Songwriting Business Strategies

The business of songwriting is a funny thing. The bulk of your income will be derived from streaming and radio royalties and sync placements. Commissioned work and session rates are relevant possibilities as well. Master income is rarer but is quickly becoming standard. So what are some ways to lay the groundwork for future income streams? 

Write regularly. The more seeds you plant the more likely you are to grow a garden. Taking sessions 3-5 times a week means a higher probability that your songs will land placements with artists and get sync placements. It’s a simple science really: quantity leads to financial abundance.  

Write specifically with artists. If you’re a songwriter trying to break into the pop game, you should try and make sure there is always an artist in your writing sessions. This will make it more likely that your song gets released. In this day and age, artists are more likely to cut songs they write than they are to cut songs that are pitched to them. If you have a higher frequency of artist sessions, you’ll have a higher frequency of cuts. That’s guaranteed. 

Network with publishers focused on getting sync placements. Publishers who work in the television and advertising space have networks committed to getting music onto screen. These publishers can help you monetize your music through sync placements which generate revenue on the front end through sync rates and on the back end through royalties. While competitive, the sync writing industry can lead to a career with more financial clarity. Sync contracts have explicit payouts on the front end. 

Ask indie artists for master points. Everybody needs to eat. No one knows that better than an artist. Indie acts do not generate huge revenues for songwriters because their songs do not generate a high degree of streams and are very infrequently pushed to radio. If you are working intimately with an indie artist, be brave enough to ask for a few points on the master. This will guarantee that you financially benefit from the exploitation of your music, even if its just a few hundred dollars here and there.

There are dozens more strategies for turning your art into a financial behemoth. But, these are a few easily accessible strategies that you can begin employing quickly. Best of luck out there in the wily world of the music business.

Finding Inspiration

Inspiration is not just a poof of magic that appears unheralded. Inspiration is something that can be sought out. We have the ability to refine our sense for the presence of inspiration. Here’s a few ways to discover inspiration in your day-to-day life. 

Listen intentionally during conversations. Often times, the conversations we have can become great fodder for songs. You may discover that your friend has said a word or sentence or communicated an idea that speaks to your inner creative soul. Jot down words and phrases that spill out during conversations and use them as titles or concepts in your next songwriting session. 

Analyze chords progressions from your favorite songs. Again, listening is a means to discovering inspiration. Fiddle around with your guitar or piano and iron out what chord progressions are used in songs you’ve been listening to. You can take these progressions and transfer them into your own songs. Penning melodies and lyrics over chords progressions with which you are already familiar might help facilitate your process. 

Read books and watch television with adaptation in mind. One piece of art can easily be adapted into another mode of creativity. Books become movies. Movies become musicals. Musicals birth albums. Albums inspire authors who write novels and the cycle begins again. Think of your favorite books and television shows as points of inspiration for your next song. How can you retell stories that have already been told in song? 

As you can see, inspiration is not merely something that appears unannounced. You, the creative, need to seek it out in all facets of your life. I you open your eyes and ears wide enough, then you’ll welcome inspiration into your life much more frequently.

Developing Stage Presence

For those of us pursuing the artist path, stage presence is an essential skill we need to develop. When you’re getting your feet wet as a performer you may feel a bit nervous, but rest assured that as you cut your teeth you’ll feel confidence begins to take root. Here’s a few tips to help you get started. 

Practice your banter ahead of time. As you sit down to rehearse the actual music you’ll be playing, make attempts at what you might say in advance of playing a song. Will you tell a personal anecdote? Will you merely give the title? Will you use this time to teach the audience a bit of the chorus so that they can sing the song with you? Rehearsing banter will make the audience think you are great at speaking off the cuff even when its been rehearsed a bit. 

When rehearsing banter there are a few amateur tropes to avoid. First and foremost, do not introduce a song by saying “this was inspired by…” Its a banal introduction and your songs deserve a better hook. Negative self talk is another device to eliminate from your banter toolkit. Never diminish your talents on stage, it makes your audience uncomfortable and denies them the chance to determine whether or not they like you for themselves. Lastly, do your best to make your banter between songs short. Lengthy segments of banter distract us from what we’re here for: the music. 

