Whether you want to put your music on YouTube or another website or simply find it therapeutic to write compositions and lyrics, it is easy to get lost in yourself when you’re just sitting there with a guitar, a pencil, and a notepad. Skilled musicians often find it easy just to sit with a guitar in hand and then make up the words as they play along. Often, this will be done when sitting with an acoustic guitar, usually while sat on a sofa or even laying on a bed.

At the same time, writing lyrics doesn’t come easily to everyone. Here are some tips and ideas that should inspire you to get started with writing lyrics when sitting with your guitar.

Think About How You Feel

The beauty of the acoustic guitar is that your words can turn a composition into something soft or aggressive, depending on how you’re feeling at a given time. Think about how you feel right now. You’ll write better lyrics if there is something burning inside you. This might mean you don’t actually feel like sitting down and writing words, but you’ll be surprised how much better your songs are when you write them based on emotion. Very few people have ever written a great song by manufacturing feelings out of nothing. Know how you feel, and start writing.

Why You Feel How You Do

When we think about feelings in music, we tend to think about people writing about how they have been wronged by someone close to them, or anger. As well as knowing how you feel, think about why this is the case.

Have you genuinely been wronged, or have you behaved like a bit of an idiot and that has translated into how you’re feeling now?

Don’t Get Clever

Many of the most memorable songs are those with profound lyrics. However, you should think about how many songs are actually like this. The answer? Not very many. You should also think about the people responsible for these songs. They tend to be well known and established musicians that have been around for a long time and can afford to take a risk writing something that might be seen as ridiculous. When you have credibility, you’ll be amazed at exactly what you can pass off as genius!

You should balance this out with the level of complexity in your track. Be thoughtful without being too clever; try to avoid sounding like you’ve written a nursery rhyme!

Show Your Friends

Music, especially when we’ve written it ourselves, is something that is very close and personal to ourselves. However, if you’re looking to home your lyrics and your music, you ought to be showing it to your friends and your family. Make sure you target the honest people who will give you constructive feedback and not just say “it’s great” because that’s what you want to hear.

Take their feedback on board and use it to develop your lyrics further.

Use these tips when putting lyrics to acoustic compositions and you’ll always be able to come up with something, even if it needs work to be truly inspirational. You might even find yourself with a song for three of four different moods based on one piece of music!