Songwriting Tips: Keeping Momentum With Checklists

It’s A Trap!

I’ve been writing and recording new music for Doxkyn at the moment. I had a lot of unfinished ideas from last year that needed to be massaged into something I could release so I’ve been going through my “woodpile”.

One song, “You’re Braver Than You Think”, was literally 8 bars of loops piled on one another 2 weeks ago. That pile had something special and I quickly started to shape it into a full track. 

As I neared the end of the production process for the song, I could feel myself starting to tinker. This is a dangerous game that can end up with your making minute changes which do very little. Thankfully, I stopped myself and got it finished without disappearing down that rabbit hole.

“Done Is Better Than Perfect Because Perfect Never Gets Done”

This is a little saying I heard a while back and I’ve been trying to apply it to my own creative endeavours.

All artists can be quite the perfectionists. The reality is that the idea of the songwriter who is working for years on their magnum opus is the exception and not the rule. Most successful songwriters work quickly and they show up regularly to write.

But how do we know when something is done?

Making A List

The idea of having a checklist is not to eliminate craetivity, but to create a framework within which creativity can operate and ultimately help you to know when you’re done.

I have a checklist for audio mixing projects I receive from clients. It’s not that I don’t know what to do but the checklist helps me to:

• Make sure I approach the project in the most effective and time efficient way.
• Removes some decision fatigue so I can have more energy for creative thinking which leads to more dynamic/powerful/emotive mixes
• Helps me not to “miss” things as I work.

Here’s a sample of my checklist for my session set up for each project I mix:

1. Bring in audio files to be mixed or create an alternative version of the project in Logic Pro X with name and date.
2. Listen to rough mix making notes of ideas or features of rough mix. What should the final mix sound like, genre, overall sound of instruments
3. Whilst listening, add section markers in. 
4. Order tracks from top to bottom: Drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keys, strings, horns, vocals. Rename as you go.
5. Colour parts and instrument groups.
6. Remove unnecessary plugins, automation..
7. Adjust gain of audio and instruments to peak around unity gain.
8. Add in busses and send effects including setting up timing of delays and reverbs with the BPM of the song.
9. Bring all faders down and then build a balanced mix.

If you repeat something regularly, i.e. writing and recording music it makes sense to have a checklist for it. This checklist helps you to step back and examine your progress to both create and to finish the project.

Sample Songwriting Checklist

So how can we apply this specifically to songwriting. We need to breakdown the process into pieces in a way there when we reach the end we have moved our song forward from when we started.

Here’s a sample checklist for a 30 minute session for a songwriter who’s a guitarist. The ideas is you’re going to work up ideas from voice memos you’ve made. It it could look something like this:

• Get guitar out of case (1 min)
• Tune guitar (2 mins)
• Check 3 – 5 voice memos on your phone to find something that inspires. Settle on one idea even if you’re not super inspired. (5 mins)
• Work on building out sections for the idea. Have your DAW recording the session so you don’t miss/forget some golden moments when they happen. (15 mins)
• At the 23 min mark, record a demo of session results in DAW. It doesn’t have to be finished it’s about capturing the process where you’re at. (7 mins)

This simple checklist includes a revision cycle where you’re reviewing ideas you had. Then you’re building and then the final result is recording a full demo. There is a clear path to draw from inspiration, develop it by writing and finally demoing. You’ve moved an idea forward.

Now you can take that demo in another session and start building out an arrangement. If you didn’t finish the song, you can pick up where you left off. The idea is to keep moving the song forward.

A Living Document

My checklists are a living document that changes as I refine my own processes. In the same way, just because you’ve got a checklist doesn’t mean it’s fixed. In fact it’s actually worth trying out variations on your checklist to see if you can find a more efficient or valuable way to to work.

Mistakes are also a great way to improve your checklist. Whenever something doesn’t go as it should, see if you can add an item on the checklist to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The Takeaway

Hopefully you can see how having a checklist for the different stages of music production can really help you approach your projects efficiently and productively. Ultimately this will help you get more songs written and released. The checklist framework should also give you confidence to be able to stop when you’re actually finished.