Songwriting is not work

I went to a 2-hour songwriting workshop today at Swallow Hill in Denver, given by songwriter Tom Kimmel. My personal takeaway was, stop using the term “work” when thinking about songwriting. I will no longer say, “I’m going to *work* on a song now”. Work–ugh! Who wants to work? That’s no fun. A song is not a *chore*; something to get done; something to cross off the todo list. From now on I’m going to say, “I’m going to *play* with this song”. I’m going to “have some fun”. On the surface it sounds like just different terminology for the same thing, but behind the terminology is a completely different attitude. When it comes to chores, I procrastinate. No problem with procrastination when it comes to fun. But more importantly, “work” and “play” use different parts of the brain. “Work” uses the logical, editor part of the brain, and “play” uses the creative, imaginative side. I think the reason I’ve been having trouble getting songs done is that I need to be in the creative mode more than the logical mode.

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