The 9-Minute Songwriter Workout

In one article previously, we covered a topic about “Speed-Songwriting”. But these three songwriting exercises from this topic are kind of different and they are designed to get you into the flow of writing without thinking.
Your best ideas come from the subconscious, and you can tap into this with regular practice. Remember to do these exercises quickly, spending three minutes on each in rapid fire succession. I set the timer on my handphone. Don’t judge or question ANYTHING you write down. This isn’t a test! The sole purpose is to train your creative thinking to respond on command. For me, personally, I found it more helpful to write with pen and paper, instead of typing. A lot of studies show that your brain responds differently when writing, as opposed to typing.

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Pen and paper? Timer set? Okay, let’s start!

• Write down every ORIGINAL song title that comes to your mind without censoring yourself. Work fast. Spit out titles. No judgement. Go wherever your thoughts take you.
  Note: These are your own original titles. Not pre-existing song titles!
• Choose one of the titles to play word association. Write down every word or phrase that relates to your title. Don’t think! Just work as quickly as possible. This is freeing up your subconscious. It doesn’t necessarily need to rhyme with your main word, but just something that ins any way is related to it.​

• Choose a word in your title and play poor man’s rhyming dictionary: write down as many rhymes as you can. Example: My title is “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” rhyming the word, “it.” Work your way through the alphabet and add consonants to the beginning of the word. B-it, F-it, Gr-it, H-it, S-it, etc.
  Not all letters will work, so move quickly to the next. Today there is less emphasis on perfect rhyme so don’t be afraid to cast a wider net: D-itch, W-itch, S-witch. ​

This exercise will strengthen your rhyming skills so that it becomes second nature. Your goal is to spend less time “thinking” of rhymes while writing. Keep practicing and after a few weeks or a couple of months you will see how easy and interesting your songwriting process would be!