Do you know who you are as a songwriter?
What’s your background, what instruments you play best, what music genre was your favorite when you started to feel inspired of music?
Those matter a lot in who you are or should be as a songwriter. And I mean this in a positive way, you should learn to benefit from your background as a songwriter.
I guess I’m trying to say you should learn to use your own strenghts and maximise what you are good at.
You know more about songwriting than you may think
What I mean by this? Well, here’s an example.
Many songwriters, despite the age or background, have some sort of knowledge of playing musical instruments. It’s pretty normal that one specializes in one instrument like piano or guitar, and gains a bit of knowledge from others instruments as well during the years.
We all have our favorite music as well, right?
We listen certain types of music whether it’s rock, classical, hiphop etc. We learn to understand musical genres we are into so well that’s actually very deep knowledge most of us don’t realize even having.
You most probably have a very interesting musical background that help you to write songs. Even if you’re just starting out your songwriting path you have already worked quite long way to get there.
Learn to know your strenghts as a songwriter
Songwriting, or at least successful songwriting in where you get noticed requires skills and knowledge, but also a something new and unique. This is where you should learn to stand out from your comfort zone without losing your focus on the stuff you’re doing well.
If you you have always played guitar and listened guitar oriented music, you’ll face hard times if you want to stand out by writing songs for guitar rock bands. There are so many bands & songwriters out already that are doing exactly the same thing.
But if you’re breaking some rules instead and coming to that genre from the world of drum&bass there’s a big change you will create something new and interesting in that landscape.
You should be always open to learn and write new stuff but without losing what you have already. It’s pretty usual for me at least to get inspired and start learning completely new stuff. Instead of that I should maybe only learn a bit of it to support my current strengths to be a more diverse.
Sometimes it’s so easy to get a bit lost from where you come from as a songwriter. What you have is a strength if you understand how to use it.