In addition to banter, you should practice movement. If you’re a guitar wielding artist, you should practice stepping into and out of the space. Stepping into the space to start a song signals to the audience that it is time to pay attention. You might need to step out of the space in order to tune which signals to the audience that it is time to take a break. If you do not have an instrument, then practice in front of a mirror. Take note of how your hands and arms and legs move as you sing through your set. Be critical here and determine if you need to refine your movements to better suit the song. Movement coaches can be helpful here. Lastly, and most importantly, use a mirror to practice your facial expressions. Live performance is all about communication. You do not want to have dead eyes. 

Exiting the stage is just as important as entering it. How is it that you choose to leave? Will you take a long held bow? Will you stand still and turn your head to look at the audience? Will you simply run off stage? The options are endless but making a conscious choice here will help you end your performance on a more precise note.

Performance is an art that is separate from songwriting. But, it is essential if you want to grow your profile as an artist. I highly recommend working on your presence as well as your vocal and musical performances. 

Chase Your Fans

Some advice for artists: don’t chase the music industry, chase your fans. 

A lot of folks get caught up in knowing all the people about town. They have coffee with every publisher at every company every once in a while. They attend writer’s nights to bump elbows with the new kids on the block. They try to worm their way into Spotify Holiday parties and sus out who is in charge of curating those damned playlists. And, guess what, those are all important things that - unfortunately - could provide a turning point in your career. 

THAT SAID, if you want to be an artist, all of that will be for nought if you aren’t developing relationships with your fans. If you have a finger on the pulse of pop music, then you know that fan armies rule the world. BTS Stans can get anything trending. Taylor Swift’s Swifties and Nicki Mina’s Barbs can do the same. These fan armies are rewarded for their trials and tribulations with steady streams of high quality art and fan engagement. 

While you may not have a  fan base as large as these megastars, you can still make sure that your audience is getting proper attention. Releasing music regularly is your most essential activity. But there other ways of making your fans feel appreciated: send them a personalized IG message if they pre-save a song, host a get together before or after a concert, reply to messages that fans send you, or host live streams where you play music or video games or just talk. All these are free to you, the artist. For the low budget of you time, you can create relationships with your fans that guarantee their continued investment in your art and you as a human. 

Look, the biggest artists in the world have meaningful relationships - both real and parasocial - with their fans. As you’re getting your foot in the door, focus on your fans. Make it a worthwhile experience for them to engage with your work and you’ll build a proper crowd in no time.

Songwriting Challenges

For all of those looking for songwriting inspiration today, here’s a few songwriting challenges.

1) Listen through your favorite Spotify or Apple playlist. Write a song that you believe could fit into this playlist.

2) Record a bass line using your own voice. Build an instrumental around this vocal line and then write a top line for it.

3) Pick one song from this week’s Billboard Hot 100. Rewrite the lyrics to the song to tell your own story but keep the same melody.

4) Pick one song from this week’s Billboard Hot 100. Switch up the perspective! If the song is about someone’s ex, then rewrite it from from the ex’s perspective.

5) Imagine that your favorite book has been turned into a movie. Now, write a song that would be appropriate for the opening scene of this movie.

6) Pick your favorite artist and imagine what their next musical era would sound like. Write a song that you could potentially pitch to that artist.

7) Pick a product from a brand that you love. Write a song about the product that you could pitch to the brand. Sync writing is just as viable a career as writing for artists.

8) Write a song that doesn’t have any words. Free yourself from the need for lyrics and just focus on making a vocal melody that is extremely catchy.

Quiet the Critic

Shhh. The artist is speaking and the critic needs to pipe down. I don’t want any notes or suggestions, paragraphs of derision, pedantic ennui, or mentions of cracks and flaws. Now is not the time for feedback for we are just beginning the song!

We are writing. We are singing. We are brainstorming ideas. We are laying down vocal ideas that are not fully formed. We are at the dawn of the process with which we are so familiar: the process of writing a song.

I can’t have a little voice in my head telling me I can’t do it, that this idea or that melody is dumb, or that I should quit while I’m ahead. There is a time and a place for revaluation, for editing, for tuning up, for perfecting. But, right now, before I’m more than 10 minutes into the process is not the time. That critique, at this very moment, is counterproductive.

