b'FEATUREHOW TO.Four Tips For2 STOCKPILE BITS OF SONGSJust like squirrels put away their nuts and berries for the upcoming winter, stockpiling title ideas, lyrical and melodic snippets, can Getting Oversave you from having to stare at a blank page at a time when thats the last thing you want to see. Knowing you can go to your notebook of song titles or a file on your smartphone with melodic Writers Block ideas, will go a long way towards giving you a jumpstart when your creative momentum flags3 STOP SQUEEZING SO HARDWriters block. The mythical beastPart of the origin of writers block is the desire to write something that plagues writers of all stripes.as good as what youve written in the past. Putting that kind of While songwriting is a somewhat1 CO-WRITE pressure on yourself is almost guaranteed to put the brakes on unpredictable activity, I happenTwo - or more - heads are betteryour songwriting. Theres a decent chance that when you wrote to believe that there are ways tothan one when it comes to dippingthat earlier song youre trying to measure up to, you were just into the creative pool. If yourewriting and not comparing it to anything. It might be better to relax hedge against freezing up when itfinding yourself low on inspiration,and write something good enough instead of pressuring yourself comes time to write.scheduling a co-write can have ato write something perfect knowing you can always revisit the few benefits. Sometimes just thesong once its done and revise and edit it until it really is great.To that end, Ive put together amere act of working with someone few ways to get you past writerselse can spark a fresh round of block that require nothing morecreativity. But, even if you still than taking your craft seriouslyfind yourself struggling, leaning on a co-writers inspiration for a4and paying attention to whatswhile will go a long way towards going on in your creative process. rekindling your own.Words_Cliff GoldmacherHopefully, the above tips will take some of the pressure off and help you out the next time the writers block wolf is at your door. Good luck!Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, music producer and educator with recording studios in Nashville, TN and Sonoma, CA. Through his studios, Cliff provides songwriters outside of Nashville with virtual, live access to Nashvilles best session musicians and demo singers for their songwriting demos - www.CliffGoldmacher.com48 SEPTEMBER 2019 HEYMUSIC.COM 49'