Even when I’m ‘teaching songwriting’, I never think of it this way.

I believe you can point out how good songwriters have written their songs.  Though you can’t look into their souls, you can break down a song and see a lot of what a writer is doing, craft-wise.  This is not only useful, it’s fun (for me, anyway).

When I started making music I was actually afraid of learning how other people played their instruments and the details of music – theory, technique, etc.  I was afraid it would compromise my ‘originality’.  Hmm…

Now I think of it this way: If someone wanted to communicate in English and only knew a very limited amount of words, their communication would be very limited too.  Grunts, along with a few words here and there, would have to suffice.  If they had a strong and original personality, that would still emerge.

But most of the time you wouldn’t know what the hell they were trying to say! They’d have a hard time communicating any but the most basic needs and ideas.

Now if that same person learned the relatively limited vocabulary that most of us use when we speak… yes, that would make them sound more like everyone else… superficially.  They might ‘sound’ more like others, because they’d be using the same words, sentence structure, etc.  And this might arguably make their ideas sound less ‘original’ – that is, more like other people’s… superficially.

But their thoughts could now come through.  They would be able to communicate in a much more complex way… closer to how their mind actually works.  And this would give any real originality they have inside a much better chance of emerging.

They’d use the same words, but what they’d be communicating, the ideas, would be their own (to the extent that their ideas are original).

Learning the craft of music, the craft of songwriting, is just that.  It’s learning a language.  ‘This is how people before you have spoken (or written songs)‘.  Where you go from there with that language is up to you, limited only by your commitment and talent.

So I don’t really believe you can teach a person ‘how to write a song’.  I don’t try to, even in beginning songwriting classes.  As I said, I don’t think of it that way.

But I do believe that exposing someone to level-appropriate elements of the craft, and helping them think critically and creatively about what they hear and what they write, can help them get better as songwriters… and write better songs.

Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below:

And please share on facebook etc. by clicking these tabs –