I want to let you know that I have shifted my songwriting blog over to Wordpress and have renamed it Songwriting Zen.

The reasons for this move are many and varied and I wont go into them here.

I want to thank the people of Quikonnex for hosting Corey Stewart Songwriting Tips and my other blogs for the past 4 years.

I also want to thank everyone who has visited my blog, read my posts and made comments. The interaction with you all is fantastic and extremely valuable (even though I've been a bit slow in replying to some of you).

You can now find me at Songwriting Zen.

Until next time, keep on writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician
www.songwritingzen.com

Keywords: songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting help, songwriting blog, songwriting idea, songwriting zen, corey stewart

I came across an article called "Write a Song Today - The Songwriter's Way of Thinking" by Shamir Rele which sums up how I feel about writing songs.

No matter whether your life is going good or bad, is eventful or not, you can always find a song in whatever you do... If you let it that is.

That's the songwriting mind Shamir is talking about.

In my quest to provide you with the best and up to date information around I want to let you know that I have another FREE ebook for you to download.

Its called "30 Ways To Supercharge Your Gigs".

Download it now...

Persistance does pay off in the end.

While there is talk of a distribution deal for my first CD in the wind I wanted to first of all let this event settle in my mind.

What does this mean for me? More songs of course. I'll keep all of you posted on my progress.

In the meantime, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician
www.coreystewartonline.com
www.orangutangmusic.com
www.myspace.com/coreystewart

While you're here you might as well check out my other blogs
The Bizzo - Indie Music Industry Tips
Recording Studio And Live Music Tips

Download my FREE eReport today
11 Ways To Eliminate Writers Block FOREVER!!

Keywords: songwriting news, songwriting tip, songwriting, song writing, singer songwriter, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting blog, corey stewart

I have some more sites on this network that I wanted to share with you plus, I wanted to give you an update as to what is happening at the moment...

Check out the details if your interested.

I happened to come across an article by Andrew Hacker of ARTS Recording Studio in Newcastle NSW called "10 Songwriting Myths Busted". It certainly breaks open a lot of the misconceptions about songwriting and what the related process is really about.

Here it is for you to read and judge for yourself...

I believe that there are so many ways in which a songwriter can glean inspiration. One of the ways is immersing yourself in the media that we are exposed to every day like newspapers, TV and magazines.

It's not what media you use that inspires but how you use it. Today I'm talking about books.

Yes, I've just put up a Corey Stewart Online page on Myspace.

There's not much to it at the moment but I'm looking forward to it being an integral part of my online songwriting world.

I received another article from Ron Balagot a couple of days ago and this time it's about beating writers block by doing more than one project at a time.

The premise of the article is...

When you get stuck on one thing, work on another project that you have on the go.

Here is an article outlining some hollistic time management tips for artists from Linda Dessau of Genuine Coaching, an organisation that helps artists (including songwriters) enhance their creativity.

I wish I had this information when I was working day jobs to supplement my musical income...

Yes and without a hitch too on MCTMG radio based in Nashville USA. The first guests were the songwriting duo 'Fifth Avenue' and they gave me some really good insights into what it's like being involved with a long term collaborative team.

As mentioned in my post "Songwriting News - Corey Teams With MCTMG Nashville" I am in the final stages of putting together a songwriting radio show called "Songwriting Down Under"

I'm hoping that the radio show will further the cause of Aussie songwriters. Let me tell you more about it.

When I came across an article titled "Join A Songwriting Forum - It's A Good Idea!" by Kathy Unruh of www.abclearnguitar.com I found yet another way of starting your songwriting right for 2007.

Here is the full article for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

As mentioned in my first post for the year "Songwriting News - Welcome To 2007!!" I outlined some of the exciting things that were happening for me and my blogs for this year.

One of those things is my involvement with Jerry Brower and his company - Music City Talent Marketing Group (or MCTMG for short) based in Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm not going to tell you how to set goals or how to keep those new years resolutions that you made for yourself however, I do have some suggestions that could make 2007 your best songwriting year yet.

Read on to find out if they are right on the money...

Why are some songs embraced by the general public and some are not? Does it have anything to do with talent? Or how much money is thrown at it? Or the production values? Maybe.

However, I think the main reason that a song gets embraced by the general public is that the songwriter wrote that particular song with the listener in mind.

I try as much as possible to turn a negative into a positive. Today I had some car troubles and somehow I have managed to turn that experience into a blog post loosely related to songwriting.

"What are you going on about Corey?" I hear you say. Well, read on...

This old saying certainly rings true for songwriter Jonathan Coulton. His song a week concept is the true embodiment of the establishment and perfecting of your songwriting process.

Personally, I find his story inspiring...

