What Advice Would You Give Your Younger Self About Songwriting?

I asked the Speed Songwriting Facebook community what advice you would give your younger self about songwriting.

Here are some of their best answers...

Study Classical music 🎶 because most every good musical idea was done in some fashion in the 18th and 19th century.
-Dale Stewart

Just write! Good or bad doesn't matter. Think about it. If someone writes 3 good songs out of 10, they're considered a genius.
Randy Matthews-

Don’t trash a song idea because it “sounds like so and so’s song” Famous songwriter once told me “ we all borrow ideas from someone else” 😀
-Howard Turner

Just do it!
John Lennon once was asked how he wrote so many great songs
He replied “cos we wrote so many crap ones first!”
-Ben Whiting

Stay away from the doubters and negative people
-Mark Bennett

The first draft is not the final draft.
-Randy Harris

Listen to your work like it was someone else’s. Record yourself constantly. Don’t treat every idea like it’s the last one you’ll ever have.
Eric Blackmore-

Depends on if you're writing for hits or for yourself. If it's hits and hooks, then approach it from a fans perspective. Simple sells. If you are writing from a personal creative place and don't care, then free reign.
-Bruce Florence

It's not about the recording or the production. It's the marriage between melody, harmony, and lyrics. The best songs can be sung acapella. 🙂
-Dave Martins

Never give up on writing. To turn your sadness and anger and happiness and all emotions into songs. You don’t write music for the money you do it cause it makes your soul happy and helps others around you.
-Dana Sauvan

Write everything down. Good, bad and awful. Keep everything. The number of times I’ve needed a verse or a line for a new song and found it among pages that I’d written earlier and never used.
-Clive Culbertson

Write, write, and write some more! Then put them away to revisit when you’re mature, and experience and knowledge replace raw feelings and fearlessness!
-Anastasia Bennington Shields

Start doing it NOW! Don’t put it off. Do it every day.
-Steven Huff

Get out of your own way. Just do it and learn as you go.
-Debbie Joy Lundrigan

Write as much down daily as you can.. keep a journal of ideas and phrases
-Mal O'Neill

Write about everything you see and hear. Keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t throw any ideas away.
-Susan Broadfoot

Just play, write and record all the time. Record everything
-Renante J SugbuSoundz

'Done' is better than 'perfect'
-Mark Vignati

Quantity over Quality will eventually yield Quality. And stop wasting time on stupid stuff that you could spend writing, playing etc
-Jeff Hamm

Keep writing, you are learning, the next one will be better
-Wayne O'Boogie

Write, do it now. Get out all of the bad stuff. Everyone has to purge all of their bad stuff first.
-Ken Johnson

Try not to take yourself too seriously and don’t think about what others would think of your writing.
-Steve Wilsford

Dare to suck, and write a song response to another song
-V Shane Colclough

1,4,5 and sometimes 6m
-Dave Petsch

Start now. Get the bad ones out early so the good ones have a chance.
-Larry Vorwerck

Be fearless. #speedsongwriting #songwritinginspiration

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