Tips for songwriting

So, how to start a song?  Well, using the following basic steps will probably set the musical mood for a composition to develop.  Although, musical art is about exploration too, songwriting is much more of a routine for a lot of writers.  How to get up on the right side of the bed?  Here are some tips that have helped me...

1. Pick just 1 chord you feel comfortable with...

2. Play around with the arpeggio and several strumming patters.  Once you feel comfortable with a groove...then,

3. Play that chord for a measure and follow with another measure of the following chord in sequence...followed by the next chord in the key sequence...and end it with the original chord.
The first and last chord will be the same but try not to use the tonic or first chord in a key.

This will break the cycle of always playing the 4th and 5th chordal intervals and the use of related chords.  Remember this is like getting out of writer's block.

Arrange the whole process in a loop and play around with the grove and rhythm.

Here is an example of what was just discussed above (in the key of A major):

1st chord.......2nd chord.......3rd chord.....4th chord.....
||: bm  \  \  \   |   c#m  \  \  \   |   D  \  \  \   |   bm  \  \  \   :||    (Repeat until you have a defined grove)

The funny signs at the beginning and at the end mean that this is a loop/repetitive part.

The slashes are beats...the chord acts like a slash, so there are 4 beats per measure, and there are 4 measures here.  Again, the 4 measures get looped over and over....something will happen, trust me!!!

There!  So a quickly and original way to spice up traditional songwriting.