Here, at the onset, the critique will only serve to sully my joy and prevent me from doing what I love. It will cast doubts and sink me into depression. It will shield me from picking up the guitar and make me sulk. And then what? What have I accomplished? Now, there is nothing to critique anyway!!1

Shhh. Quiet on set. Quiet the critic. I don’t need him right now. I need to be present in my craft and my process. I need to feel untethered, free like a bird. I need to welcome my muses and my imagination into a home of safety. Unburdened by my inner critic, I can make my art. Will it be perfect on the first try? Will I have lines to parse apart later? Who knows! Not I if i let my inner critic stop me.

Artist Skills in 2022

Artist in this day and age require a litany of skills that artists across generations have cultivated: great songwriting prowess, vocal talent that cuts through the noise, and a palatable charism that draws people inward. Thanks to the advent of social media, digital streaming platforms, and this thing we call the attention economy, an artist must develop other sets of skills.

Chief among these skills is the ability to be prolific. DSP’s seem to reward indie artists who release new songs monthly and, because fans are flooded with photos and videos all the time, fans are more likely to reward artists who feed them new songs regularly as well. Prolificness in 2022 also means posting regularly to the major DSPs like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. While the artists require time off to meditate on new artistic ideas, the marketplace for music requires an unending trove of new material. These two impulses are at odds with one another. It behooves the artist to find a happy medium.

Beyond prolificness, an artist must have some semblance of how to attract attention on social media. They must understand online trends, memes, and how to create compelling online content that pull focus - this is especially true in the early days of an artist’s career when they must leverage their pull on the internet to build a fanbase. An artist working to move from the bottom rung of the later to the highest rung can benefit from twitter schemes like Lil Nas X or overloading TikTok with irreverent videos like Doja Cat. Being tuned in to social media platforms and using their algorithms to your own advantage is how to win in the social media era.

Another set of skills may help an artist esepecially in the early days of their career: the ability to produce your own music. Inflation is running rampant even in the music industry! In order to keep your input costs low, you can learn to produce your own music. This could help cut the cost of hiring a producer, a mixer, and even a mastering engineer if you refine your skills correctly. This will make pursuing music an independent artist a bit more financially viable! I highly recommend learning this skill.

Dear reader, I am overwhelmed thinking about all of the skills that an artist in 2022 must develop. But, I guess that is just the madness of our era!

Struggling Artist Trope

I want us, as a community, to fully reject any reverence for the struggling artist trope. This trope assumes that an artist must struggle - especially financially - in order to produce great art and survive. It seems that we as a society value artist’s who suffer.

I would say that this trope is a reality for many artists, not for lack of talent, but because the industry structures around them prevent them from earning their keep. Tech giants like Spotify and Apple underpay songwriters and artists alike when it comes to streaming. Predatory label and publishing deals can stymie an artist or songwriter’s ability to accrue income. Payment models for royalties are often on significant delays such that, even when there is success, songwriters and artists must wait months to years in order to get paid. There’s a confluence of factors impacting nubile artists in their quest to see financial stability.

I say all this because I want to reframe something about being an artist. It is not the process of making art that causes the artist to suffer. Often times, it is the financial structures we have created in the music industry that give our artists grief. In that way, many artists might feel as if there are many factors in the music industry working against them.

If we reframe the struggle of the artist in this way, then we can un-work the narrative that the artist must suffer. We do not have to have tech giants that underpay artists. We do not have to have predatory contracts. We do not necessarily have to have payment models for royalties on months long delays (especially in the internet era). We can instead create a world in which artists do not have to suffer these barriers to joy and financial success.

Let us leave the struggling artist trope behind and invent a new one for the future. I propose the financially stable artist or the laboring artist.

Songwriters as Workers

We’re living through a major turning point in unionization efforts in the United States. Amazon Labor Union scored a historic win at the JF8 Amazon warehouse last month defeating anti-labor tactics of one of America’s largest corporations. Independent Starbucks stores all over the country are voting to unionize successfully as well. The efforts have been so successful that Starbucks’ CEO has offered raises to Starbucks stores that don’t unionize - an illegal activity that needs to be reported as such. For those wondering, yes this labor movement is relevant to you as a songwriter.

Songwriters are laborers. Though they do not have a set place of work like an Amazon or Starbucks employee, they share a set of interests that pit them against major corporations like Spotify, Apple, record labels, and even publishing companies. This set of interests include but are not limited to increasing streaming royalty rates, increasing mechanical royalty rates, the establishment of faster, more transparent payment models, and the elimination of predatory contracts in favor of ethical contracts standards.

