For the fourth year in a row, I’ve taken part in the Songwriting for Music Educators Song a Day Challenge alongside Sarah Gulish (who brilliantly started this idea btw). The basic concept behind the challenge is simply to show up for your creativity every day. But, because I’m a chronic overachiever, I go the extra mile and write a full song every day and then post it to my socials - bumps, warts and all.
After moving through this challenge different ways for the past four years, here are some things I’ve learned - that perhaps, if you’re interested in partaking in a similar challenge, will inspire you and give you some insight.
It’s a lot easier to do this challenge writing to prompts. The first two years that I did this challenge, on December 31, I got 31 little post-it notes and wrote out 31 prompts. Some my husband gave me (they were always the harmonically and rhythmically challenging ones), some I got from friends, some I crowd-sourced, and some I created myself. I put all the little pieces of paper into a bag and each morning, I would pull out a card and voila! That would be the song I was to write that day. Writing to prompts sparks creativity, gives you a place to go with your writing, gives you direction and generally, just helps the practice move a little easier. What I noticed however was that while a lot of the songs I wrote in these 2 years ‘worked’ and functioned as songs, they often were merely songwriting exercises of a sort. A worthy practice for sure, but I think I maybe reworked one or two from each year.
Writing what you feel is harder. A lot harder. Sitting down and figuring out what to write, where to write, how to write, what instrument to write on, what key to write in, what groove to choose - it’s a LOT of options and if I didn’t have 30 years of experience writing songs, I think I would find that truly overwhelming. I’ve learned to move through the noise of this and just go with whatever comes out first, but that takes trust in your craft and that it will work out. However, what I did notice was that I liked the songs I wrote these past two years a lot better. They felt more personal, more authentic and some of them have even made it into the next phase of my songwriting process: rewriting and reworking and arranging and producing.
Showing up is the work. This is truly the hardest part. Just the showing up part. The part where you sit down and write even when you don’t feel like it. When you aren’t inspired. When you don’t think you have any ideas. When you’re tired. You show up. Because, as I’ve learned, as as James Clear talks about in his work Atomic Habits - if you want to be a songwriter, you ask yourself: what would a songwriter do in this space? The answer? Show up and write the darned song.
Let go of perfect - or flip it on its head. Perfection is a myth. I’m a recovering perfectionist - I deal with it day in and day out. But this challenge helps you to work through some of that. My students ask me about this - they'll say: what if your song is bad? My answer? Some totally are! And that’s ok. This is about process. It’s about doing. Not about perfection. Flip it: Perfect = good and done :) Make it work for you.
Finish the first draft. Doing this challenge for me is also about finishing the first draft. Not the song that’s going to be released, but the first draft of an idea. That, if I think it’s a worthy enough idea with enough ‘legs’ to keep going, then I’ll go back and work on it - work on the melodies, the harmonies, the lyrics, the groove - until I craft something out of that first draft that I absolutely love and want to share in its final finished form - whatever that ends up being.
If you’ve never done a daily challenge, I dare you to try. Practice every day. Take a walk every day. Smile every day at a stranger. Write a page of anything every day. The practice of creating a habit is worth the effort.
That being said, I’m also always glad when the challenge is over. Writing songs every day takes time - and I only have a finite amount of it in my weeks - and I want to work on being a stronger guitar player, I want to work on my vocal chops, I want to work on my production chops - and I want to have time to be a human and a cat owner and a wife and friend and a family member and make sure I also have energy for all the educational work I do as well.
I’m looking forward to digging into some of these songs over the summer when I have more time - as well as some space to be away from them and be more objective about their merit.
Keep writing and keep doing ART. The world needs it.