Today I completed my challenge to write a song every day for 1005 days. You can listen to all of them on 1005songs.wordpress.com:
I’ve learnt a lot of things from this project. There’s a lot of mystery around the song writing process. Often there is a sense that songs are some magical creation that just appear without any effort – it’s just a gift some people have.
Others song writers feel like they need to lock themselves into a room with coffee and chocolate (or other less legal substances) and emerge three days later with a masterpiece.
I used to worry that one day I would run out of ideas, so I would carefully hoard every idea I ever had because it was my last.
The song a day project has taught me differently. By simply writing a song, any song, every day, I am now able to come up with new ideas very quickly. Being forced to publish one every day took away the agonising over thinking that often paralyses us, and made me go with my instinct.
Often we can judge an idea before its really had a chance. By removing the editing step from the song writing process I’ve found that ideas that I might have dismissed have grown into something interesting.
I’ve also learnt to write a song anywhere, at any time of day, regardless of interuptions, noise and distraction. I have also learnt to prioritise doing what I enjoy – writing songs – rather than putting it off until there’s no chores that need doing (becuase that’s never).
If you write songs, or you would like to get better at expressing yourself creatively, here are some tips:
- Make time every day to make something.
- Finishing is more important than getting every detail right – you can always change it, or do it again.
- Trust your intuition and don’t overthink it.
- Don’t be afraid to make “bad” things. You can just move on if you don’t like it.
- If you can’t find a new idea, plagiarise yourself.
One of these songs has already made it onto streaming services. Some of the others will follow in time.
