Art, Advice and Stories

Article by: Connor Frost
VQS Advice Blog | Cover Image by Soundtrap

Got a lot of song ideas? How many of them turn into finished songs?

Table of Contents
1. How To Improve Your Transitions
2. How to Beat Musical Burnout
3. How to Improve Your Lyric Writing
4. How to Finish Writing The Song

Starting to write a particular song can be easy. It’s new, fresh, and exciting! But it can be a challenge to actually finish writing it. ⁠⁠

Here are four common reasons for why you’re not finishing writing your songs, as well as some solutions and mindset shifts to help you on your journey.

1. What should you do when you’re having trouble transitioning between sections?

(Example: verse to chorus)

photo of woman lying on bed while using laptop — _{^{Photo by Elijah O’Donnell on Pexels.com}}

Strategy: Hone in on the chord progression and try different combinations to see what sounds the best going from the end of the verse into the beginning of the chorus. Do the same for the melody.

Choose no more than 3-5 combinations, and once you’ve tried them all, commit to one for the time being.

2. How to Bounce Back When You Lose Interest.

woman in white shirt showing frustrated girl motivate — _{^{Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com}}

Strategy: Remind yourself that there’s reward in bringing an idea to a finished, tangible form. You want to CREATE, not just ideate.

If you’re feeling unenthusiastic or detached from a particular song or idea, call up a friend, and tell them anything and everything about this specific tune. Go into the story of what inspired you to write it, its origin story, what it’s about, and everything in between. By the end of that conversation, it’s likely you’ll feel a new sense of closeness with your song.

Free mindset and productivity tools for creators
Subscribe to our VQS advice blog

3. What should you do if you’re getting hung up on lyrics?

Strategy: You might be setting yourself to a high standard when it comes to lyrics, because they’re often personal, and expose your vulnerabilities. Not to mention, EVERYONE can understand words – they’re seemingly less interpretive than perhaps other components of a song. That brings about unneeded pressure.

So think of your first pass at lyrics as a rough draft. You can go back and revise later, but you want placeholder lyrics, so that you can conceptualize the song from start to finish.

5 Powerful Ways to Create with Confidence

4. **What if you find starting songs to be easier than finishing them?**

woman playing brown acoustic guitar — _{^{Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com}}

Strategy: Fresh ideas tend to be the most exciting, so you may be more inclined to jump at the chance to start something new.

Create a goal-setting system to make sure that you are completing a song or an idea before jumping into another.

Try picking three “missions” each week to accomplish related to finishing your next song. Once you complete those missions, you can feel free to go wherever your creative tendencies take you.