Songwriting day and deadlines

I really like to find always new goals. Especially in my music projects. To be honest I always try to put myself clear targets because I don’t like to take a stab in music, I couldn’t be calm enough to concentrate on my riffs. I need to know where I’m going. But I realized that even if it’s quite easy to find new targets, it’s not the same when it comes to finalize activities. Not because of actual obstacles, just because I don’t actually work on the project. No way out, the real problem is my aproach to projects, I’m eager to start but at the end of the day I find myself struggling in the eternal problem of finalizing.

This is something that I found common to lots of people. We have to realize (I mean, “we” lazy people) that music projects don’t finalize themselves, that great idea we recorded on the fly during that great inspiration day can’t become a real song without our efforts, it deserves our hard work. Every great riff comes to life in a moment, just from a striking idea, but the song that will born from that riff needs our sweat. We find ourselves listening to that riff millions of times, in a loop, imagining cool way to write the entire song, but we don’t actually work to finalize the song. It’s the eternal procrastination problem.

Now it’s time to get a move, to take-out projects, riffs, scores, lyrics and everything we started and then left. It’s time to finalize. I know, you’re thinking “Dude, I have a job, I’m not a pro musician, It takes time to finish a song, I need inspiration…”. Wait a minute. I’m not saying that it’s just a matter of sit down and push the inspiration button as you wish, I’m saying that if we don’t actually work to a song we’re not going to get any result, no results = no songs. Let’s do an experiment: Try to dedicate one hour a day to songwriting and work on your last song. I bet that at the end of the week your song is done. Think about it, you wrote and finalized a song in week, instead of going on with unfinished riffs on your hard drive.

The main idea is to have a clear target and do your best to reach it, organizing yourself some “self-date”. One hour a week of songwriting is more than one hour every time you “feel inspired”, because there’s no control on that. An entire evening each week is even better. Stay organized and keep the promise to yourself: finish your songs, you don’t need to do it at once (as I always say: it’s impossible), you can reach the target step by step with regular appointments, note them on your calendar and be timely.

Now apply these concepts to your band: everyone have reharsals, you go regularly to reharse, it’s the right way to let the band be harmonious and grow. If someday you decide to start writing your own songs the only way to finalize them is to keep on reharsing, giving yourself some deadlines to respect. Trust me: you’ll be able to respect them! It’s a great idea to have regular “recording days” during the year, maybe just one each month, imagine: an entire day dedicated to songwriting and recording your band reharsals, you’ll be surprised how much you can do in a day! It’s not so hard: a sunday or a saturday each month it’s not so much, your girlfriend can go out and spend a day with friends and you can go deep into songwriting! It’s some I learned from Joe Gilder, following one of his great adivice that was talking about “regular recording days”, you should definitely check his blog out. I’m following this “method” with Deimos and guess what, in 6 months we almost finished our next full length album! We need to finalize last songs and then we’ll be ready to record! It’s amazing to see what results you can get when you’re really working on your songs 🙂