THINGS TO DO EVERY DAY TO GET AHEAD AS A SONGWRITER

Here are 5 things I try to do every day. Doing these 5 things helps me feel like I’m making progress in every area of my songwriting.
 
Learn something. I’m trying to learn to play harmonica now. Yes, sometimes I work on learning an alternative tuning on the guitar. I want to try to learn something that makes me better each day. This way I’m constantly forcing my brain to be active and don’t go lazy. Brain is just like the muscles on your body. The more you use it, the stronger it will get. Plus, learning all these can be fun and you never know when they come handy.

Write down at least one quality song idea. I’m using up a song idea every day, so I try to replace it in my database with another idea for another day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to write that song, but it is great to just come up with the idea. It might take only 15 to 20 minutes each day to come up with a song idea with a little bit of details here and there, and then just leave it in the archive. Meanwhile you basically had planted the seed in your subconsciousness. The idea will be “cook” and a lot of times, out of nowhere you will get the perfect view for that idea and you will start writing it and boom, you got a song!
 
Reach out to someone. Each day, I try to reach out to someone that I’d like to work with or someone that I worked with in the past and haven’t seen in a while. This keeps my network growing. Communication is one of the most important aspects of this industry. Keep your network alive, on-going, and growing. In Persian language there is a saying which the direct translations is, “whoever vanishes from the eyes, will vanish from the heart too”, which basically says “people tend to forget you if they don’t hear of you”.
 
Study the pitch sheet. I want to know what people are looking for and keep my finger on the pulse of the market. So, I’m always checking the pitch sheet to see who is cutting and who needs what. This will give me a better understanding of what I need to write. Of course at the end of the day I will write what I want to and what I can relate to, but when I know what the market wants, I can write my preferred topic with the pitchable shape, increasing my chance for getting a cut out of it!
Look at it this way, same as any other industry, you need to know your market so you can create the right feed for your market.
 
Listen through some of my older songs. Songs get lost in the shuffle. I’m always listening through older songs to see if there might be a new pitch opportunity for them. Sometimes an artist comes along that fits an older song perfectly. Reminding myself of them helps me avoid missing pitch opportunities. 

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 15 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 1500 and written more than 3000 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.