Hey JoCo, I love writing poems and short stories, but my real passion is music, and I want to start writing songs, but I don’t even know where to start. Every attempt at writing a song has turned out as a poem basically, I am lost on the process of writing proper verses and especially choruses. I feel like once I start practicing I might get out of the’poetry mindset’, but starting seems to be impossible. I am a little worried because I don’t play guitar or piano, I play bass and drums; obviously the rhythm instruments not being useful for songwriting. Do you have any advice on how I should get started with writing my first songs, based off your experiences?

You can write a song on the bass, I did it just the other day. It helps to play some instrument that has notes, I don’t know how far you’ll get writing with drums. But if you want to know what it feels like to write a song, a good way to start is to steal. Pick a song you like and use it as a template. Play the bass line into a recorder, and then spend an hour singing nonsense on top of it. Find a melody you like, a phrase that catches your interest, and then build from there. Use the same form and chords as the song so you won’t have to think about how long the chorus should be or where it should go next. That’s stage two of the process for me anyway, it’s just that the song template I’m working with is one I made up. But to make it less of a mystery, skip that step and use a ready-made template.