1.  Once you’re comfortable enough playing your instrument while singing in your bedroom or practice area, and you have a few cover songs and perhaps an original one in your repertoire, start playing in front of a small audience such as your significant other and maybe 1 friend.  The idea is to initially keep your audience small so you can gain confidence and immediate feedback.

2.  When you become confident playing in front of that small audience, graduate to playing a few songs at a small family gathering or a setting with a few more people when the time is right.  Be careful with family members though, because they will call you out onto the stage in their living room moments after uncle Charlie and his family of 23 people walk through the door, tired and in a bad mood after a horrible 5 hour flight from Minneapolis.

The point is; don’t let friends and family pressure you. You have to make the call on when the time is right. When you do play your songs, make it a short set-3 songs at the most! This is because after 2 or 3 songs 10 minutes will have probably elapsed and people generally have an attention span of 10-20 minutes before their minds move onto something else unless you’re absolutely phenomenal!    

Even if you eventually stink up the place, you’re making progress because you’re actually performing in front of a live audience, you will have finally gotten it out of the way, and you’ll be more and more comfortable with every performance. 

3.  Know when to stop!  Whenever you play, if you have 3 killer original songs and 2 “so-so” songs, don’t play the last 2 originals!   Instead, play a couple of cover songs that people know and love if it gets to the point where they want to keep listening.

4.  You’ll know when you’re ready to finally perform in public.  You’re consistently getting a favorable reaction while playing in front of your friends, you’re comfortable playing in front of them, so the next logical step is–yep!  You guessed it.  Invite all the people you’ve been playing in front of, to an open mike night.  It’ll be almost like playing in front of them once again, only this time with a few invited guests (the bar patrons) at an unfamiliar but friendly house!

There’s nothing worse than getting up on a stage unprepared only to fail miserably!  Prepare yourself logically, by working your way up to finally playing on a stage.  An audience clapping in approval will inspire you like nothing else on this planet to continue making music!            

There are some songwriters who seem to have an internal button that pushes itself to let them them know that “PING!”……that line needs work, the hook/chorus is lacking, or the song itself is just O.K., not very good at all, etc.  On the other hand, there are some songwriters who write a song and think it’s the greatest song since “Stairway To Heaven” only to get a cold reception and an “I don’t think so, dude,”  from an audience every time they play it.

A huge part of becoming a great songwriter is to learn how to be completely honest with your work so you can continually improve. 

To train yourself on how to guage your songwriting properly in order to benefit your songwriting tremendously, follow these tips: 

1.  You can start by listening to your favorite music and giving each song an honest opinion about the lyrics, melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.  Don’t fall into the envious trap of thinking, “Oh that song completely sucks, my songs are better,” without figuring out why you think the song is so bad.    It’s human nature to put down another songwriter’s work especially when you believe it’s true, even if you just say it to yourself, but why not dig deeper to see how correct you are and justify why you’re making this determination for your learning experience?   

If you approach it this way, you’ll probably find that many of those songs you don’t like are simply not your cup of tea!  You see, while there is some fluff out there, there’s usually some quality such as the recording artist to the infectious melody to the catchy rhythm that makes the song appealing and successful.

2.  After writing and rewriting your song, rehearse your song and record yourself if possible, even if it’s a mini-recorder.  If your song is more electronic-based and depends more on a groove such as  R&B, some types of Pop, Rap, and Dance, download the free The Hammerhead Rhythm Station for Windows or the orDrumbox for Mac, learn how to use the free software machine, and sing or rap to the beat.  If you have a recording studio of any size at home, or access to a studio through a friend, this is the ideal route to take.   By recording yourself, you will be able to hear good parts as well as flaws that need work.  

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung in a recording studio thinking the song was excellent and the vocals O.K., only to come out of the vocal booth and find the song as well as the performance stunk!

3.  Run your song(s) through one of the many great songwriting checklists on the web to make sure it’s your best possible work.

4.  Test the song(s) out with family members and friends (when everyone’s sober!), look at their immediate reaction,  and ask what they like and/or dislike about the song.  This is by no means a perfectly accurate way to gauge your progress but it gives you a general idea of your song’s impact on people. 

5.    If you find your songwriting is lacking in some general area such as verse development, go back to the basics, review verse development techniques and rewrite your verse or verses once again.  With patience and persistence, you’ll eventually get it right and be pleased with your work! 

If anyone’s experienced a great way to be honest with their own songwriting or musicianship for that matter, I’d love to hear what you did and how you did it!