Because songwriters don’t have a workplace or a shared employer, unionization efforts are difficult. Still, I think the first step is to ask songwriters to imagine what could happen if they wielded collective power. A songwriter’s strike for instance would deny streaming sites + labels new music which might lead to better royalty rates. A joint refusal to sign contracts with certain clauses might lead to the elimination of unfavorable contracts for songwriters. Collective power generally leads to collective benefit.

There are some organizers attempting to change things in our industry. The Union of Music and Allied Workers, which boasts 20k followers on Instagram, has staged protests at the Spotify offices in Los Angeles and circulated a widely signed petition in attempts to get Spotify to pay 1 cent per stream. They argue for the ethical and moral imperative of fair wages for artists, songwriters, and music workers. Though they have not succeeded as of yet, UMAW could prove to be a powerful advocating union on behalf of songwriters in the future.

Something has got to give. Songwriters deserve to be compensated fairly for their work. If we view songwriters as laborers first and foremost, then we might be able to better advocate for ourselves as a collective whose interests are at odds with corporate power. Perhaps, under this framework, we can develop a music industry structure that benefits the people making the songs.

Writing is Teamwork

In the credits for the vast majority of hit songs, you will find multiple names inscribed next to the words “written by” and perhaps even more next to the words “produced by.” Those who worship at the alter of the “auteur” - a single person responsible for a work of art’s entire vision - might decry this reality. But, I am not one of those people. Instead, I celebrate the teamwork that it took in order to get a song from a wisp of inspiration to a fully fledged song.

When writers get together in a room, the creativity can flow in myriad ways. One person may start the spark of inspiration with a title they’ve been saving in their notes app. The producer might start making a track or strumming chords that are inspired by the mood set by that title. Another writer or artist then starts penning melodies and lyrics that fit beautifully over the producer’s work. In this way, all parties contribute to the success of a song.

Of course the songwriting process takes many forms, but often times some version of these events define the songwriting process. Editing a writing partner’s ideas, refining a lyric til it fits perfectly on a melody, and general interplay between colleagues take place over the course of a few hours. Those who master the process of co-writing often become masters of songwriting themselves. This process creates great art and betters the writers who partake in it.

This is why I so often uphold co-writing as the means by which nubile songwriters can sharpen their pens. I urge them to find creative community and write as much as possible. I tell them to turn friends into creative collaborators and develop their skills together. Through the practice of co-writing, I see amateurs turn into professionals.

If you’re looking to get ahead, remember that you can go farther with the right friends and collaborators. Commit yourself to the practice of co-writing and watch as you soar.

Keep Going

Today: some words of encouragement. Our business is hard and our dreams are big. And, often times, the timelines of our dreams may not line up with what we had envisioned for ourselves. Dreams may happen earlier than expected or much later. They may happen in ways we had never quite imagined for ourselves. In the more unfortunate circumstances, they might not happen at all. Dreams are funny that way. 

Still, it is the dream that we must chase. Day-in and day-out we owe it to ourselves to improve, to write songs in the comfort of our rooms, to stretch ourselves thin in the act of glorious creation when need be, to gather with friends and pen the songs we want to hear on the radio, to work tirelessly, then to rest, and then to begin again. We owe it to ourselves to make the creation of art a practice and share our voices with the world whenever possible. 

Sometimes that will lead to streaming numbers in the hundreds of millions or titles that we seek: platinum selling songwriter, grammy winner, etc. Sometimes they will lead to a small group of people admiring that which you make with a burning intensity. The outcome is not always up to us. What is in our control is the act of creation: how many songs we write, how often we create, and whether or not we will release our fledgling songs into the world. And those elements that we control are beautiful things. 

I know that so many of you dream so big. And, I am proud to have spoken with hundreds of writers about their dreams and helped them carve out ways to pursue them relentlessly. I want to tell you that I believe in you. Do not give up hope. Do not despair when things get tough. You can get what you want in this life. Just keep going.

What Songwriters Deserve

In a nutshell, songwriters deserve financial compensation for the work they provide. The songs that float through the ether into the ears of the public have their origin site in the mind’s eye of the songwriter. Each note is fashioned by the songwriter, each word chosen carefully. Without those who create the songs, the world over would be devoid of the universal language of music.

