Many of the best hooks use a different melodic construction from the verse or chorus to add some variety to a song’s composition.

Strengthen your  song’s originality by evoking creative connections, alliterations, places, and recalling things that happened to you. Also, it doesn’t hurt to read poetry and lyrics from other writers for inspiration.

MindMapping an excellent way to explore the thoughts, ideas and emotions you want to express through song. Having a MindMap will encourage you to populate the paper with ideas and imagery, which can stimulate your creativity.

Concentrate on -really- listening to music and you’ll start hearing subtle undertones to help produce your own most brilliant ideas

All ideas start somewhere. If you create a load of cr@p for a few pages, whether it’s creative writing in Word or sheet music, the brain loosens up and it’s easier to break through the barrier and come up with ideas.

Music doesn’t always need a structure to follow, but songs definitely do in order for the lyrics to convey an idea.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a good song hooks. You might even want to consider setting aside some time to write only hooks.

Good background vocals avoid slavishly imitating the lead vocals’ phrasing and timing. Try writing ones for your songs that extend an odd line in a harmony and then rejoin with the lead when it feels natural

There’s always room for improvement. Keep honing your songs until you know they’ll be a smash.

Don’t sell yourself short by settling for the first drafts of your songs. Try playing it several different ways to see which approach best fits your composition.

Someone once said, “Songwriters and poets suffer from the same affliction . . . they both believe they have something to say.” Make sure you have something to say.

A big part of finding inspiration for your songs is putting yourself in situations that rouse inspiration and then recognizing it when it comes.

One of the best abilities you can develop as a songwriter is being able to sing harmonies on the fly. Try practicing singing harmony to the music you’re listening to. This is really an act of composition, and as you become more fluent, it will help your composition ability.

Don’t mix up the “creative” and “critiquing” phases of writing songs. When you do this, you stifle your best ideas.

One way to avoid verse-chorus sameness in your songs is to use a technique known as “octave displacement.” By moving a chorus melody into a higher octave, you can can help differentiate it from a verse melody that sounds similar.