7 Songwriting tips from The Swan Song Project Podcast Ep 77 – 83

Songwriting Tips are always helpful. We are very pleased to be back up and running with The Swan Song Project Podcast and hope you have been enjoying the new episodes. I always find the conversations so inspiring and feel very lucky to get to learn from so many great songwriters.

If you haven’t listened to the podcast before there are plenty of episodes to go at (83 at time of writing) and more coming out every week.

In each episode I ask my guest for:

• One of their songs and we chat about how they wrote it
• A songwriting tip
• A song that is meaningful to them in some way relating to bereavement.

Find links to the podcast here – Please Subscribe!

Here are the songwriting tips from the last 7 episodes:

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Ep 77 – Sean Cooney (The Young Un’s)

“Go back to basics, try writing a folk song starting with someones name. I.e My name is… I live…”

In this episode Sean shared lots of great advice, particularly around songs about real people and I love this tip as a way of starting a song. It could be about a real or fictional person and it could lead you in lots of different directions.

Hear the full episode with Sean here:

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Ep 78 – Holly Taymar

“It doesn’t have to be good, start small and try to just get something going. Try to take the fear out of it”

Holly is one of the songwriting team here at Swan Song and she had loads of advice around starting songs. This one makes a lot of sense, it can be very scary to start writing a song from scratch and Hollys advice of trying to take the fear out of the process can be very helpful. You can always edit and improve on the initial ideas you come up with.

Hear the full episode with Holly here: 

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Ep 79 – Hannah Rose Platt

“List 5 things that you love and see if they are showing up in your writing already. If not consciously try to bring them in”

I love this idea from Hannah. The best songs are often ones that capture a persons unique perspective on the world and your interests are a big part of that. It can be easy to imitate when writing rather than finding our own voices and this feels like a very practical way of finding your voice. Not to self, write more songs with castles in.

Hear the full episode with Hannah here:

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Ep 80 – Andy McKee

“Try to keep an open mind as much as possible, don’t be afraid to try something different”

Andy McKee is widely regarded as one of the best acoustic guitar players in this world and this tip definitely seems like something he does in his own work. Always innovating. It can be very easy to get stuck in ways of working but Andy encourages trying new approaches such as alternate guitar tunings to create sounds that may surprise and inspire you.

Hear the full episode with Andy here:

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Ep 81 – Beth Roars

“Don’t worry what other people think, If you write with truth it will connect with someone”

A great piece of advice from Beth Roars highlighting the importance of finding your voice and being honest in your songwriting. Whatever is true in your life will be true for others as well and it is so powerful to hear a song that feels like you could have been written about you.

Hear the full episode with Beth here:

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Ep 82 – Jonah Tolchin

“Be kind and patient with yourself. Writing a song can be very vulnerable. If you’re writing a song with feeling it requires patience and kindness with oneself”

I agree completely with Jonahs tip here. It is so easy to have negative self talk and harsh judgements of ourselves when creating. Trying to be kinder to ourselves is great advice and will ultimately lead to more time creating which is always a good thing.

Hear the full episode with Jonah here:

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Ep 83 – Mark Stoney

“Collaborate as much as possible. We can all get stuck in our own formulas and hearing other peoples responses to ideas can broaden your horizons”

Mark is another one of the brilliant songwriting team here at Swan Song who has significant experience of collaborating with others. It can be daunting at the start to collaborate, sharing raw ideas with others is nerve wracking but there is so much to be learnt this way and you will end up creating things you never would have done on your own.

Hear the full episode with Mark here:

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I hope you have found these songwriting tips helpful. If you have we would love to hear from you.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. It is available from all of the usual podcast sites and we have new episodes going out every Monday.