Page 47 - Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics - Simon Hawkins

Using Song Maps in the writing room
Co-writing is such a great thing–a second pair of ears, another take on where ideas can go, a fresh set of experiences to write from, another set of musical and lyrical influences to draw from, another publisher to pitch the songs...the list goes on. And we each have our respective journeys as songwriters, developing our craft in our own, individual ways.
Some of my co-writers are like you: they devour material about songwriting in books, online, in courses, in seminars and other sources of study. Other co-writers have developed their craft more organically in the writing room, on their own. All of this is fine.
However, whenever a co-write takes place, there will always be some areas of contrast–life experiences, styles of writing, temperament, confidence levels, musical abilities, backgrounds, tastes, and preferences. These contrasts are usually a source of great strength when it comes to crafting a song. When it works out, well, it's almost magical.
However, Pat Pattison, Professor of Songwriting at Berklee Music School, once gave me some great advice:
"Don't spend valuable time in a co-writing session talking about how to write a song–just write it."
In other words, if you are the kind of songwriter who has developed their craft via books and courses, don't bring the books and courses into your co-write. After all, the writing room is supposed to be a safe place to play, and there is nothing worse than intellectual one-upmanship (or any other kind, really) coming into the writing room. It could be the death of not just your song, but also your relationship with that co-writer.
So while I suggest a process for how you write a song in this book, when it comes to co-writing I strongly suggest leaving the book outside the writing room. However, there are two positives to using Song Maps:
1. This process is very co-writer friendly in that it will give you a bank of writable ideas to draw on before you even get into the writing room. Your writable ideas may be taken up exactly as you have drafted them. Or they may not. Your co-writer is likely to have new things to bring to your writable idea. That is the whole point of co-writing! The point of having a bank of writable ideas is to prepare yourself as best as possible to serve your co-writer. If the co-write ends up taking your idea somewhere completely different (which it may well), then cool, you still have the original idea in your idea bank.
2. The more you use Song Maps, the more intuitive they will become. After a while, instead of sitting down going through steps 1 through 4, you will begin to hear a title and immediately start Mapping out lyric options in your head. Even in a co-write.
Summary
In this chapter, we've looked at a four-step process to writing a complete lyric using Song Maps, how to write any title and how to use Song Maps to prepare well for a co-write.
The next chapter is effectively the "main course" of this book where I will give you seven universal Song Maps for you to use with the process described in this chapter right out of the box. They are all fantastic tools to helping you write in 3D, protect your precious creative time, see the full potential of a title, prepare for a co-write and banish Second Verse Curse.