A POWERFUL TOOL FOR SONGWRITERS

I believe that “perspective” may be one of the most powerful concepts in our lives. Your perspective can totally change your experience of an event. Siblings can have dramatically different takes on a traumatic home situation because they take different perspectives on what occurred.

When I was in high school, my English teacher and theater director was always challenging us to look at things in different ways and from different angles. He lived a small apartment and would grade our papers at a makeshift desk he laid across his bathtub. When we practiced our plays, we would sometimes look out to see him standing on his head in the seats of the auditorium, just to “get a different perspective” on the play. His unique view of life was a catalyst that made me start looking at my own life and challenging many things I had accepted as ‘fact’ before I met him.

Develop a unique perspective. I discovered that I had let other people define my beliefs in many areas. I also discovered that many of the “facts” I had accepted were really opinions that were no better than my own. My biggest discovery was that I needed to keep an open mind in regard to perspective. Many things in life are not as they seem at first glance. And, almost everything in life is best viewed from different angles. My journey to find perspective has impacted my songwriting in many ways. I try to consider every possible angle before I settle on the direction for my song. I look at my idea from the perspective of the artist, the record label and the consumer. Considering all of those perspectives gives me a “big picture” view that helps me write in a way that is a little bit “outside the box”.
 
Your best songwriting tool is thinking “outside the box.” I believe that “outside the box” view is one of the biggest things you can do to improve your writing. Many writers write the most obvious angle for each idea. The result is that there are lots of songs written from that angle. They don’t sound fresh or unique. The “outside the box” perspective gives you a song that is not written the same way everyone else would write the same idea. Challenge yourself to consider different perspectives on each idea you write, and on life in general if you choose. Even if you decide on the direction you began with, you will be better off for having looked at all the other options as well. Don’t settle for the first road you come to. The best road may just be a couple of exits away.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 17 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 3,000 and written more than 4,800 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.