Songwriting #4: I’m stuck and I can’t finish this song

Well, perhaps it’s

A) Not worth finishing

B) Already finished

C) Needs more time

In the first case - what sometimes happens is that we lose perspective on the composition: whatever inspired us to start organizing these elements or

documenting our ideas is gone or has been worked to the point of obscurity and we no

longer can see the big picture and/or no longer excites us. Fair enough, it was an

exercise. Don’t force it, you’re just wasting your time and energy.

Second case: tidy up the loose ends and put a bow on it. Attention spans are

decreasing every hour in our modern world. Less people have the ability, desire or time

to sit through three verses and a bridge. The way the majority of the public consumes

music is unfortunately in tiny, bite sized pieces. You may be torturing yourself to finish that story for no reason and in fact, it could be detrimental to your goals.

Finally, give it more time. Don’t slave over it, just sing the song to yourself a couple

times throughout your day and play around with the idea in your head, make it fun,

make it catchy; amuse yourself with it. As songs are developing (and hopefully beyond), they have lives of their own. In our face-paced, instant gratification, pressure filled

world, the influence of time and varied perspective has on the process is often

overlooked. In my experience, I aim to get the piece to a state where it just finishes

itself. It gets to a point where I enjoy listening to it so much already, that finishing it is just as easy as “pulling a string”. That goes for many different kinds of projects; you just

need to hit that point of no return. I also apply that string visualization to audio

production as well.