One of the biggest goals I’m hoping to help you achieve is to stop getting stuck writing your songs!
In this brand-spankin’ new video, I’m going to share with you the 3 steps we all go through when writing songs.
And You’ll learn why most people get stuck on Steps 1 and 2 and what you can do to fix it!
STEP 1: Beginning – Brainstorming
So let’s talk about the beginning. How do you begin writing a rap song? It usually starts with some type of inspiration.
Finding inspirationÂ
Now, this inspiration could happen in a myriad of different ways. A lot of times you may be listening to an instrumental, and an instrumental moves you and evokes some type of emotion out of you. It gets you thinking about thoughts, ideas, memories, things of that Nature and ideas are flowing. And that’s how you begin writing the rap song or you may not even be listening to any beats whatsoever. And you just think of a dope punch line, a very witty punch line, and you end up formulating a whole concept of a song all around that one line just so that you can use it. Or maybe it’s a cool combination of words that you come up with that rhyme. And that might be what inspires you to write a whole song around it, just so you can use those rhymes.
So it doesn’t really matter as much how you start. Just start and follow the inspiration.
Here’s another one, though you don’t always have inspiration when you start writing a song. And this is one thing that I think holds some people back and causes them to procrastinate and not write a song because they don’t feel something out the gate from the very beginning. So they don’t even try to write a song.
And this is something I’ve learned personally just from coaching so many people throughout the years. I’ve literally written hundreds of songs with my students through my coaching service, and it forced me to have to show up and create!
Just show up and start throwing around ideas, eventually, some things are going to start sticking. Maybe it’s just you listening to music or listening to beats or instrumentals or whatever. Just show up and start experimenting, start exploring, start playing around with ideas and expect things to happen. Because that’s usually how it does happen with me. I may not know exactly where things are going to go or how I’m going to get there, but I just show up and I know I will get there eventually.
Brainstorming
Now, typically in the beginning stage of writing a song, I personally like to take a moment and start brainstorming ideas and start figuring out what was this baby I’m about to deliver are going to be What is this song going to be about?
And that’s one way to approach it. That’s how I approach it a lot of times. But even with me, it’s not how I always approach it. Because I just told you, you may have a punch line, you may have rhyme schemes that inspire you first. It’s good to think about the direction you’re trying to take this thing, but you may not always have that in the beginning.
Freestyle Writing
Also many people, especially newer rappers while just write down the first thing they think of and kind of freestyle write their song. This can be fun and can work sometimes but proceed with caution because it’s highly likely you will get stuck writing songs like this because you don’t have any clear direction on where you’re trying to go.
STEP 2: Middle – Execution
The middle is all about executing the ideas that you came up with from Step 1. However, if you’re freestyle writing this is the time you need to take a step back and look at what you’ve written so far.
Read through your lyrics and see if there is a common thread that you can pick out that seems to be connecting together and then commit to it, and get rid of any other lyrics that don’t support this thread, and then fill in the gaps of any holes created from what you removed.
Also, start thinking of where you can go from here to finish your song now that you have direction. Now you can focus on executing your plan which leads to the end of the song.
Once you are focusing on executing your plan, be careful not to let your rhymes, punchlines, or rap flow that you’re chasing cause you to write words that don’t make sense. Make sure that the lyrics you’re writing are supporting the direction you’re supposed to be going in and keep the ending in mind.
STEP 3: End – Nothing is lacking (perfect)
And when I think about the end, I think about perfection. And when I say perfection, I don’t mean that something is without flaws. I don’t mean that something is perfect in the sense of there’s nothing teensy weensy wrong with it.
The way I define perfect isn “whole or complete, nothing is lacking that needs to be there, and nothing is there that doesn’t belong.
Perfection to me is satisfaction. I feel satisfied. I feel complete. I feel at ease. I have peace. I feel like I can move on and be happy with what I did.
How Do You Know When You’re Finished?
There are a few things that you can kind of do to test if you’ve reached this state of perfection yet.
Distractions
When you read your lyrics from start to finish, at any time does it seem that things get off track, do you get distracted? Do you get off on any side tangents? Are things in there that don’t make sense? If so, you may not be complete yet. You may need to focus on tidying up those things, maybe getting rid of some things and filling in some holes or some gaps that are left from you removing things to reach that state of completion.
Extra + Missing?
And another thing, when you listen to your lyrics from beginning to end, does it feel like anything of significance is missing? And the keyword is feel. This is not something you have to overthink. Sometimes we have paralysis by analysis where we just overthink stuff way too much. Does it feel like anything is missing? Does it feel like maybe you didn’t make a major point you were supposed to make? Pay attention to that.
Does it just feel like anything’s bothering you? When you listen to your lyrics from beginning to end, do you ever notice your shoulders are like tensing up? If they are, there’s something probably bothering you. See if you can identify what that is and figure out some type of solution for it.
And once you feel that there’s nothing missing, you’re not feeling any type of tension when you’re playing something back. That’s a pretty good indicator that you are most likely finished with your song.
But I got to warn you, after you feel like your song is complete, try to resist the temptation of going back and working on that song again and changing things because typically your favorite songs are going to be your most recent songs.
Recency Bias
After you feel like something is complete try to resist the urge to go back and change things later. You will always be getting better, and typically your most recent creations will be your favorite. This is something known as Recency Bias.
Also after you hear something many times, it will get old to you and you may be tempted to change it, just to make it new. So if you want to hear something new then maybe it’s time to write a new song.
Fresh Perspective
Also after you hear something so many times it’s going to become old to you, it’s going to lose that “new car smell”.
It’s no longer going to be new and it’s not going to evoke the same emotions out of you that it once did. And you experience this with any type of music that you listen to over and over again. It’s nothing personal against you. it’s just how things are. The normalcy of something settles in and it no longer has that same dramatic effect on you.
So you still may need to resist going back and changing things because you think it’s no longer good, but it’s not that it’s no longer good, it’s just no longer new. And if you really want to hear something new, then maybe it’s time for you to write a new song!
The #1 Fundamental To Rapping
My name is Cole Mize with ColeMizeStudios.com where I strive to make you a better rapper now!
If you’re trying to perfect your rap skills, make sure that you get yourself a free copy of my e-book. The number one fundamental to rapping below 👇 and always remember when it comes to rapping, there’s no rules, there’s only techniques!