Inherently, the audience understands that. That is why people develop parasocial relationships with artists. It is the reason that people get lyrics tattoo’d upon themselves. Fans know that the writers who pen their songs are deserving of respect, not just in the metaphorical sense but in the literal, financial sense as well.

The business of music has strayed from this reality. Tech giants like Spotify and Apple have, for years, underpaid songwriters. Despite a government mandated adjustment in royalty rates in 2017 from 10.5% of revenue to 15.1% of revenue, legal disputes have prevented the institution of this raise. As the appeals process drags on, songwriters are collecting 1/3 less revenue than they should be. In addition, digital radio currently pays out artists 6 dollars for every 1 dollar paid out to songwriters. Traditional radio splits revenue 50/50 between the artist + songwriters. This discrepancy leaves less money in songwriters’ pockets. David Israelite is one of the preeminent lawyers advocating for songwriter’s financial well-being. Read his recent interview with Songwriter Universe to learn more about these issues.

Its difficult to not feel frustrated by today’s financial realities for songwriters. The antagonists to our financial well-being are so powerful and the tools at our disposal to negotiate change are limited. That is why I advocate for things like a songwriter’s union that can collectively bargain on behalf of songwriters with tech giants. It is also why I encourage songwriter’s to ask artists for a portion of the master - supplementary income is necessary as we wade through this financial mess created by big tech. Artists should feel compelled to help out their peers by cutting in songwriters on a portion of the master, especially if they are independent. Of course, songwriters need to begin that conversations for themselves and establish master-sharing as a new normal in the music industry.

I hope these issues can get resolved quickly and that songwriters can once again reap the fruits of their labor.

A Creative Space

Artists have long been impacted by their environments. Cave dwellers etched the walls with little figures of the world they saw around them. 19th century impressionists captured the way that light changed with their paints. Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon” is titled so as to pay homage to Laurel Canyon, a site of great creativity in the 1960’s. Miley Cyrus’ “Malibu” was similarly inspired by the misty waves rolling in along the California shore. Access to great exteriors can shift a writer’s perspective and give them new fodder for songs.

The same can be said of an interior: a white walled room and a yellow walled room have different auras. The presence of a velvet couch or a stimulating rug design can bring out new energies in a writer. The sheer absence of furniture save a piano in an echo-y, marble room will inevitably turn any artist into a balladeer. A dimly lit, cramped space will similarly turn the same artist into a whisperer of internal thoughts. A chaotically colorful space might have the opposite effect, cultivating instead upbeat rhythms and pop-minded melodies. The specifics are conjectures at best, but the general statement is true: your surroundings impact your writing.

That’s why I advise artists to cultivate their space. Paint the walls with colors that leave you energized. Fill it with equipment, of course. But, also take time to include books or knick knacks that spark intrigue. A mirror or a bouquet of store-bought flowers, even the right coasters can make a difference in your space. Spend time and energy putting together your bedroom, office, or studio to make it a visually inspiring place.

A space cultivated by you will inevitably feel comfortable. That type of comfort will set you at ease when inspiration strikes and will coax you into prolificness even when writer’s block is looming just around the corner. Take the time. Build your space. Reap the rewards of a room you love.

An Artist’s Early Work

Thanks to the internet we have a digital catalogue of many artist’s early era. This is the time during which an artist is experimenting and discovering their voice for the first time. Early successes might be documented in an Instagram video. Snippets of song shared via TikTok reveal missteps and styles that may be abandoned. 

These are special moments that often draw an artist’s initial audience. They also act as an archive for future superfine to come back to and acquaint themselves with an artist who has already evolved. 

Artists may be tempted to delete old videos and songs as their songs become more refined and their branding shifts. But, this is an impulse that I would urge you to reject. Early fans will feel a sense of loss when their favorite songs are suddenly absent from streaming services. New fans will be deprived of returning to older material that they may fall in love. From a purely capitalist standpoint, you’ll be denying yourself monthly streams that you may have previously been receiving. 

An artists job is to evolve and continue putting out music. That does not mean that you need to deny the existence of previous iterations of yourself. I highly encourage you to leave your early work on the internet. 

