Jen de la Osa and Henry Beguiristain have been writing, singing, and playing guitar together since they were young. Today they are the core of Boston-based Aloud. The songs on their sophomore album Fan the Fury are an engaging collection of observations, each expressed with urgency and true emotion.

It’s shocking but true: at its genesis creativity is simply copying something you like. Artists usually express it with words like “inspiration” and “influence”, but it means the same thing. True artistry, however, is taking those germs of borrowed “inspiration” and turning them into something only you could have created. Inside you there are thoughts and ideas garnered from your life experiences that are completely unique and interesting. Learning to recall those things and express them in ways that are both understandable and widely relatable is what developing your creativity is all about.

Like anything, songwriting improves as one practices one’s craft. Practicing songwriting can often be a daunting task not only because it seems odd as a concept, but also because it requires admitting that your own songwriting needs improvement. Here are some tips on deconstructing songs to improve your own writing.

Now that we’ve covered a songwriter’s most important tool - the notebook - let’s talk about some others: the rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, dictionary, computer, and more. First up: the rhyming dictionary. Writing lyrics is hard work. Why waste time looking for rhymes when someone else has already done it for you? Remember, however, that rhyming dictionaries are not fool-proof.

In a previous post I proposed 4 reasons keeping a day-job can benefit your songwriting career. This post will tackle the flip-side. Freelancing, or making a living without a steady nine-to-five job can be the perfect support system for the working songwriter. The first part of this post covers freelancing as a career choice. The second part ties freelancing to the songwriter’s career.

It takes hold of the best of us. It creeps up on us when we least expect it. It sucks our musical inspiration dry. It stops our songwriting career progress dead in it’s tracks. I’m talking of course about laziness. How do we as songwriters and musicians battle the urge to stay glued to the couch?