How to Boost Your Creativity
In this post, I wanted to show you three ways you can boost your creativity especially in songwriting. Being creative is essential to writing amazing songs, but can also be terrifying wondering what people might think or writing something you later think is stupid. Here’s how I started getting past my inner judge to become more creative!
Here’s my favorite guitar babies!
As a guitar player, I get asked to help people with songwriting a lot. I always try to be really prepared, coming with lots of melody, lick, and chord progression ideas, but when it comes to lyrics, I’ve always just told whoever I’m writing with that I am not a lyricist. Lyrics kind of freak me out to be honest! I love writing, being creative, and actually really like singing, but when it comes to putting it all together, something in me just nopes right out!
However, this year I think something in me is starting to change. I think it may be because of three huge lessons I learned last year from doing music and this blog. I’ve been learning a lot about what coming up with creative ideas takes, and all of a sudden I have become obsessed with coming up with new ideas and seeing what they turn into. I wanted to share with you a little about what I’ve learned, so you can stretch your creativity and become a better guitar player/ songwriter! Also, if you are an awesome lyricist I would love if you’d share what’s helped you in the comments section.
Before I share these tips, here’s something to know about me (so you genuinely know there is nothing special about me that makes me have some creative power that you don’t have):
Last year, I jumped into music and blogging full-time from working in customer service at a healthcare compliance company (which TBH I did love all the people there and had an awesome team!). But the work was 0 percent creative. I vividly remember one of my co-worker’s musician friends coming in the office and saying “ Wow I could never do a job like this. I’m way too creative!” At the time I really wanted to do music, but financially couldn’t justify quitting, so my soul was just crushed thinking I was this bowl of oatmeal (or milquetoast you could say) non-artistic type of person. I felt that there was nothing about me that was qualified to be creative, or that had set me up to have acceptable artistic ideas!
Ok that being said, here are a few things I learned this year that have REALLY helped my creativity and made me extremely excited to try writing lyrics and come up with new ideas.
1) Being happy and confident in who you are
Having a strong sense of self-acceptance is a huge help and lets my mind think of new ideas before I put pen to paper. I think something that actually helped with this was Instagram (weirdly enough). Last year, my page started growing and I started meeting a lot of amazing people who also love music -- it was super encouraging to me. I have LOVED getting to meet different musicians and people who are in the music community and who are figuring things out with me. I have talked about this a little on here, but let me start by saying, normally, my page is super positive. I LOVE getting to interact with you all and for those of you who have told me my content has inspired you or resonated with you- thank you so much! But last year as my Instagram grew, there were a few rando accounts that would say some really hurtful things.
Almost every video I did would have one comment that would say I used way too much reverb, or one that said not enough reverb. I had a mom leave a long comment about how my playing was disgraceful, I had a thread of comments that talked about how ugly I was, I had a comment saying it was annoying how I looked at the camera sometimes… Like any choice I made, someone would seem to have a problem with it. At first I was like WTF! These people don’t even know me. It can really hurt when anyone tears you down (even if it’s something silly like online!) or when people assume something about you without knowing who you are.
To continue to have so much love and excitement for the people I was connecting with, I had to develop a tougher shell and realize that occasional mean comments might be something I had to deal with. Once my fear of someone not liking my playing came true, it actually took a lot of the power out of it. The worry of what would happen if someone didn’t like you/ your work can sometimes be worse than having someone occasionally say something mean. I can still get hurt by things, but it won’t stop me from being very truest version of myself, the person who I believe God made me to be. I think truly not caring what other people think about your ideas (or imagining the worst case scenario of opening up and and sharing your ideas) gives way to new creativity that’s coming from your uniqueness! It’s scary thinking about opening myself up, only to get rejected, but 1) Know you have valuable amazing things in your head to share 2) You might get rejected by someone, so look for the people who get you!
2) Turn off your inner judge
When I took a songwriting class in college, one of the major takeaways was not being too protective of your ideas and being ok with putting something that may be awful out there. Apparently, especially with lyric writing, this is so important. Basically, this means letting the ideas spill out of your mind and be ok with them being terrible. A good exercise for this is the 3 minute writing challenge. This is where you set a timer for 3 minutes and do not stop writing for that entire time. It’s a good way to free up your mind from judging your thoughts too fast and missing out on some great ideas. I think that’s why so many of us have all our best revelations when we are falling asleep or driving. You can get to the place where your mind wandering!
My fav American Original Jaguar!
3) Turn off your phone.
Recently, I have been trying to stop the habit of googling everything to replace thinking. How am I to be my own creative self with a ton of other people’s thoughts and logic in my head? Apparently, this has become a bit of an issue in co-writes according to some songwriters (like using Rhyme dictionary and Tumbler etc to think of ideas instead of coming up with them yourself) and I have definitely been guilty of using Google as a crutch when I can’t think of anything. It’s ok to put things down and come back another time if nothing is coming to you, and I think it will actually stretch your brain and make getting to a place of creativity easier. Practicing songwriting and being creative is just as much something you need to put work into as learning a scale or lick on guitar.
I hope some of those ideas are helpful to you! The biggest thing to remember is no matter what your paying profession or past experience is, you have these amazing and creative ideas inside of you. If you put something stupid down or have a creative idea you hate later on, be proud because it means you are working on you are on your way to ideas you like better. I have always liked the quote by Ira Glass about how having good taste is basically why we are disappointed with our creative work, but it’s so important to keep practicing until you come up with things you love!
As always thanks so much for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Songwriting 101 with The Listening Room Cafe
Get the inside scoop on successful songwriting from the guys behind the Listening Room Cafe.
