Songwriting can seem mysterious. How do we go from humming a melody into a voice memo to releasing a fully-produced banger on all streaming platforms? What makes songwriting so fun is that there are endless ways to do it, but I'm going to share one of my personal favorites.

Start with a small idea. Maybe it's a melody you hummed into your phone one night, or maybe it's a lyric that you wrote based on a text that your ex sent you. Just find some small musical seed that you'd like to kick things off with.

Next, record everything that you can possibly think of that is related to that seed. Record every melody, piano riff, guitar lick, harmonica vamp, synth line, and kick pattern. If it's a lyric, write every single idea, metaphor, sense memory, sub-plot, etc. Just get it all out there.

Now give it some space. Decide on a span of time you can wait until you start writing again. Maybe it's 15 minutes, or maybe it's 15 days. The important thing is to clear your palate.

When you return to writing, bring an editor's eye. Sift through everything that you've recorded or written, and make a determination about where the strongest points are. Set a quality bar for yourself, and ruthlessly cut away everything that doesn't meet that bar.

This part can be tricky, but with practice it gets easier. Sometimes you have some very strong elements that, alas, do not work together. The critical step is to decide what does work together, and sacrifice everything that isn't a part of that.

Remember, carving a duck from a piece of wood is straightforward. All you have to do is chip away everything that isn't a duck. Bob Dylan once explained that he saw songwriting as an act of discovering something that was already there, rather than creating something from scratch.

Throw everything you can at the wall – that's your block of wood. Go crazy. Write 3 songs instead of one. Write four choruses instead of two. Record 12 instrument parts instead of 6. When you're finished, cut out everything that doesn't serve the song. Rinse and repeat.