The Song Graveyard
As previously mentioned, it’s important to choose a recording medium that is either on your computer or can at least interface with it. One of the main benefits of this is the ability to create what I call a “Song Graveyard”. You can have one without a computer but it’s much less practical.
A Song Graveyard is a place where you store all your song attempts. These include song ideas, half finished songs, songs you’ve given up on, bad songs, songs you want no one to ever hear, songs that need a chorus or a bridge, whatever. There are a number of ways to pick through this pile of effort and to walk away with something worthwhile.
Here’s how I use my Song Graveyard. Sometimes I’ll be stumped for an idea. If I’m not frustrated enough to walk away from it I’ll go to my Song Graveyard and I’ll start checking out some of the songs that are there. I’ve got over 100 song files to choose from. Some are called “Finish This One, Please”, or “This is a Good One”. Others are labeled things like “Song Idea #45”. I use my Song Graveyard to rekindle ideas and to stimulate the creative process.
It’s important to remember that you can learn a lot from writing a bad song. You can take note of the mistakes you made. Perhaps you’ve written a bad song based on brilliant premise, or the title was strong but nothing else was, or the bridge in one half written song works great as a chorus in your new one. There’s almost always something worth salvaging.
Save everything you write if you can!
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Jim Bruno's Songwriting Class 