I came across a post titled "Great Way To Write A Song". It's all about using spontaneity as a way to generate songwriting ideas. It's very simple but (to me) it seems very effective.

I just had to share it with you all...

It's no good having a system that successfully pulls songwriting ideas from the creative ether and onto paper without the ability to store the completed creations in a way that makes them easily accessable to you.

If you are looking for a better way to organize your finished songs here are some suggestions for you.

Yesterday I went out and bought myself another capo for my guitar as my old one finally snapped its spring after 12 years of faithful service to me and my songwriting.

It prompted me to think about why I use one and how much of an influence it has over my songwriting process.

For the past few weeks I have not been the productive singer/songwriter that I normally am. It has been a while since I have written a song.

Here's how I got myself back onto the wagon again. By just writing...

In my quest to provide you, the songwriter with the most up to date, unique and relevent songwriting information available I have discovered another means to spread the message around the world.

It's called SQUIDOO.

A: "One bite at a time"

I received another article via email from Ron Balagot today. Ron is the author of the article that was featured in "Songwriting Idea #14 - Using Your Subconcious Mind"

This next article deals with a technique used by a famous advertising copywriter Eugene (Gene) Schwartz. It can be easily applied to our songwriting process

Gene never suffered from writers block and neither should you.

(Ron, thank you for emailing me the article. Keep them coming if you can)

The reason why I ask you that question is that the answer that you give may determine how you see a blank piece of paper and ultimately your whole songwriting process.

Yes, that is the title of my first e-report. Feel free to download it and give it away to anyone and everyone that you think will benefit from such information.

This e-report is my gift to you.

This is probably just me going off on a bit of a tangent here, but I wanted to congratulate Finland's heavy 'monster' metal band "Lordi" on winning the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest

Well done!!!

Phillip from Tanzania, Africa contacted me through my website Corey Stewart Online and asked me how he could go about finding a co-writer.
The simple answer to the question would be "just ask" but the art is finding that certain songwriting 'someone' to ask.

If you have a wealth of knowledge about all things songwriting , the creative process, tips, tricks and strategies then I want to hear from you. How about submitting something to this blog for me to consider?

I promise I won't bite :)

I found this article from a songwriter by the name of Ron Balagot and it sparked my interest because it is all about using our subconscious mind to generate songwriting ideas.

I heard about similar techniques to control your dreams so I had to have a look and see what it was all about.

Now that I am able to put audio with my articles I thought now is the time to start putting my songs out there for people to listen to, enjoy and comment on (constructively of course)

Hope you enjoy it. This song is hot off the press :)

I touched on it a little bit in my article "possible song titles" however, I am going to expand on the subject.

I thought it was about time I put onto paper what I do to get my own songwriting ideas down.

Very soon on this blog I will be putting up songs that I am working on as a podcast but until then.... welcome to my songwriting process.

I think the above quote sums up what I call the "songwriters attitude". If songwriting is life then to get the best out of our writing we need to develop a certain attitude towards our lives.

Let's explore this further....

Last week I had the pleasure of working with the Irish music band "Hothouse Flowers" on their Adelaide leg of their Australian tour.

I wanted to share with you some of the lessons that I learnt and some of the knowledge that was re-affirmed just by working with them.

No, I'm not saying that you should copy someone elses song and then call it your own however, asking yourself "what songs do I like to hear?" and studying those songs to define what unique voice you have is a great start.

This is a great example of turning a bad situation into a wonderful songwriting situation. Necessity is definitely the mother of invention.

I saw an interview with Chris Martin and Will Champion from Coldplay on the TV today and I thought it was pretty inspiring stuff. Most of the interview was either about the bands songwriting process or its history but it was the discussion about songwriting that interested me...

I received a message very recently from someone who expressed to me the pain they experience through writing songs. The pain seems to come from the "if it aint a hit, it aint worth writing" way of thinking (as this person puts it).

I want to explore this way of thinking a little further if I may.

Its been a long time coming but the debut CD from Soul Trader "Pre-Cursor" is now ready to be unleashed onto an unsuspecting world. I must say, Simon and I are very pleased with the result.

In a previous article (written about six months ago) I waxed lyrical about John Lennon and his song "Imagine" and how perfect the song is etc, etc. Well, I found and article titled "Imagine, Britain's favourite song" which pretty much backs my theory up.

At last I feel vindicated :)

Well, it's that time again. It's the start of another year and for me that means revisiting my new years resolutions and goals and promising myself that maybe this year I am going to stick to my guns.

Here is what she had to say....

As a judge of songwriting competitions I see and hear this all the time. You are settling into a song and then 'whammo' the whole story changes or yet another subplot has been introduced.

All I ask is 'why?'

Quotations are the little gems of wisdom that people come up with regarding any topic that you can think of.

In this article I outline a way to unpack these condensed forms of insight and create songs out of them.

