It's funny, being a songwriter myself, I always find that
writing songs can sometimes be a chore. But why does it feel
this way? Isn't this supposed to be my passion? Isn't this
supposed to be something that I never get bored of?

… well, not exactly. Everything gets boring once in a while,
even the things that you’re most passionate about. So every so
often I like to take the lazy man's route to doing things. And
surprisingly, I often produce some very good results!

So listen up. If you newbie at songwriting, or even if you have
been at it for a while -- I'm going to a couple of simple tricks
that will help you start the writing process within minutes.

Here we go…

1) Review a particular situation in your day. It could be at
work, during your travels, or at home. It could be with your
workmates, your family or your friends. Just any situation that
affected you in either a positive or negative way.

An example of this would be "when you're at work, your boss
just keeps hounding you. But, the only thing that keeps you
going throughout the day is that you know that somebody in the
office has a crush on you"

(the above is a very dry example… but try to work with me
here!)

2) Write down as many words as you can think of that relate to
your situation.

Let's follow the example from earlier on:

anger, pain, sad, happy, excitement, nervousness, anxious,
misery, impatience, relaxation, goofy, sophisticated, annoying,
frustrating, antagonising, fancy, sexy, cool, pretty, smile,
etc, etc… you get the point :-)

3) Write down random short sentences about your situation
including the words that you mentioned him step 2. So let's
continue in our little experiment…

“ the way he talked to me really angers me”
“ if only he knew the pain I suffered inside”
“ when I see her pretty eyes light up it makes me smile”
“ I have to act cool and sophisticated -- don't want to get
frustrated”
“ he doesn't know what makes my day go by”
“ don't want to be in this misery for much longer”

Etc, etc. at this point it's important to note that you don't
have to use all the words that you mentioned earlier in step
two. As you can see I’ve even started to make up my own lines
*without* any of the words too! Sometimes, I'm rhyming the words
without even realizing. And this is exactly where the magic
starts to happen…

You can easily turn this idea into a full-fledged song. Use
rhymezone.com to help you find words that rhyme… and also other
related words as well.

My example was very average and simplified -- but you can use
an example that's a little more dramatic. You should really get
wild with your ideas! Really, just let loose.

4) Listen to a ‘backing track’ (an instrumental of a song) that
you have NO CLUE about. While it’s playing, make up a melody.
Doesn’t have to be perfect, just create a melody on the fly. You
don’t have to sing any lyrics either. Just ‘humm’ or ‘laaa’ a
tune out until you’re hearts content.

Why do this? This is an exercise that will subconsciously
preparing you to create melodies for you’re own chord sequences
in the next step.

5) Create a SIMPLE chord progression on the guitar or keyboard.
When I say simple, I mean *simple*. Maybe TWO chords for the
verse and TWO chords for the chorus. Now create a melody on top
of that chord progression. Record the song on tape. There you
have it.

NOTE: if you don’t play an instrument, then hook up with
someone who does. After all, you pretty much have half the song
now :-)

Still think it’s difficult conceiving an idea? Want to know
more? I have *plenty more* that I want to share with you…