THE SONGWRITER’S SECRET SAUCE

​Any time people complain to me that they aren’t having the success that they want with their songs; I tell them to “write better song”. I’m not trying to be cute or clever when I say that, either. Writing better songs is the only answer I know to lack of success as a songwriter. Whenever I’m frustrated with my own lack of activity with my songs, I remind myself that I need to buckle up and write better songs. I recently found out that I had a song recorded by a rock band. I didn’t try to write a song for them. I had honestly never heard of them. And, no one I knew had a connection to them at the time. The day I wrote “Take Me To The Mountain” I was just trying to write a great song. I didn’t worry whether or not it was country or pop or rock. I didn’t agonize over who might record it. I just wrote the best song I could write that day. Fast forward about two years, they just liked the songs and cut them. Numerous times in my career, I got a cut “out of the blue” just by focusing on writing better songs and showing up to write day after day after day. That’s the ticket.

Do you want to enjoy songwriting more? – Write better songs
Are people not jumping up and down over your songs?  – Write better songs
Are you STILL trying to get that first cut? – Write better songs
Do you pay to pitch to publishers over and over without getting anywhere? – Write better songs
Did you ALMOST get that big cut you were after? – Write better songs
 
The answer to almost every complaint in the music business for a songwriter is “Write better songs”. If I write better songs than the ones the artist has, I’ll eventually get some of them cut. If I’m not getting them cut, it’s because mine are not better than the ones the artist has. Mine might be as good or almost as good, but they have to be better to get cut. When you get frustrated, don’t complain. Don’t blame it on your connections. Just write better songs. If you keep doing that over time, you will see better results with your music. I had said this millions of times and I am sure I will keep saying a few million more times if I need to. Keep your competition with yourself. Every day try to write something better than you wrote yesterday. If yesterday you wrote something that you know it will make 10 people go wow, today write something for 20 people to go wow. Study the charts and analyze the songs. Try to find out what made those songs better than yours that they are in the chart right now instead of yours. There must be some elements and factors that made those songs better than yours. Find those elements and write songs better than the ones in the charts. Then next day try to write something better than the one you wrote that was supposed to beat the chart, and let this progress go on. After a while you will see how the magic will happen around you, and then you will thank yourself for keep writing better songs. That’s the one single biggest secret in the music industry.

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.