Songwriting

Feeling Uninspired? How To Get Your Songwriting Groove Back

by Clay Mills
Jan 26, 2024

Do you feel like your melodies are dated? Are you in a creative rut? It happens to us all. One day we wake up and everything starts sounding the same. Every new idea we create seems familiar. And worse, those ideas may sound like melodies we heard years before! So, how do we stop banging our head against the wall and get our songwriting groove back?

Let’s think about when we first started listening to music.

We couldn’t get enough. We bought the latest records and wore them out listening over and over to our favorite songs. Something within us identified with the words and the sounds. We became those songs. And when we started writing our own songs, we drew from a deep well.

The words and music we absorbed during all of those listening hours were filtered through us and came out of our guitar and pen in a new way.

If you want to get back to this inspired fresh writing, it’s really very simple. You must be inspired again! As the famed author, Stephen King says in his book On Writing… ‰

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

It’s actually impossible to be good at songwriting for very long if you are not constantly listening to new music and being inspired.

Listening to new music is a must if you want to get your songwriting groove back.

It’s equally important to not fall back on listening only to the music you grew up on. Why? Because that music is part of your musical DNA. If you want to stay inspired then you need to listen to a steady dose of unfamiliar music. Music that will teach you something new. Music that will excite you and make you want to incorporate new sounds and techniques into your own writing.

So, if you are feeling like you are in a rut with your creativity, I challenge you to find a new record that inspires you. Sing along to it. Strum the chords on your guitar. Let it soak into every cell of your body and remember why you love music so much. Soon you will get your songwriting groove back . Your writing will thank you.

Write on! ~CM

Clay Mills

Clay Mills

Clay Mills is a 16-time ASCAP hit songwriter, producer, and performer. He is the co-founder of SongTown and has 2 Grammy nominations for “Beautiful Mess” by Diamond Rio and “Heaven Heartache” by Trisha Yearwood. Clay is also the co-author of Mastering Melody Writing and The Songwriter’s Guide To Mastering Co-writing.

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