It's perfectly natural to get stuck from time to time.

We all fall into certain patterns and gravitate to what comes easily to us, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! It’s important to play to your strengths and use your natural gifts so that your music is authentically you. But sometimes we need a little help breaking out of our patterns so we can stretch ourselves and bring some new life and inspiration to our songs! 

Today we’re bringing you a lyrical exercise that will help you expand your vocabulary, get you using more imagery and metaphor, and spark new song ideas. The whole thing should take about 15 minutes and can be used again and again. So grab a pen and paper, a cup of coffee and let’s write! 

Synonym Mini-Challenge

Step 1.

Pick an emotion that feels relevant to you at this moment. We love using this handy emotion chart to help get more specific. 

Ex. Inspired

Step 2.

Choose 3 synonyms for your emotion. Try to choose ones that are more unique, interesting and less common. Thesaurus.com can be very helpful here. 

 Ex. Activated, Stirred, Animated

Step 3.

Write a sentence or two describing an image or scene that each word brings to mind. Use as many specifics as you can and try to incorporate your 7 senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound, kinesthetic, organic). Feel free to get as abstract or literal as you want. 

Ex. 

Activated: He placed a handful of crystals on the freshly cut grass and stepped back to let the April full moon shower them with her ancient reflective light. He could almost see the translucent pink and white rocks begin to glow and activate with warm lunar energy.  

Stirred: A moment in time in this dusty picture frame. There you are, sitting next to me as if it were yesterday. I can still remember what it felt like, leaning into your soft frame and inhaling that smell that was so distinctly you. 

Animated: I love the way your eyes glimmer as you dance around the room. All giggles & tippy-toes, your youthful sense of gravity lets you bounce carefree like an astronaut on the moon. 

Step 4.

Choose one of these images you’ve created and use that as a launching pad to free-write for 5 minutes. Let your free-writing be very stream of consciousness. The important thing is to keep writing and don’t judge what you write. Your inner editor is not welcome here! 

Ex. I love the way your eyes glimmer as you dance around the room. All giggles & tippy-toes, your youthful sense of gravity lets you bounce carefree like an astronaut on the moon. You dart from one end of the room to the next, nonsense words spilling out of you like water from a fountain. Distracted by everything you see. A book you’ve read hundreds of times, finally the words are bubbling to the surface of your mind and you read it outloud as you flip through the pages. I watch in awe. And then you’re off again! I sit, sipping my coffee on our stained white rug, shouting words of encouragement and remarking on your adventures. A shoe that’s too big for you. An empty cup. The light switch. The door stopper. Everything is new and everything is magical. I look around the room and wonder if I even exist in the same universe as you do. But as I worry about my to-do list, you run over with a quick hug before re-entering your world of play and make-believe. It’s like you threw a lasso around my heart and yanked me back into you the land of the present. Where everything means something and there is always….  

Stop when the timer goes off no matter where are! 

Step 5.

Read through your writing and see if there are any phrases that you like for lyrical inspiration OR try starting a new song based on this idea. Even if nothing song-worthy comes out of this, doing writing exercises is a great way to exercise your brain for better lyric-writing; just like you practice your vocal warm ups or your scales on an instrument! 

Ex. Potential song concepts:

...your youthful sense of gravity lets you bounce carefree like an astronaut on the moon.

It’s like you threw a lasso around my heart and yanked me back into you the land of the present.

We hope you enjoy this exercise!

And as a little extra motivation for you, share what you wrote from this and you’ll enter to win 10% off to any one of our workshops or Song Hangs! Just comment with your writing below or respond to this email. 

Have a great week and happy writing!

xo

Allie & Bess