How To Write An Album A Year With Ease
Francesca de Valence, Founder
June 2021
Are you a songwriter who has hundreds of song ideas captured on your phone? Voice memos of melody ideas, verse ideas, banger chorus ideas that came to you in an inspired moment? Or maybe you’ve got a book filled with lyric ideas that you have great intentions of going back to so you can one day write an album with them?
You know those ideas are excellent; that’s why you captured them. But when you sit down to write these songs later, you’ve lost the energy of that inspiration, and the ideas go nowhere. The next thing you know, it’s the end of the year, and you’ve only written four songs. You wonder where the year got to, and you feel deflated about your songwriting.
You’re not alone in this. Having a long list of unfinished ideas is the single biggest problem shared amongst songwriters that we speak with.
Unfinished songs can feel like a weight holding you back from getting you where you want to go in your songwriting career
It stops songwriters from getting into a studio to record or from getting on stage to play their songs. You can’t very well play half a piece at a gig, can you?
Would you like to be free of unfinished ideas and instead write finished songs week after week? It’s so much more straightforward to do than you might think, and we’d love to step you through some ways you can do this.
Steps you can take to write an album a year with ease
1. Use limitations to help you focus. In I Heart Songwriting Club, we give our members a brief and 1-hour time limit as a starting point, focus and endpoint.
2. Put time aside to work. Professional songwriters schedule their songwriting sessions. If you want the results of a professional songwriter, approach your songwriting like a pro rather than just writing when inspiration strikes. At a very minimum, we recommend you write one song a week.
3. Don’t attach to the outcome. Write for the sake of writing. Practice flexing your creative muscles and write a song.
4. Finish the song. You don’t have to like the music for the writing experience to have been a valuable learning and creative opportunity.
5. Stay curious. When you hit a block, stay open and curious so that you can find a way past the obstruction. Asking questions is a beautiful way to keep open. For example, what if I do this, go this way, play the chord sequence backwards, sing long notes, or make sounds until I progress this section? Questions like this can keep you moving forward. And moving forward will help you finish the song.
6. Get feedback on your songs. If you’re a songwriter who has a habit of sabotaging your songs, get feedback on your pieces to get some perspective on your work. Feedback is an integral part of every program in I Heart Songwriting Club.
7. Choose your favourite ten songs for your album. After writing songs every week for a year and having feedback on each one, some of those songs will stand head and shoulders above the rest. Develop those songs that stand apart and put these songs together for your next album!
When songwriters start writing and finishing songs every single week, everything changes
It changes their experience with creativity, their craft and skill set, and how they feel about their songs and songwriting. It increases confidence in their songwriting and builds momentum to wanting more – like recording and performing.
Songwriters in I Heart Songwriting Club who write songs week after week feel the pull to take their careers to the next level – and they have the pieces to follow through on that. With 52 new songs each year, they choose their favourite ten songs and record those for a new album.
If you’re a songwriter who feels the weight of unfinished songs and wants to move forward to having finished songs week after week, try these tips above or Join The Club. This is a club that you can join right now to start finishing songs as soon as next week and in 10 weeks have ten finished pieces.
Next steps…
If you’re a beginner songwriter at the start of your journey and want a bit more hand-holding, we have a beginner songwriters course for adults and kids to guide you to your first ten finished songs.
Finally, if you’ve been writing songs week after week for the last year and you’re ready to take the next step with your songs, check out Level Up Club.
