How to Become a Songwriter

How to Become a Songwriter: The Idea

Write your own songs for recording by yourself and others to sell or license.

How You Make Money

Licensing your song in exchange for royalties like on Spotify, selling your song on iTunes or through performance at paid events.

What’s InvolvedCreating your own songs
Writing your own songs
Recording your song, selling your song and/or licensing your song

Words of Wisdom

If you’re looking for inspiration and wisdom on how to become a songwriter, then checkout this interview with Jesse Harris, Grammy-winning Songwriter and his advice for aspiring songwriters.

The basic advice is to write lots and lots of songs. Even if only a couple are worth listening to twice, you’ll keep getting better and better at it - and do as much music as you can.

I also recommend listening to lots of music, including music that you wouldn’t necessarily like to listen to normally. You’ll get ideas, and you’ll be able to say “I hate that song, because...” and that makes you a better person :-]

Five Awesome Resources for Songwriters

Robin Frederick

Robin Frederick’s site has some excellent tutorials and guides for songwriters to teach you how to write a song that will sell. She’s also got a handful of great books for sale.

Songwriting 101

Songwriter 101 is a fantastic community blog and forum packed with useful articles and members who cover everything from the technology to the copyrights.

Here's an extensive list of songwriting tips, including community contributions from Ultimate Songwriting.

Another useful site, Songwriting Opportunities may be a dated, difficult-to-read site, but there’s plenty of useful, actionable resources on there. And here's another 21 thought-provoking tips for songwriters.

Finally, there’s this excellent, yet ancient guide from the BBC that they’ve kept available for us to use. Lots of information for people looking at getting into the music industry.

Write Songs for Other People

If you’re looking to create and sell music for other people, like making advertising jingles and songs for businesses, then you might want to consider taking a look at MusikPitch. It’s a marketplace for musicians and people wanting custom music to get together and trade.

Take a look at this video.

You might also be interested in finding freelance work to sell music without being tied to a marketplace. This will give you more freedom and control in the long run.

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