Hello everybody. I’m gonna be talking to you today about how to instantly eliminate writer’s block with my seven step song planner. I know that how much you want to learn about songwriting, how much you want to forge forward, and everything we do in this Pro master is aimed at helping you along that route. Â Now, first of all, I’m gonna say this is not songwriting 1 0 1. Â This is the method that I use every single time I write. I don’t have it written down in front of me anymore because I don’t need to, but this is the way that I write and it stops me getting writer’s block every single time.
I can’t remember the last time I had writer’s block, and it’s that powerful and effective. So let’s take a look at this. Let’s see how it all works. Â First of all, I’m gonna say everything that I teach you that the rest of the team are gonna be teaching you, they are tools, not rules, okay? We are not making you do this. There is no formula to hit songwriting.
It’s also nothing to do with genre. Whether you’re writing pop or classical r and b, jazz, you name it. These same tools will still work against, it’s like me giving you a, Â a really great hammer and chisel, and you can use that on many, many different types of stone if you were a sculptor. Â So you don’t have to use them. But these are the techniques that have really helped me get lots and lots of records in the charts, and sell a lot of records.
and at the end of the day, I know that you’d like want a career from this. You want to be able to pursue your dream for the rest of your life and do it 24 7. And  my advice,  try these techniques and really stick with them because they will work. I’ve had people from all over the world that have emailed me saying, Martin, this technique is, has revolutionized my songwriting. So we’re gonna talk about planning your style.
 Now, I want you to be honest here, how many people have, have never ever planned writing a song before. They’ve just kinded meandered their hope for the best. Be honest with me here. Thank you for your honesty. Well, that’s a lot of people that have never actually planned a song. For me, this is absolutely key because I need to know why I’m in a room. When people say to me that, when people say to me, Hey, do you want to jam? That’s like my living nightmare  because I know it’s gonna end up as three hours of 12 bar blues  and people singing melodies and lyrics that are instantly forgettable and are hoping for the best.
That’s not how I write. Songwriting is my job now. Yes, I absolutely write from the heart, but it’s my job. So I need to be able to perform. I need to be able to do my job every time I sit in a studio or write with somebody.  So  the First thing we’re gonna look at, which is really important to me, and I want you guys to adopt this as closely as you can and see how you get on with the technique, this is when we’re starting with a lyrical theme.
Okay? Now, I know that some of you’re gonna be starting with the music. You might be great instrumentalists and we are gonna deal with this. I promise you I’m gonna deal with this today. But starting with the lyrical theme for me is, is really important. If I know why the song exists, then that almost tells me how to write the whole thing.
 So, where do we get our lyrical ideas? Where do we generate our lyrical ideas from? Please, guys, tell me where you think you get your best ideas from. Let’s have a look at these answers. And I’ve got a load of my own answers too. Relationships, yes, experiences, family, life.  Life, yeah. Films. Great conversations, like  completely, yeah, emotions, observations, biographies.
Brilliant. Love this. Depression. Yeah. Images, Â traumas, books, Â eavesdropping. I love that one. Yeah, we can get our ideas absolutely everywhere. And I said this on the webinar I did the other night, but for me, it’s something that I can’t switch off. I cannot stop finding song ideas. For me, it’s like the state I see song ideas. Â I cannot switch the darn thing off. And this is some of the places that, I recommend to going for, for creating ideas.
And write these things down. Please do not think that’s so good. I’m going to remember it. And then the following morning, you haven’t got a clue. Put your hands up if that’s happened to you where you said, that’s so good, I’m gonna remember it. That sucks. Yeah, there’s too many hands up to, I can’t actually see my presentation. There’s so many hands up on the screen. That’s hilarious. Â So yes. So let’s start with movies and TVs.
So killer lines that make you go,  ah, okay, that’s the be my best spelling of,  ah,  so the killer lines that you’ve gotta remember that you’ve got the best script writers in the world creating some of those amazing mo moments in movies that are designed to move us. They’re either designed to make us laugh, to make us cry, to make us feel so  wise and spiritual and enlightened.  And a lot of these people are literally, they do what we do as songwriters and they’re listening to what other people have said and just sort of changing the way they say these things.
 So it’s when we hear light in TV and movies,  this is something that we can then look at those ideas and say, I wonder how that would sound as a song. And those words that I love to say, and the words that I love to hear people saying are, oh, sounds like a song. Those four words sounds Like a song. I want to completely ruin your relationships now by making this such a part of your life that when you’re with your partner, every every fifth sentence, you’re gonna be saying, oh, sounds like a song.
They’re gonna hate you. I don’t care. But you are gonna get some great songs out of it.  So  killer lines from movies. Think about some of the killer lines from movies and write them down. Next time you’re in front of a TV and you hear an amazing line, don’t just go, oh, that’s good. Write the darn thing down and try and write it as soon as possible.
Because that feeling that it gives you, it might just gradually dissipate  this personal experience. Of course, we can learn from personal experience.  Everything that we go through. You guys have been saying somebody’s writing divorce, Kevin is saying divorce completely. We can learn from these experiences and we can write songs based on how that feels, because at the end of the day, we write about the human condition. We write universal things. and yes, you can write a song about tramp fishing in Norfolk if you want, but it may not have a massive audience.
You’re far more likely to reach a massive audience if you are writing songs about things that happen to people. That’s it. Â Love loss, joy, celebration. All of the feelings that we have, Â pretty much everybody else has those same feelings. So let’s write about those feelings, conversations. Listen for the standout lines. They’re there all of the time. I was talking to a good friend of mine, Chris, on one of our songwriting retreats that, until this year we’ve been holding out in Spain.
And he said to me, oh, my, my favorite line from a movie is, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, that Audrey Hepburn says, take me out tonight, darling. Don’t bring me home until I’m very, very drunk. Â And I just thought that was fabulous. And so that the next day, I think it was, I wrote a song with a couple of people, on the retreat called Don’t Take Me Home till I get High And Not High as in drugs.
Hi, as in just having an amazing time. Don’t take me home till I get high. So these lines are all the, we’ve gotta listen. We’re gonna switch on that little switch in our heads that is listening for them. So I don’t want to just hear what people are saying. I want you to listen. And it’s very common that people listen with the intent of replying instead of listening with the intent of understanding. So really start listening to people. That’s the bit that your relationship partners are really gonna like about it, ’cause you’re gonna listen to them for once.
 Oh dear. Â
