Sing That Song in Your Heart

This is as much for me as it is for anyone else.

My daughter has been bugging me that she needs to use the piano to "write a song". I keep telling her to sing it to herself first, and then we can work on the music.

So often I get this wrong myself! I'll pick up the guitar or piano first, let my hands fall into their typical shapes and after about 15 minutes wonder if there is any originality left in me. I get bummed and go do something else.

Recently, I picked up a demo of MasterWriter, a song writing tool. I used it for the first time the other night and after a while, started writing lyrics. It was again frustrating, but it got me thinking about themes and stuff to sing about. When I net got down to the keyboard and guitar, I had an idea in my head about what I wanted to say - and started playing things that I hadn't played before because I had new ideas!

The thing I can say is before you start to write, try figuring out what's in your heart and head... do something crazy like hum it out loud. Don't play a chord until you get an idea of where your head wants to go!

This got me thinking in new ways again. I like thinking in new ways - it gets the creative juices flowing!