The Art of Doing Nothing

In our culture of productivity, many of us are unfamiliar with the art of doing nothing. With our phones constantly at arms length, we are able to fill any millisecond of malaise with stimulation, often times low grade stimulation. What do we lose when the art of doing nothing dies in the blue screen light of an Apple iPhone?

For those of us prone to long phone breaks, we know the benefits of opting out of screen time: thoughts begin to proliferate in our heads, connections about the world are made, reflections make their way to the fore, errant observations about your surrounding speak louder in your internal monologue. Screen time silences the buzzing of our minds; the absence of screen time permits its near immediate return. 

I advocate for moments of nothing, especially for artists. We need time during which stimulation is at a low level. Rather than focus on the infinite scroll of an Instagram feed, we need quiet moments of reflection and observation. Artist must carve out time during which our only action is to do nothing. 

“Nothing” looks like an aimless walk, 10 minutes staring out the window, sitting in the grass and gazing at the sky, or sipping a mildly hot tea on a wrap around porch. Productivity is rejected in favor of meaningful non-actions. In this type of headspace, the artist can gain a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. 

If you find yourself over-stimulated or burnt out or overly engaged in your phone, try and find those still moments of nothingness. You’ll be surprised how your mind springs to life when it has nothing but itself with which to be engaged.

Self-Expression in 2022

The proliferation of disparate corners of the internet have permitted artists to stay true to themselves. There is an audience for any subject matter or sound palette. Somewhere in the dark depths of the World Wide Web there exists the people who want to hear your story in your style of song. 

What that means is that artists are now freer than they have ever been. Successful artists of yesteryear needed to cater to mainstream audiences as they attempted to amass fans, radio play, and television appearances. Artists of today are not nearly as impacted by these decades old economic imperatives. 

TikTok, Google Ads, and algorithmic advances in streaming are delivering your music to the people most in need of hearing it. You can thus tell the stories that you want to tell. This new reality means that LBGTQ+ artists can pen songs using the pronouns of their preferred partners. It also means that off-kilter communities like HyperPop audiences can throw Zoom raves and connect. It also means that guitar wielding singer songwriter chicks can speak directly through the screen to you as they strum their songs on TikTok. 

You no longer need to hide behind artifice. You no longer need to play some role that a label ascribes to you. You are free because you know that somewhere out there your audience is waiting.

There has never been a better time to be yourself. 

An Empty Cup

Writing is an output procedure. You take all the inspiration you’ve accumulated - personal stories, piecemeal sounds from disparate records, and the melodies floating around in your heard - and synthesize them into something new. By the end of the writing process, we produce one song or a litany of them. There is a beauty to this creation, this divine act of art making. But, on the other side of creation, we might be visited by a feeling of emptiness. 

There are those of us who, in the days and weeks after a profoundly productive period, may be asking ourselves if we will ever be so full of inspiration again. We might try and manifest it or write through these weeks of refraction to no avail. Slowly, we come to realize that our cups which once runneth over are now sitting empty on the nightstand. 

I encourage you to not be afraid of these moments, the brief pauses when your deep well of creativity does not produce water. Instead, take this time to live, learn, and seek stimulation. Walk aimlessly. Make new friends. Listen to records for hours on the floor of your room. Party all night with the unknown characters of your town. Return home to commune with older relatives. Read memoirs and fiction and obituaries. Develop a new hobby. Do all the things that give life a bit of sparkle until you feel the urgent itch to once again fashion your stories into song.

Remind yourself that you have not lost the piece of you that makes you a songwriter. There is no need to force yourself to write when the divine spark of inspiration will inevitably visit you again.

Songwriting in a Capitalist Environment

If you have ever worked as a songwriter in a city like Nashville or Los Angeles, then you are familiar with how typical capitalist structures have impacted the creative experience. Daily sessions are customary. Songwriters churn out hundreds of songs that are thrown into the waste bin each year. Nashville writers in particular often work until 5pm, a sharp cutoff. Christmas vacation extends from December into the first week of January or later until everyone comes back to do it all again. A 9 to 5 worker mentality is just as common in songwriting as it is in other industries.

This type of routine can be beneficial to a songwriter or artist, especially when they’re just starting to sharpen their craft. But, over time, this type of work schedule can drain us of inspiration. Like most workers in Western Capitalist society, songwriters are prone to burnout and work-based exhaustion. These feelings can induce writer’s block and make us feel negatively about our output. We might even question our capabilities if we can not able to churn out songs like a machine.

