I've found myself lately, no matter how busy I am, making time to come up with a little 30 – 60 second piece of noise each and every day. I sit down without a care in the world and just start beating on the keyboard. I'm not thinking about cliches. I'm not thinking about the kind of little instrumental song I want to write. I'm not thinking about which instruments should go well together. In fact, I'm not thinking at all.

When I've created my little “piece” of music / noise, I'll do a quick mixing job on it, get it loud enough so that friends don't think it sounds “cheap” and be done with it. This one little piece of music is not all that significant in my life and I can never remember the tune I made the day before.

The real reward comes in listening to noise I made 2 weeks ago. As I said, I can't remember what I made yesterday so I really have absolutely no clue what came out of my brain 2 weeks or a month ago. Listening back, I often hear things that I REALLY like. My conscious brain says “YES! I could make a real song out of that”. Of course, interestingly enough, my conscious / calculating / over thinking side of my brain would have never came up with some of the melodies that I've cranked out when I just sit down (in a low, slow, and dumb voice) and say “Ok, George” (like Marvin the Martian's giant buddy).

Maybe not everyone needs to turn off their brain to make music. For me, it's the ONLY way to really come up with anything remotely interesting. It's just my personality type, I guess. I would never have the luxury of turning off my brain if I didn't do this day in and day out. In other words, if I just sat down one day and said “I'm going to write a GREAT song!”, I would fall flat on my ass. I know. I've done it many, many times before. It's more important for me to say that I'm going to write ANY song and see what happens. I embrace the crappy songs. These are a gift too, I just feel embarrassed showing them to people. That's all.

So, if you are really serious about writing a great album within the next year, I recommend that you sit down with a keyboard / sequencer, an acoustic guitar / microphone, or whatever it is you feel like you write music best with and go to town. Record something today and don't put much thought into it. Just record it and save it in a safe place.

I think you'll be a better songwriter for it.