Page 9 - WAMmay

Simon Wright

Collaboration as a way of generating more lyrics
Another thing that Marc-Alan Barnette mentioned was that Nashville songwriters typically collaborate
with about 50-75 artists when writing their songs. This is of course partly shaped by the importance of
establishing and nurturing working relationships with both established and up-and-coming musicians, and
the collaborations would typically be done face-to-face during a writing session. Additionally, Marc also
mentioned that in the professional world there are often multiple songwriters involved in the one song, and
that a recent Bruno Mars song had 14 credited writers!

The same principle of collaboration can be used by amateur songwriters, even where the collaboration hap-
pens remotely through Skype or Zoom calls, or through the exchange of emails. Maybe you have a connec-
tion who is a great piano player or guitarist but working with words isn’t their strength. You could get them
to send you their musical tracks without vocals, and then you can propose words to go with the music. If
you have singing ability you could then provide a vocal either as the intended vocal to be used or as a demo
to showcase the melody that you envisage for your lyrics.

Collaboration is a great technique to drive increased creativity. That exchange of ideas and the energy that
comes from working with another person is a fantastic way to increase your writing productivity. Not to
mention that if you’ve committed to helping someone with a song, you will probably have an increased
drive to make sure you deliver on that commitment.

I also like (though haven’t tried) the idea of more than one writer working on a single song. I guess the
closest I’ve got to that is via the MuseSongWriters website where I have posted lyrics and then other lyr-
icists or musicians have come back and made suggestions on how they could be improved or taken in a
different direction. Getting that type of external input can sometimes be very helpful – other people may
see things that you couldn’t because you have got too attached to the initial draft.

Quantity and Quality
Hopefully by increasing your songwriting output, you will find that you not only have a greater quantity of
songs or lyrics but also a greater diversity of genres and a higher quality of finished product. My final com-
ment on this is that this goal of writing regularly and creating a high quantity of output is not just confined
to songwriting. The great horror author Stephen King comments in his ‘On Writing’ memoir that he sets
out to write 2,000 words per day and he encourages aspiring novelists to strive for 1,000 words per day. The
idea is that you treat your writing passion like a job, and devote the hours to it that are necessary to move
from being a beginner to an expert. Best of all though, writing every day is fun!

About Simon Wright:
Simon is an Irish lyric writer who lives in Scotland. He collaborates with musicians across the world to turn
his lyrics into songs.

Check out his website www.LyricSlinger.co.uk

Follow @TheLyricSlinger on Twitter.

Related links:
LyricSlinger website: www.LyricSlinger.co.uk

Marc-Alan Barnette’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/675950639/videos/10163165364975640/

MuseSongWriters website, http://www.musesongwriters.com/

www.writeawaymag.co.uk 09