Music Therapy Songwriting

I am so excited to be talking about one of my favorite topics this week…

SONGWRITING!

I love songwriting (if you couldn’t already tell from my music page)! I write new songs nearly every day of the week.  Some of them stick and become recorded, published works, where as others are never heard by another soul.

Songwriting doesn’t have to be a serious process, but I promise, the more you do it the better you will get.  My songwriting practice occurs all day, every day, singing to the dog, singing to myself in the car, recapping my day in song format, etc. During piano lessons, I’ll spontaneously create songs to give instructions or teach a new concept and my students ask, “how did you do that?”  Easy, I sing my thoughts and ideas and occasionally come up with great rhymes.  It’s that simple.

Sometimes, my songs are more thought out and start with an idea on a piece of paper that gradually evolves into lyrics with a chorus and verses that take a week or more to complete.

Often, I’m in a music therapy session and my client asks for a song about their favorite superhero and (to my knowledge) there really isn’t one.  SO, we improv and make a new song. OR I’m in a session and we need to target a specific goal and I can’t think of an appropriate song so I write one on the spot!  OR my client needs to work on expression so we using song writing as an outlet or coping mechanism.

Songwriting targets so many incredible goals and can be used in a variety of ways.  Songwriting can be super structured or completely improvised.  Songwriting can be as simple as substituting a word  or filling in a blank or it can be as complicated as writing a full 5 minute piece with multiple verses and voices.  It definitely depends on the songwriter or the individual facilitating the songwriting.

Over the next few days, I’m going to talk more about different methods of songwriting, provide several free resources, and even share some improvised songs.

Get excited and make sure you subscribe to receive all of the resources straight to you inbox!

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