This year there are close to a dozen TV series using songs in the broad, acoustic-based Americana songwriter style. This trend started with Yellowstone, a series that popularized the music of many Americana artists. Zach Bryan’s songs appeared six times in the 2022 season, driving his song “Something In the Orange” to the top of the Country Music Charts and launching his career.
Give Your Old Lyrics a Makeover
LET’S RENOVATE!
I was watching a home renovation show recently. You know… one of those reality TV shows where a couple of energetic, muscular types swing a hammer and—Voila!— they turn a moldy-smelling shack into a sleek duplex complete with landscaping. And I thought to myself: What if you could do a lyric makeover like that on an older song, give it a fresh coat of paint and plenty of current listener appeal!
Songwriting Habits: Make Them Work For You
Habits… we all have them. A habit is simply a ‘usual way of doing things’. Good habits, like exercising or flossing, can be help you improve your life. Bad habits—well, they can undo all the good habits and then some.
As in life, so in songwriting. There are good songwriting habits that can help you write better and faster. And there are bad habits that can cause you to write the same unsuccessful song over and over.
WHERE DID YOUR SONGWRITING HABITS COME FROM?
Generally, your songwriting habits are formed by the songs you heard in your teens and early twenties (from age 12 to 22). Research has shown that we recall our experiences from those years more vividly and more easily than those that occur later in life. It’s called the reminiscence bump.
During our teens, music and songs play an outsized role in our lives. They help us express our emotions, establish our identity, and relate to others. The reminiscence bump ensures that we’ll remember those feelings and experiences and the songs we closely associated with them. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the melody, lyric, and chord styles of our teens pop up when we sit down to write songs about similar emotions or experiences now.
Can You Use AI for Writing Lyrics?
I just want to say right up front… I’m not going to suggest that you use AI to write a song lyric. Period. Why on earth would you want to miss out on expressing yourself through your own creative process? It’s your thoughts and feelings that make a song meaningful and worth writing.
But I am curious to know if AI can be a useful tool. Maybe it can help us pick up our writing speed or reach listeners more effectively. So, I figure it’s worth checking out. Besides, I want to see what everyone is talking about. (Be sure to checkout my update at the end of this post.)
The two top sites for now are Lyric Studio and ChatGPT, so that’s where I went.
Where to Find New Songs & Artists to Listen To
Q: I want to learn more about what kind of music is current. Where do you find new music and artists to listen to? Also I want to pitch my songs to film & TV. Where can I hear artists that are being used in that market?
A: If you’ve been getting my monthly emails, you know that I’m big on listening. I recommend that songwriters spend as much time listening as they spend writing. That means listening to successful songs, current songs, songs that inspire you as often as you can.
But there’s a huge amount of music out there—more every week, every day— so much that it can seem overwhelming. So, how do you find new music and artists to listen to? How do you know where to look and how to focus on what will be helpful to you as a songwriter? Here’s my guide to finding new music that will deliver plenty of inspiration, knowledge, and ideas for your own songs.