If you want to consistently hear amazing “Made in Nashville” songs, The Listening Room Cafe is your spot. I was able to sit down with Chris Blair (Listening Rooms' Owner/General Manager) and Chase Armstrong (Listening Rooms’ Music & Booking Manager) and talk to them about their experiences at the venue that plays host to some of the best songwriters in Nashville. You can read more about why the venue was started here.
I love their emphasis on authenticity and story telling in both performing and songwriting—this is so necessary in the country music industry, where it’s easy to fall into writing songs that fit into the stereotype. I wanted to share with you their insight on the music industry and songwriting (and note that I paraphrased their answers into my own words).
Best Things You Can Do When Performing at a Writer’s Round
Be real (starting to see a theme here?). They said people love when writers tell the backstory of what inspired the song (this is especially great if the song’s a little more out there). The connection people feel with a song is why they are so drawn to writers' nights, and they especially love to see the person who experienced these stories play. They said you can really tell the difference between someone who is writing a song because they want it to fit with other songs on the radio and the songs that songwriters write out of life experience.
Photo: Music City Mike
When you are on stage, confidence and being comfortable with the audience (or at least pretending you are!) is crucial. One way you can show your confidence is in your reaction to forgetting the words to your song. The Listening Room has a lot of songwriters who forget the words to freshly written songs all the time, as they will use the venue almost as a practice for trying out new songs. Owning it, laughing it off, and starting over is definitely the best way to go about forgetting your words. Just don’t make it weird and try to pretend it never happened. And definitely don’t start trying to make up your own words (but props to you if you can do that).
Chris jokingly mentioned you should also try to bring a crowd that can buy drinks to your show- this is super important though! When you as a songwriter think about who is fueling your career, it’s places like the Listening Room. They can’t pay you unless people are coming to their venue and buying food or drinks. I once heard money is the fuel that makes your car go—though this isn’t the why behind songwriters or venues, both need to make money to keep doing what they are passionate about (that’s some of my personal input anyway)!
If you could give advice to someone trying to be a professional songwriter right now, what would it be?
Though they said it’s not IMPOSSIBLE right now, it’s no longer a realistic career goal for about the first 10 years of trying to be a songwriter. The royalties (the money the songwriter and publisher make when their song is bought or played) a writer gets are just so small since Spotify and other streaming services have become popular. Even if you write a hit song on the radio, you won’t necessarily get a lot of money. They said the top 10% songwriters in Nashville are the only ones who are making a full time living off of writing, and you will probably see their names on a lot of the songs on the radio. If you want to be one of these people you need to:
1) Be writing constantly with anyone and everyone.
Don’t be selective and don’t stick to writing in a clique (this has proven to be successful for only a handful of writers in Nashville). Also don’t write alone— this is the worst thing you can do for your career!
2) Be gritty.
You need to keep hanging in there and writing what you want to write about. Don’t take the seemingly easy path of writing what you think fits with current radio hits. Not only will the radio trends probably change before your song could have a chance of being on it, but people won’t connect as much to your song if it’s written just to be popular. Also like I said earlier, it takes a lot of time.
3) Think about being an artist
Being an artist there are more revenue streams available in which you can make a living. Obviously, this is not easier, but through touring, merch, royalties, etc. it makes doing music full time a bit more feasible.
A lot of people move to Nashville and start playing writers' rounds to “get discovered.” Do you see this happening a lot after performances/ what are your thoughts on this?
Neither Chase or Chris have ever seen someone “get discovered” or play one great writers’ night and have their song become a hit. Though that’s the stereotype of Nashville, times have changed a lot with the music industry and the dream of being scouted at a bar on Broadway isn’t really realistic anymore (this doesn't mean you shouldn't still pursue this career if it's your dream!). If you do get discovered on Broadway it will more likely be for your talents riding a mechanical bull.
What is your passion behind partnering with the Song Suffragettes? Are there any challenges in particular you see women having to work harder to overcome?
The Listening Room partners with Song Suffragettes, hosting a Monday night series of only women songwriters called “Let the Girls Play.” Not only have these Monday Nights sold out every week, but they are also helping to beat some of the stereotypes of women in country music. Chris and Chase commented that they see it can be a little more difficult for women in the country music industry because of the constant challenge to not be put into the “good girl” or “the bad girl” categories, or be compared to other female artists. Being your own person can be difficult, but is also completely achievable by writing songs true to who you are and sticking with writing for a LONG TIME.
However, if you are a woman writing songs that are different and real, it ends up being so worthwhile as it is these writers who draw the crowd in, and get people to relate and engage with the content in their songs. The Listening Room hopes that hosting “Let the Girls Play” serves as a platform to help women do this.
What’s the funniest/ most unexpected thing you have seen happen on stage at the listening room?
You are Guaranteed a great show when you see JT Harding (left) and Phil Barton (right) at the listening room
They’ve weirdly seen quite a few proposals happen… so if you want to get hitched, the Listening Room may be a good place for you to start hanging out.
Final Thoughts
The Listening Room gets about 100 submissions to play EACH WEEK! Because of this, they have to put a lot of thought into choosing songwriters who they feel are consistently writing amazing songs and who will help their venue be the spot that you can always hear extremely well crafted songs, no matter the night. Playing the wrong venues in Nashville (usually the venues that have no selection process but rather operate on a first come first serve basis for writers' rounds) can actually hurt you as a songwriter!
After hearing the attention to creativity and songwriter performances Chris and Chase prioritize in the Listening Room, it’s no wonder this venue is unique and attracts so much talent. It’s inspiring seeing people in the music industry who so clearly care about preserving the craft of songwriting. I hope you all are able to swing by if you’re in Nashville to have a few beers and listen to some of the best songwriters in town!