Over the last six weeks I have been working hard on getting my website up and running and I am please to say that www.coreystewartonline.com is now up and running.

[READ MORE] [COMMENT]]]> Sun, 14 Aug 2005 07:19:56 -0400 http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=15028 http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=14633 "Is this the end of art as we know it?"

No, it's not a parody of an REM song but the tiltle of an article from Myles Wakeham, studio engineer and producer who is well known in Adelaide and Los Angeles through his studio 'Troubled Clef'.

In the article he brings up some interesting points on the technology vs humanity in songwriting debate.....

I was doing some research on cliches and discovered how deep rooted they are in our everyday language. With this being the case I pose the question.

'Is it possible to completely erradicate cliches from songwriting?' Yes, I believe that there is a way......

I must say I got a pretty good writeup in Bob Bakers Blog (in which I will say a big thank you to Bob once again) which resulted in many more people checking out my channels.

One of those people was Nate Wazoo and I liked his stuff so much I thought I would make him the Songwriter Focus this time....

As you might have noticed there has been a fair bit of activity on this channel of late such as increased posting and the opening of the online shop.

The reason being is that I am back on track (after sorting out some personal issues) and ready to expand my use of the internet to spread the songwriting word.

Therefore, Soul Trader is now online.

Dino Jag La Vista has been writing and performing his wonderful brand of pop/rock for a number of years in Australia and he has kindly taken some time out of his busy life to hop onto the "songwriter focus express"

All aboard....

Whoa Nelly, I can't remember who said that but I always found that comment to be a bit over the top until I started doing lots of jamming with other musicians either in general or with the bands that I have been in.

I tell you now, the energy it creates is amazing.........

If you really break a song down to it's most basic structure you will find that its just like any type of prose. There is a beginning, a middle and an end.

This article deals with the beginning and the end of a song and how important they are to the song.

This is a question I have recieved recently and I felt it necessary to put my thoughts on this into an article. The short answer to this question can be summed up in one word - FOCUS.....

It's amazing what you find on the internet.

I came across an article by John Tunney on the Muses Muse website regarding a new way to gather songwriting ideas. Immediately, my sences pricked up, I had to have a look.....

Penny Burke is a very good friend of mine and an awesome country singer/songwriter (she has turned me into a fan and that is a hard job to do). I invited her to do the songwriter focus test and these are the answers that she came up with.

PS: Take particular note to the answer she gives for the 'how do you write' question....

Rewriting a song doesnt mean it's bad, it just means it will be even better.

Lets be honest, no-one likes to think that they have to rewrite something that they have put in their heart and soul into but what is the endgame of writing a song anyway?

The hardest thing about song writing sometimes is the activity of song writing itself. We live in a world that tells us that we have no time to do anything so how do we overcome this?

I have mentioned in earlier articles thatdoing something different can stimulate some inspiration and get the crative juices flowing. Personally, one of the best ways to do that is to go for a good old fashioned, head clearing walk.

I came across an article on U2 and their songwriting process and I just had to share it with everyone.

For some people (me included) writing lyrics can be a challenge in itself, any tool that make it easier to put down the ideas from head to paper should be adopted into your writing process.

The two main tools used in writing lyrics are the rhyming dictionary and the thesaurus. You can find them online too.

I dont know who said it to me now but I am forever in their debt.

How does your environment affect you?

Marks distinctive voice and songwriting style clearly defines the band so I had to find out what makes his songs tick. Heres what he had to say......

Here is what she had to say......

Take special note about what he says regarding his view on what the most important aspect of songwriting is.......

Lets see what Simon has to say for himself.....

In songwriting there are exceptions to every pretty much every rule you can think of. As soon as you have a formula happening with your own writing something else comes along that blows the theory out of the water.

If you have been here before then you already know that this is a place where songwriting and all things musically creative is the paramount topic of discussion. If this is your first time here then please take some time out and explore, subscribe and enjoy.

When life gets you down and you have no-one to talk to about how things are, instead of bottling up your emotions write a song about it.

Im not necessarily writing about home recording studios (although it would be lovely to have one ready to go) but I am writing about ways in which you can record your ideas and build up an ideas archive at the same time.

Word associating is another form of brainstorming in which you take a single idea and branch out from that in a visual way, similar to that of a mindmap.

By the end of the exercise the whole song is laid out in front of you and all you have to do is follow the paths that you have created.

Unless you go into Indian music scales or experiment with quarter tones, everything that has been done in contemporary music has been done.

So why are songwriters so concerned with trying to sound totally original?

This exercise is also a great example of a powerful technique called brainstorming.

Seriously though, winning the conversations in your head is one of the main keys to getting the most out of your songwriting and starting a journal is one of the best strategies for doing that.