5 Reasons Why You Should Write Your Own Songs

We all reach the point in our journey as guitar players where we feel we have learned enough theory and practiced our fundamentals enough to come up with our own ideas. These might come in the form of our favourite chords stitched together or a lick heavily influenced by your favourite band or artist, and for some it’s the start of an exciting new chapter, though for the rest; it could be a crushing blow to our confidence that’s hard to recover from. However, I’m here to tell you that it’s something we will all suffer from and recover from at some point in our time as guitar players and can often be a hurdle we need to stumble over to get out of a rut.

The thing with a rut, moreover the word rut, are it’s broad, non-specific implications. Guitar ruts come in all kinds of forms, whether it be a noticeable plateau in technical application, a downturn in creativity or arriving at a theoretical brick wall; we can often be in a rut before we realise it. Regaining your guitar motivation can feel like a rut in itself.

Taking time to create and play around with ideas, no matter whether we think they might suck or not, can stimulate our ego enough to release the serotonin we associated with the supernatural attraction of wanting to learn the instrument in the first place. It really is as simple as, we need to experience that feeling as much as possible and coming up your ideas that can develop into sections which develop into songs which all develop into confidence. The idea of a ‘being stuck in a rut’ will more than likely stem from a lack of confidence in some area of your playing or practice regime, so be sure to include creativity in yours!

It goes without saying, that learning other people’s songs has a hugely positive impact on the way we interpret music theory and how we can apply it. We can pretty much gauge our level of understanding on if we’re able to learn, play through and discern what is going on in a song as meter for our overall theoretical ability. Though, it is then important to apply the knowledge we learn from other music to composing our own music.

For example, say we set ourselves the task of writing a song based upon 5 Led Zeppelin songs, we’re reaching an analytical decision of what comprises the theoretical components necessary to achieve that musical direction. Or, simply put, we can learn to fast track our influences based on theoretical muscle memory by putting them into practice.

Nonetheless, letting creativity flow organically can help us reach for information beyond our current theoretical comfort zone simply by the practical application of trying to create; despite the fact that we will always be dictated by our influences whether we know it or not. After all they are subjects we have built our theoretical understanding on in the first place.

Creating our own ideas and compositions can really help us get to the next level in our theoretical understanding of music, therefore making a claim that it should be part of every player’s practice strategy.

As a counter point to our previous reason, pushing our understanding of theory or technical ability can and will often reveal the weakness in our playing. This is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Why? It shows us what we can be improving on an itemised basis.

For instance, imagine we have worked pretty hard on putting a song together and have laid down the guitar parts into a recording of our efforts with some confidence. Only, when we hit our playback button, we are frozen in horror at the reality of how it sounds and the damage it has done to our ego. Now, this is where we get our money back because we can hear the individual things we need to improve...clashing harmony, disjointed sections...or maybe things as simple as sloppy picking, poor time feel...if we know we need to work on these things, we can then work on these things; which will in turn improve the overall sound of our compositions.

Revealing our weaknesses doesn’t have to be a hit to our confidence, it can be a tool to show us what we can do to overall improve. Allow the vulnerability of your creativity reveal yours by writing your own songs.

It’s an inevitable event in the journey of every musician. Through many trials and many errors, we realise what we’re good at and not so good at. For example, if you find yourself an accomplished Rock rhythm guitarist and a less than good Neo-Classical shredder, it’s probably in your best interest to build upon solid foundations. That’s not to say you shouldn’t look to improve upon your weaknesses, we all absolutely should. However, your own creative output is going to be of better quality if you focus on quality input.

In short, play to your strengths - literally. If you’re naturally drawn to and more suited to a certain genre, focus on perfecting it and building your confidence within it when creating your own songs; It’s only going to you progress more organically and efficiently, right? Run with what you’re good at, you can improve at what you’re not in time.

This final tip might seem like a cop out but remember, we picked up the instrument to have fun. Writing our own music can have a greatly positive impact to our confidence and consistency levels, making you feel a persistent and reliable musician. This opens up more opportunities to play with and write music with other musicians, which is always going to be a fun and new experience; directly influencing the way in which you approach writing your own music.

Making music and playing guitar should be a fun process, so even if you throw a few familiar chords together and write a joke song, or take an existing song and parody it; if it’s fun to you then do it! Maybe you want to see how it would sound if you too elements of Funk and Folk and threw them together - do it! Writing your own songs or music doesn’t mean you need to write a suite of concertos so remember to approach it in a way that is fun to you.