Make Your Songwriting Practice And Study Sessions Count!

Posted by orlando5 in August 19th, 2008

If you’re teaching yourself to learn songwriting or improve your songwriting skills it’s wise to implement some type of structured plan on how to reach your goals quickly. This will ensure you get the most out of every practice or study session.

You can actually create a detailed plan weeks at a time and actually have an idea of where you’ll be as far as progress during a certain time frame. The easiest way to plan what you need to learn is to find great songwriting books such as The Craft of Lyric Writing (for lyrics) and Writing Music For Hit Songs (for music), and take notes, writing down important principles that make up a song such as “song forms,” “rhyming,” and “diatonic chords in all the different keys.”

For example, if I were a beginner songwriter looking to learn guitar or piano as well as learning songwriting basics, I wold come up with a realistic weekly schedule as follows using 1 hour sessions:

Monday

(Songwriting - Learn song forms) 30 min.

(Instrument - practice diatonic chords in the key of “C”) 30 min.
The chords would be: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B°

Wednesday

(Songwriting - Learn rhyming basics) 30 min.

(Instrument - learn to play diatonic chords in the key of “G”
The chords would be: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#°

Friday

Review everything learned in a systematic and productive way, ie., review the key of “C” diatonic chords, then the key of “G” diatonic chords, then start playing all the chords randomly so you can perfect your chord fingerings and so you can begin to get a feel for how each chord sounds in relation to one another. Review “song forms” and “rhyming basics.” 1 hour

The idea is to practice weekly with a purpose, set attainable goals, and be organized as opposed to practicing whatever you feel like on any given day without any direction whatsoever. This will lead to more productive practice and study sessions, and you’ll reach your goals much quicker!