Are You Being Intentional?

With everything that goes into songwriting, it’s no surprise that there’s a tendency to just do things without rhyme or reason sometimes; and it may happen more than you realize. While this article will be geared towards songwriting, it can and should be applied to anything and everything. You’ll find that you’ll be much much happier with your songwriting, or anything else for that matter, by being intentional!

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The Effects Of Not Being Intentional

I’ve noticed that many songwriters put a part in because it’s just habit, or making a new part is just too much work. Done enough times, it can create a bad or boring song.

Most of the time, I see songwriters add way too many parts, creating a way over-crowded piece of music. Why is that? Where’s the intentionality? Surely not all of the instruments in that section are providing a specific function or reason they’re there in the first place?

Find A Reason

No instrument or part should be in the song without a reason. When adding new parts to a song, think of the function or need first, and then fill it with the best option.

Does the song need a good foundation/low end and consistency? Add a bass with longer notes! Are the vocals lacking some sort of power? Add another vocal take underneath or add some vocal harmonies!

Each of these instruments are playing a role in the song all contributing to the vibe and theme you’re trying to portray. If you have a rhythmic guitar part for no reason other than “it’s cool” but the song has no need for it, throw it out! All it’s doing is muddying up the space already taken by other elements.

It’s always easier to listen to a simple, stripped down song than it is to try to listen to a very densely filled song with everything happening all the time; we can only notice 3-4 things at a time after all!

Make sure you guide the audience to what you want them to listen to, instead of making it hard to find a point of interest!

You VS The Song

There’s times where you have a really cool riff you want to put in a song. You took hours making that synth sound. You came up with an amazing sounding guitar part that would be a complete shame if it wasn’t used. Well… I’m sorry! Unfortunately it isn’t up to you! The song will dictate what it needs, and it doesn’t care how you feel sadly.

It’s its own identity that has needs of its own. You have to make sure that you aren’t getting in the way of your song. While yes, you may have made it, you can’t force something into it that doesn’t support or benefit it in any way.

It’s kind of like a child. Your child. It’s its own being. You have to nurture it and give it what it needs in order to grow and prosper, while making sure you don’t try to make it something it’s not!

This can probably be one of the most difficult parts about songwriting; finding what’s best for the song without you, the creator, getting in the way. This opens your mind up so much from thinking, “What can I add to make this song sound good” to “What does this song need so that it can be the best it can be?”

It shifts your mindset from a (most likely) unintentional “egotistical” point of view that limits the creative possibilities, to a more open-minded mindset where anything and everything is welcome to support the song. It’ll become much more apparent what needs to happen once you place an identity on the song, whether it’s adding a part or leaving it alone to support the mood/groove/theme.

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Being intentional can be hard; especially with those longer projects that drag on. But if you really care about this project, you’ll try to be as mentally awake and intentional as possible; because if you aren’t when it comes to writing a song, who really wrote the song?

If you need some help with staying on track and being intentional with your songwriting, I've made a free document I call the Top-Down Songwriting Pyramid, that lays out what the most important things to focus on are. All you have to do to get it is subscribe to receive email notifications on new blog posts that have been published, and you'll get a link to download from there! You can unsubscribe at any time if you just want the document, so no strings attached :)

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear any situations you’ve found where you’ve realized you’ve just gone through the motions, backed up, and started being intentional. It really changed the outcome right?? If you catch yourself doing this on a regular basis, it can really transform your quality of work. Alrighty, catch ya on the next one!

-Michael