DON’T FOCUS ON THE SUMMIT

Songwriting can be a wonderfully, beautifully frustrating pursuit. But it can be especially maddening if your singular goal is something outside of your control. It’s best to enjoy the way while you are climbing your way up this mountain of music industry. If you only and only focus on the end goal, the road to that goal would be extremely tiring and most probably you will give up when a couple of years past and you are still nowhere near your goal. In my humble opinion the best is to learn how to enjoy the way and earn all the you can while you are reaching the summit. Make your process sweet so you won’t give up very easily. So, let’s say your one obsession is a Bruno Mars cut. There are several reasons that you are going to likely spend the rest of your life banging your head on the wall and cursing the day you ever tried to be a songwriter. For sake of brevity, I won’t list them all, but the primary reason is that you can’t make Bruno Mars like any of your songs. And if he doesn’t like them, you’ll never get a Bruno Mart cut. So, I wanted to run through some alternatives to goals that are outside of your control.  Considering these “what ifs” might just help you get closer to your goal than you ever imagined.

What if #1. What if, instead of focusing on getting a Bruno Mars cut, you just set out to write the best album Bruno Mars ever produced, whether or not he ever hears one of those songs? Imagine taking your love for Bruno’s music and just focusing on writing songs that you love in his style? Would you have any less chance of getting a cut with him? Would you have more fun since you are not so focused on him cutting one? My guess is that the fun would go up, the songs would be better, and you would have more satisfaction with your songwriting, regardless of the commercial success they did or did not achieve. Of course if you ever get the chance to present those songs to Bruno Mars or any of his representatives, perfect then but even if you don’t, you still had lost nothing and you ended up with some songs dedicated to your love and respect for him and God knows where and when those songs might bring you a new chance to success.
 
What if #2. What if you took some days off from your “Bruno Mars album mission” and just wrote some songs you just love to write without being worried about them fitting anyone? Would that take you any farther away from your goals? What would that do for your sanity? And for your enjoyment? Writing for you can be therapeutic and it can result in some songs that are shockingly good and commercial at times – Unless what you love is bluegrass / polka.  That can be hard to place.
 
What if #3. What if you just made your goal “Writing Better Songs” and every day you focused on that? How would that feel? What would that do to the quality of the songs? What would that do to increase your chances of success as a songwriter? Again, my guess is that relieving yourself of the pressure of getting a cut on a huge artist would make writing more fun.  And focusing on getting better IS within your control and it increases your chances of success in every way.

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.