Songwriting Tips: Your Mindset [VIDEO]

by Mary Shaw | September 8, 2010 | Add Comment

This is the first in our “Back to Basics” series of songwriting tips videos and covers the importance of your mindset as a songwriter. Hopefully this video will help you get motivated to expect the muse, make room for it, and work your craft. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Video Transcript

Hi there, this is Mary Shaw from servethesong.net, and today I want to talk a little bit about how important it is to have the proper mindset as a songwriter. There’s three specific things I’d like to talk to you about.

The first is you need to expect the muse. The second is you need to make room for it. And the third is you gotta work it.

So, what does expect the muse mean? Well, you want to be in a relaxed state of mind if you’re going to start a songwriting session. If you had a really tough day at work, or your kids are making a lot of noise, or you’re experiencing any kind of stress, you want to try to get away from that if possible before you start your songwriting session. You want to just kind of clear the space. You need to approach your songwriting sessions in a relaxed state of mind. And you need to expect that muse to come.

Once you’re in a good space, you’ve cleared your mind of all distractions, of the workday, of anything that may have happened that gets in the way of that wonderful, artistic muse, you’re ready to go. You just clear that space. And that means being relaxed and also in a state of positive expectation. So expect the muse and you’ll write better songs.

Now secondly, once you’re in that relaxed state of mind, you need to make room for it. And what that means is you want to have a creative space. I’ve written about this in my newsletter, but you either want to have your own home studio, and if you’re lucky enough to have that, that’s great. But whether or not you have a studio doesn’t really matter. You need a place that you go to write songs.

So that could be your kitchen table, it could be your living room, it could be a spare bedroom, it could be just in the back yard. We’ll be doing some videos outside later on in this series and… just wherever it is where you feel comfortable and you can relax into your songwriting session. You make that space and then you make time to be there.

So expect the muse, make room for it, and once you’ve done those two things it’s time to work it. No matter where you are in your songwriting efforts, if you’re just doing it for self-expression, if you want to come up with something fun for a friend’s wedding, or for your best friend, or your husband or wife or significant other… or even if you want to get something published in film and television or you want that record deal, you have to put the time in. You have to work your craft.

So get into that relaxed great state of mind, expect the muse, make a place for it, and get to work. Whether that’s with a notebook and your instrument, or however it is you approach your songwriting. Whether or not you’re singing into a tape recorder, get to work.

The more time you put into your studio, the more time you put into your creative place, the more time you get to know how you approach your songwriting and how you do your process, it will get easier and easier and easier. You will write more songs, and you will write great songs.

To sum up, you want to expect the muse, you want to make room for it, and then you want to work it. So that’s all I wanted to talk about today. I hope you found that helpful.

We’ve got more things on the way at Serve The Song. We’re going to be doing a Back To Basics series of songwriting tips videos. We’ll talk about chord progressions, we’ll talk about lyrics, and things that will help you get in the groove.

So I hope you found that helpful. For more tips, videos like this and articles please go to servethesong.net. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you soon.

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