Just skimming through the pages can spark an idea or generate fresh new ways to say something that we have all heard many times. We also have to determine the length of the song. It is hard at times to sum up the whole idea in less than five minutes. The key to songwriting is to write a song , not a short story or book. A song is usually no longer than four to five minutes.
Most radio singles are around three to four minutes.
Assessing Progress On a good day, I have two to three writing sessions and possibly complete one or two songs. That doesn t always happen. I enjoy the writing process and love to dig deeper to find more meaningful, fresh lyrics. Sometimes everything falls into place and we arrive at our destination with a good hooky chorus and end up with a completed song in hand in two to three hours. Other times it will take several sessions to finish the song.