After years of reflection, I can confidently say that these norms need to be reevaluated. An American work ethic and the act of creation are not always good bedfellows. The creative process requires rest, relaxation, time to explore, time to think and reflect. Often times, a spark of inspiration is the culmination of many hours spent doing literally anything besides being actively creative. Those things are hard for us to square away in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with messages about productivity.

I’m hopeful that this mentality will change. Songwriters and artists deserve the proper time and space to meditate on the messages that they want to put out into the world. I encourage you all to go easy on yourselves as you set up schedules to write. Remember that, even when you are struggling to write, you are still a writer.

Spotify Bios

I’ve been reading a lot of Spotify bios as of late. Mostly, I find them entertaining, but I also wanted to see what artists are writing about themselves. Of course, there’s plenty of legacy acts and pop superstars whose marketing teams are using the Spotify Bio space to document all the achievements of an artist up to this point. The Bios for Nina Simone and Etta James read like eulogies or obituary announcements. That said, artist bios from up and coming acts have a bit more excitement.

The Spotify Bio for newcomers is an amazing space for a future fan to make initial contact with an artist. Some fans will migrate to us from TikTok, some fans discover us through a friendly recommendation, and some fans will latch onto us after learning a bit about our personal history or vibe. Think of your Spotify bio as another place on the internet where fans can be actively captured.

The bio for artist Remi Wolf stands out in a sea of lackluster bio writing. Whether it was written by her or a label suit (more likely) is unclear, but it does ring through with her voice. Her music is ecstatic and eclectic making use of funky guitar and belted vocals. The bio’s lang verbiage - “Remi Wolf is a crazy bih” - and outright lies - “Remi also occasionally hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show” - impart a sense of chaotic humor that runs through her songs. The bio reinforces the character of the artist and makes for a rip roaring good read.

Joy Oladokun’s bio manages to accomplish a similar feat. From a 1st person perspective, Oladokun narrates highlights from her life: “I’m currently trying to amass a pretty impressive arsenal of pokemon” and “I live in Nashville with my girlfriend and my dog.” Whereas Wolf opts for chaotic untruths, Oladokun’s bio pulls us into a space of intimacy with disparate details about her life. Again, the bio reflects the nature of the art we are actively consuming. Oladokun’s songs provide a space where her audience feels deeply connected to the artist’s personal story just like the bio.

My big takeaway from these artist bios is that the tone matters. When you’re reading a long five paragraph summation of someone’s career, you kind of lose interest. When you’re reading something that feels direct from the artist that reflects the music you’re hearing, you really feel like the bio increases your intimacy with the artist in question. I think these are things worth thinking about as you go and pen your own artist bio.

Modern Marvels: Voice Memos

Songwriters have never been able to stockpile ideas like they have in the past 10 years. iPhone voice memos let us record fleeting melodies and chord progressions in spurts and starts. Notes apps on smart phones permit songwriters to make lists and lists of titles and concepts and stories. The creative process for so many of us has been forever changed by this development. We can both record with a sense of immediacy and then access those ideas just as quickly.

It can be overwhelming to imagine the creative process of musicians hundreds of years ago. Relying on sheet music by candle light in order to document work must have been exhausting. Lacking any way to immediately record an idea that came to you on a walk away from the piano must have been an anxiety inducing experience. Who knows, maybe the ephemerality of inspiration - its appearance and sudden disappearance - didn’t bother centuries old creators. Still, when I think of the past, I’m thankful for how easy we have it.

Sessions can run so smoothly because of the ways in which writers are able to prepare. In the absence of immediate inspiration, we can all reach into our backlogs of quips and phrases to try to get the ball rolling. We might pull something from years ago in order to write a good song today. The immediate accessibility of our creative archives, resting in our pockets, can stymie the forces of writer’s block and set loose our creative spirits. Indeed, every recorded note and an idea is an act of preparation for a future moment of creativity.

The efficiency of it all is exhilarating. The writing process has never been as efficacious. These technological developments serve us, especially when we’re in sessions on a regular basis. These are things that most of us take for granted everyday. I just wanted to remind you of how wonderful these modern marvels really are.