Always be training your creative muscles!

It’s like a carpenter without his toolbelt or a weightlifter without a gym – what can a songwriter do to keep exercising his/her songwriting muscles on a daily basis if they are traveling, stuck in a hotel room, working full time at another job or just away from their typical songwriting resources? Ultimately what I am proposing is how can we minimize our non-productive creative time and keep our songwriting muscles as sharp and strong as possible ALL THE TIME!

Below is a list of tips, tools, tricks, “lifehacks” and ways to always be “songwriting” when you don’t have your typical tools at hand:

1. Use the portable and chargeable iPad. Garageband on an iPad has a basic piano keyboard customizable to different sizes of a keyboard from 2-4 octaves. Basically, there are enough notes and range to play the theme song from Top Gun so we all know the tools are there for a big hit. This is not to mention all the recording and beat making you can do on a basic iPad set up with the Garageband app.

2. Go through your current song catalogue and find out what types of songs are missing in your arsenal and make a task and priority list to get them completed. ie: country reggae type song, country song with a walking bass etc.

3. Work on set up lines for hooks. Let’s say you have a song title or lyrical hook but you don’t have that all important set up line for the hook. Work on rhymes and cadences to lead you to that hook…and this can be done literally anywhere you are travelling with your creative brain!

4. Take care of some of your songwriting administration if you are stuck in a hotel. For example, write up those new song charts, ensure all split sheets are current, follow up on any old emails or reach out to your network/publishers/cowriters and check in.

5. While driving you can do some undistracted songwriting by being a badass dashboard drummer and creating a cool beat or groove to write too. You can also work on a set up line for a hook as mentioned above while still staying aware of your driving; some of our most creative ideas are thought of while co-focused on another task as the idea is marinating in the back of our minds but is not the main focal point – then ask “Siri” on your phone to write or record a note or voice note with the lyrics, lines or beats you are thinking of.

6. Get inspired! Listen to some of your favourite or new trending songs and find some sound candy you can use in your own production or songwriting (drum beat, cool guitar effect or sound design on an instrument etc.). Listen to music you may not even like or outside your writing genre to bring in new, fresh sounds to the genre you mainly write in.

7. If you have some of the chords or music as a song seed idea, record a very basic chord track on your iPhone with guitar or piano and then work on the melody or top line of the song while you are away and travelling.

8. Work on the “song map” for your new song – this section is more brainstorming different perspectives and angles to come at the idea so there is no real tools needed other than your creative brain. While doing this put on a different hat and glasses and look at your ideas through a different lens or perspective to come up with unique ways of looking at a title or hook.

9. Hum, whistle and holler – during slavery times cotton pickers wrote and sang songs while they worked without any resources except their hearts and their heads. Get inspired by these amazing people that came up with songs that have lasted the test of times.

10. Use your Song radar and antenna – when you are away from your songwriting resources it’s a great time to slow down a bit, be mindful, let the world around you envelop your creative brain and smell, touch, see, feel, see and listen for your next big hit and song seed idea.

As a full time, working engineer in the energy industry during the day I have used many of these above-mentioned tools on the train to and from work, during some of my lunch hours at work or while I am stuck in a hotel in a small town in Alberta doing some field work. These tools have allowed me to always keep my songwriting saw sharp and creative treadmill moving.

Stay in tune and in touch.

Cheers,

Kent