People often suggest song ideas to me, “Hey, I had this idea for a song for you the other day” they will say and then they give me the line, phrase or the three-minute story, what ever the case may be. The truth is that I have never written a song like that, unless of course the song idea came from a co writer and we were working on the song in that moment. When people offer me this kind of help, I suggest that they write the idea and turn it into a song, the idea after all did come to them.
Sometimes I go for long periods of time were I don’t finish a song. It’s not that I am not writing, I write everyday. But songs are a special kind of writing, songwriting is a unique form, it’s a hybrid of two forms of expression, music and creative writing. Getting the words and music to bring out the best in each other, for me, is the key. Songwriting is like painting a picture on a canvas the size of a postage stamp. You take a small idea and make it smaller. I am not sure if that makes sense to anyone but me, but there you have it.
I often get little snippets of word images, emotional phrases, alliterations, metaphors or melodic ideas when I am walking around living my life. I grab my Iphone because it has a little digital recorder application on it that I downloaded for .99 cents and I record the idea so I don’t forget it. One of my friends has a little hand held recorder, I think Zoom or Roland makes it, not sure but it is pretty nifty for preserving song ideas. I am going to get one myself in the near future because it does a pretty good job of recording and it can fit in my purse easily. It is especially handy while co-writing. Anyway, sometimes I just write it down in a little notebook that I keep handy.
A lot of my ideas come from reading books and watching movies but mostly from things people say when they are talking about their own lives. I get a lot of image ideas from nature and also by watching people.
Most of the ideas I capture never make it into a song but it is the discipline of keeping such a scattered assortment of ideas that keeps me in touch with my songs and eventually the ideas come together and pop out of me in a burst of creative energy. Sounds kind of crazy but it’s true, case in point, I recently wrote a song that the first line (which is also the title) has been floating around in my head and in my notebooks for at least five years. I kept coming back to it, asking my self – what does this mean? What is this about? I got so excited when I wrote the rest of the song because it was like solving a mystery.
If you are a writer, I hope you are writing. If you are getting good ideas for other people to write, I hope you get your self a little note book or a digital hand held recorder of some kind and start paying attention to the ideas that are paying attention to you!
Stay Tuned,
Elizabeth Edwards
Singer Songwriter Elizabeth Edward's Blog - Creativity and Spirit
