Original Music
When I was younger, my parents got me a tape recorder that I used to just sing into all day with random melodies and lyrics that came to my mind. I would sing everywhere I walked, even to school, and most of the time it was just random gibberish. And then when I started learning guitar I would try and match my style to the limited chords that I knew.
But for some reason I found that the more music theory I learnt at school, the more overwhelmed I became with songwriting and felt pressured to make my original music complicated and advanced. This lead to a long time of not actually sitting down and experimenting with my ideas, and even when I did, they would be discarded quickly if they didn't meet the standard I had in my mind.
Now after a year of being a full-time musician and really making an effort to discover new artists, I’ve realised that my songwriting is just as valid as anyone else’s. It’s a form of expression. It’s more important that you are authentic in your music rather than trying to fit into a style or make it technically advanced. When people listen to your music, they aren’t thinking about what inversions you’ve used in your chords or if your vocal technique is complex enough!
So… I’ve been making a conscious effort to reserve time for creative writing and put less pressure on myself. I now use my phone to record my ideas, and a lot of the time ideas come to me right before I go to sleep! That’s what happened with one of my songs called “I Hate Love”, I wrote the verse while trying to fall asleep. Towards the end of last year I wrote a song called “Simple” to remind myself to be happy in my progress and my journey, to be kinder to myself and not try to achieve everything in a day. You can check out my latest video for it here!!