Prompts

songwriting songfarmer bookchapter

Songfarmer book cover

From Songfarmer: Writing More and Better Songs
Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Prompts, Conclusion

Feel free to use one of the following prompts to start a compose session:

  • Talk to somebody that isn’t there
  • Go on a trip to a new place and pay attention to the things you see, hear, and feel
  • Stay in a familiar place and pay attention to the things you see, hear, and feel
  • Try to create a specific mood with a song
  • Read a poem and imitate the style and feeling of it in a lyric
  • Use a common saying as a title for a song (or use an uncommon saying)
  • Write a first line with a lot of options and paths that you can take from it
  • Write a line that is true for you and then exaggerate it
  • Start a song with lines that sound like the beginning of a joke
  • Write a song about a character with supernatural abilities
  • Write a song with a mix of conversational language and more poetic language
  • Write a song based on a historical person
  • Write a new song to a beat or a groove you like
  • Write a song based on a character from a movie
  • Use a book title as the title of a song
  • Pick a setting and write a song where the action of the song happens in that setting
  • Use the Songfarmer App at http://app.songfarmer.com to generate a Setting prompt
  • Learn a new chord and put together a progression of chords that it fits in. Imagine that each chord is like a pearl on a string and string them together, one after the other, and then produce lyrics and melody after the chord progression is basically set
  • Write a song with just one or two chords
  • Write down all the things that have caught your attention recently and put them together and see what happens
  • Embody another character different from yourself and write a song from the first person perspective that the character would sing
  • Write a chorus that would be encouraging for you to hear and believe
  • Write about your feelings without using the word for the feeling. Try to produce the same feeling in a listener and convey that feeling using lyrics that show pictures and vivid images

Next - Conclusion