Songwriting: Quality or Quantity?

A lot of songwriters I know are working on some serious songwriting deadlines — 28 songs in a month, a song a week for a year, a song a day, and the like.

So…is songwriting best when done in quantity, with lots of crumpled up pieces of paper as songs get thrown aside, or by spending time carefully perfecting one song at a time — perhaps only finishing a few songs over a long period?

As a writer and editor in my daily life (well, at least one of my daily lives), I have to go with the former: The more you write, the better. It doesn’t mean you can’t take a break from all that content and edit something you’ve written to perfection; but it does mean that you get the chance to get over the “precious” feeling you might have about every single thing you write. If you write every day, you can’t feel too worried about what you wrote, say, on Tuesday morning versus Thursday night. Your garbage can might be full, but it’s just part of the creative process.

For the past decade, I’ve regularly attended songwriting feedback groups where I try to bring in something new every time I come — usually not every week, but at least every few. I can’t even imagine how many of those songs have been tossed in the trash can and were never revived; if it doesn’t really move me or my audience, I usually just go on to something else, although sometimes the song strikes me more than others and I still stick with it.

I have songwriter friends, though, that tend to go the other way — they’re not terribly prolific, but most of what they write is right on the money and they work the song out until it’s done before going on to another tune.

What about you, songwriters?

  • http://twitter.com/stillmarried Erin Friedman

    I have found that I write better when I write more. I picture my songs stacked up inside my head, and I have to plow through a lot of garbage to get to the good stuff. That said, after a LOT of nose-to-the-grindstone stuff, I end up writing something that seems really lovely and effortless – but only because I put the time in already.

  • noah mclaughlin

    Since I cut my songwriting teeth on competitions like Song Fight!, SpinTunes and FAWM, my songwriting S.O.P. is quick and dirty. I don’t think too much about it and just get it down. Find something neat: a chord pattern, a lick, an image or, better, a metaphor, and craft the tune around that. For better or for worse, it’s very rare that I go back and revise after a song is recorded. I just apply the lessons I’ve learned to the next one.

  • http://twitter.com/stillmarried Erin Friedman

    That’s really interesting to me – because I CONSTANTLY revise and rewrite – I’m always changing melodies and lyrics – much to my bandmate’s chagrin. I think life would be a little more peaceful using your technique. ;-)

  • Beth DeSombre

    I’m usually a pretty slow songwriter who is tackling February Album-Writing Month as a challenge.  I admit, I was worried about the quantity/quality tradeoff.  And not every song I’ve written this month is great, but of the twelve I’ve completed so far I think four are fantastic (and I don’t think any of them are bad).  More importantly, I definitely know that when I’m in a period when I’m writing regularly, I write more, and better . . . my mind is just more focused on writing, and pays attention to things I hear or see and makes music of them.  I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas.  I have a piece of paper leftover from graduate school that says “the more you write, the more you write” and I’ve repurposed it to apply to songwriting, because it’s true. The more, and better.

  • http://www.songwritingscene.com Sharon Goldman

    My big problem is that when I write more, I end up not going back to revise the stuff I wrote! Gotta leave some time to finish stuff too, I guess. :)

  • http://twitter.com/cat_shattuck Catherine Shattuck

    Super interesting topic. Here’s my two cents’ worth:I believe that creativity begets creativity. But I also believe that having a good idea is only the beginning. You have to execute your idea well and sometimes this happens quickly, but other times it can take years. For me, it usually works the slow way. I wish it were different, I truly do, but every good song I’ve written took awhile. They all started with a flash, a line or a chord change that I knew in my heart was good, but then the real work began, because those early ideas never feel like work, they arrive suddenly and whole, but incomplete. In my opinion, trying to write 30 songs in 30 days is a fine idea; trying to finish 30 songs in 30 days, well, that would never work for me.  

  • jeffshattuck

    Super interesting topic. Here’s my two cents’ worth:I believe that creativity begets creativity. But I also believe that having a good idea is only the beginning. You have to execute your idea well and sometimes this happens quickly, but other times it can take years. For me, it usually works the slow way. I wish it were different, I truly do, but every good song I’ve written took awhile. They all started with a flash, a line or a chord change that I knew in my heart was good, but then the real work began, because those early ideas never feel like work, they arrive suddenly and whole, but incomplete. In my opinion, trying to write 30 songs in 30 days is a fine idea; trying to finish 30 songs in 30 days, well, that would never work for me.  

  • Fred Bassett

    Hey Sharon,
    Love your blog. I tend to be one of the latter type of writers. In other words, my garbage can has very few songs in it. However, I’ve come to love the challenge of writing on the spot, either in collaborative exercises or in forced deadlines like the song a day for the month of Feb. thing. That being said, the fact that I have been a newspaper journalist for much of my life, the idea of taking the creative energy of songwriting and putting ‘deadlines’ on it, causes me to shiver just a little. Thanks for sending the link to your blog. I like it. It makes me think.

  • http://www.songwritingscene.com Sharon Goldman

    I agree with that, Catherine — perhaps it’s really just about being able to start 30 songs in 30 days…but finishing all 30 songs would be tough. Still, getting a first draft of a bunch of tunes would be a real confidence-builder for many! 

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  • http://twitter.com/OhioGuitarMan Ronnie Gibson

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