Learning to write your own songs is something many aspiring musicians want to do. For many, it’s the appeal of expressing their inner-most thoughts, emotions or telling their story. For others, simply the thrill of playing music that is wholly original rather than out of the mind of someone else is the attraction.

Whether you relate to those desires, or even if you’ve never even thought about writing your own songs - today we’re going to look at how the act of songwriting benefits you as a musician, in a way that few other processes can.

Watch the video below, or keep reading for the text version!

1 - Unlock Creativity

To write songs is to create something where there was nothing. The act of songwriting is to put sound where there was silence before. What makes it your unique composition is every single choice you make along the way. At every crossroads there are hundreds, thousands of different paths that you can go down and why you choose a particular path is what makes you, YOU - and your song, YOURS.

Exercising that part of your brain that makes these choices, whether by imagination or deliberation, is exercising your creativity. What you can create is only limited by your imagination and your curiosity!

2 - Application Action

As you start to write songs you will be employing every piece of musical data you have gathered and applying it to your songwriting. If you had learned some basic theory in the past but not quite understood it, it will all come flooding back to you! Songwriting is the ultimate action to APPLY the musical concepts you already know, or drag out of the distant memory those you’d forgotten!

3 - Theory Trekker

As well as applying what you know, developing your skill as a songwriter involves training not only your creative muscles, but your theory knowledge. You might work through a passage in the song that doesn’t quite work how you want it too, and need to apply some new theory to solve that problem. Or, you might even stumble upon a really great chord progression and want to know exactly WHY it works so incredibly well so you can do it again, but on purpose! Writing songs is the FUNNEST way to learn about more music theory - and apply it!

4 - Curious Explorer

Why does that chord work so well? Why does that melody note sound so terrible? Why can’t I make that chord fit? Where should I go next in the song? Why does that lyric feel weird? What would happen if I twisted that bit around?…

Curiosity is your best friend when it comes to songwriting - ask the questions, follow the white rabbit, you’ll discover some enchanting characters along the way!

5 - Inspiration Hunter

The thing with wanting to be more creative is that once you’re looking for it, you see it more and more. It’s like when you’re buying a car and researching red convertibles, you suddenly see RED CONVERTIBLES EVERYWHERE! It’s the same with looking for inspiration - there is no limit to the world of inspiration that is waiting for you - not just in music, but in the world around you. Once you become someone who is eager to find inspiration for your next song, that inspiration will find you daily.

6 - Confidence Queen/King

Writing songs is the best way to find confidence as a musician. Even if you are a beginner pianist with a minimal amount of theory knowledge - by applying that limited amount of skill & knowledge to writing your own original song - you can’t help but feel proud!

You can’t write a song without having an open mind - every new song is the door to the next better song. It’s imperative to shut out that negative voice in your head and keep an attitude of curiosity, then every song is a new discovery and every new skill you learn at the piano–or piece of music theory you learn– is a NEW colour to add to your artwork!