How To Stay Inspired During Songwriting

Inspiration comes and goes, but in a line of work such as songwriting, it may not come when we need it most. To try and spark that inspiration, you’ve got a couple of options. You could sit and experiment with an instrument, deconstruct your favourite tunes, or you could go in search of new sounds and songs, whether it be through new music, looking out for those often-missed details in music production, or listening to music in a new context like theatre. Here’s 5 tips to help you find that inspiration.

Improvise And Experiment With An Instrument

Sometimes if you’re feeling uninspired, you just need to sit with an instrument. Take a seat at the piano, fling the guitar strap over your shoulder and just hit some notes. You don’t have to structure your playing and there’s no need to rely on practice scales and harmonic movement. Just start building notes together until you hit on sounds you like, or move from note to note until you hear a melody buried somewhere in your cacophony of sound.

One of my songs “Wait”, was made because I sat at the piano and tapped a couple of notes randomly, before I realised I had written an upbeat melody. The chords, lyrics, beats and instrumentation all came later. But it was that initial time spent sitting at the piano, feeling bored and just tapping away, that brought about an idea that I could flesh out into a full song.

The great thing about this kind of songwriting is realising where the inspiration might have come from. With my song I realised it came distantly from a memory of Bollywood film, Lagaan’s, track, “Chale Chalo”.

Listen To Music You Wouldn’t Normally Do

It’s always important to listen to and learn from a diverse range of music, but it’s even more important if you’re trying to stay inspired as a songwriter. If you’re not sure what to write, then listen to something you normally wouldn’t.

If you’re usually taken by Jazz, listen to some UK Garage. If you’re partial to Folk, listen to some Funk. If you’re pumping out Pop bangers, then listen to Heavy Metal. Not only will you find chords and progressions that you love in new contexts, but you may find inspiration in new rhythms, chords, or melodies that aren’t typically found in the music you listen to.

I’ve recently been listening to Devin Morrison’s instrumental Dreamsoul music in his Dream Lobby collection. I’ve been particularly inspired by a track called “Gullah Way” on Dream Lobby Vol. VI. Writing mostly 80s pop throwback tunes, it’s refreshing and exciting to hear the rhythmic intensity and synthesized-against-natural instrumentation that I’m not used to, and it makes me want to incorporate those rhythms and beats into my own music.

Analyse And Breakdown Your Favourite Pieces

Everyone makes the music that they love to listen to, and sometimes, you need to figure out exactly what is in the music you love, in order to make it. I’ve found that trying to analyse, breakdown, or transcribe your favourite music will provide you that spark of inspiration you need to get started.

This doesn’t necessarily mean only looking for chords and progressions or for the meaning behind the lyrics. Pay attention to the often-missed details, the subtle instrumentation, the ear candy bouncing around your headspace, and even the mix’s levels and production effects.

You may find that you want to replicate these, or feel inspired to come up with a song that utilises similar effects. Another song of mine was inspired while I was transcribing J3PO’s, “Quiet Place”, from his 2021 Mains album. As I figured out the chord progression, I started to play it at a different tempo, beatboxed a new, more upbeat rhythm and wondered what it would sound like if I took the chords in a different direction. Voila! A new song was born.

Listen To Classical And Video Game Music

This point ties nicely with the next, but I thought it deserved it’s own spot because of the variety that these styles of music can provide. We may not like to believe it, but songs and songwriting can actually be quite a limiting way of approaching sound and music. Have you ever written something and thought, “this sounds like so many other songs”, or felt as though you can’t come up with anything new?

Songwriting can pigeonhole us, despite its breadth and creativity. This is why listening to music that isn’t bound to the same structural format such as classical or video game music can be enticing and will provide another avenue to discover inspiration. Often this music is section based, and it can be beneficial to think of music in this way to break away from the monotony of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge we hear so often.

Inspiration rarely comes from doing the same thing over and over, so branch out and listen to music that doesn’t fit with conventional songwriting. If you’re looking for some recommendations, try listening to “Gitanerias” by Ernesto Lecuona, or Super Mario Galaxy’s “Gusty Garden Galaxy”, I always feel inspired by their bold, powerful and adventurous qualities.

View Other Media And Listen To The Sound

A theme within these recommendations is to listen to new or different sound. This accounts for sound and music that’s not listened to on its own. Watching television, a film, or going to see a theatre show provides new contextual avenues to hear music, and will often help you reconnect to the emotion of music performance.

Lacking inspiration is more like being unable to connect with emotion in what you’re doing – emotion is the key to feeling inspired and writing good music. You’ll also open yourself up to other kinds of sound that may inspire you in your music, like listening to the epic soundscape of a Hans Zimmer movie, or listening to the recontextualised popular tracks in a physical theatre performance.

I had an experience like this last Christmas, when I went to see Ruination at the Royal Opera House. It’s emotional performance through music in combination with dance rejuvenated my ambition and passion for writing music. Three weeks later, I was posting on social media about how I made my latest song.

Inspiration can be hard to find, but the best songs are inspired. And so, as songwriters, we must seek it out, because it rarely finds us.