• F: Sound
• G: Inspiration

I am curious to find out which sections you use to write your song with. If you use them all, you are getting your song finished, I am sure of that. It would be nice if you drop a comment and a link below about the sections you use or a song you already finished. Or a question about where you got stuck. I'm happy to take some time to listen to your song and respond. I might even share your work with others, so you'll get more fans along the way. That would be awesome, right?

Back to my program: you will get an extensive BLOG of every section, so you can complete writing your own song. If you would like to be notified of new BLOG releases, feel free to sign up for my newsletter.

In addition, I will be providing 7 tips per section and releasing those on my Social Media platforms. If you would like to see what I am going to do, then follow me on Facebook or Instagram. I have started on TikTok too, but want to be more active here, so find out by following me.

Thanks for reading this. Drop a comment below if you like.
(could your comment  be tip 1 of the section: A: Lyrics ???)