Michael Walker: Hey, what's up and welcome to the first ever Modern Musician Podcast. Because this is the first time we're ever doing one of these, I wanted to record a quick intro and just share a little bit about who exactly this is for and what you can expect from the podcast and why we're doing this in the first place. Really, the main purpose of this podcast is that nowadays there's so many talented musicians and the capability that we have to record music ourselves without necessarily needing to go to a professional recording studio and the resources we have to be able to share music online are so incredible, and the impact you can make with your music is so incredible.

Michael Walker: But one thing that's really challenging is now that there's so much music and so many things happening online, how do you actually stand out? How do you actually get your music in front of the right people, and how do you turn it into a sustainable business? How do you actually make an income with your music so that you can rely on it, instead of having to split your time with a day job or something to support yourself?

Michael Walker: Really, the main focus of this podcast is going to be about how do you take music that you've recorded, high quality music, and how do you get it in front of the right people, and how do you actually turn it into a business?

Michael Walker: A little bit about me, my name is Michael Walker, and running this business Modern Musician for about two and a half years now. I started it on the back end of touring full time with my band, Paradise Fears. We had gotten from a point where, when we first started out, we had no idea what we were doing. We made about every mistake in the book, and I remember starting out, we literally lived in our van and slept on Walmart parking lots on tour.

Michael Walker: Eventually got to a point where we figured some stuff out, and we got to a point that we had about 24 million Spotify streams, we toured worldwide with a lot of our favorite bands, released an album that hit number two on iTunes. When I started Modern Musician, I was basically at a point that I was ready to start my family, and I wanted to figure out a way that I could provide for them without being gone for most of the year, without relying on Paradise Fears.

Michael Walker: Really, this has become a huge passion for me, Modern Musician, helping other artists to build a successful music career. Reflecting on my life, pretty much everything that's good in my life is because of music. I've met my best friends and met my wife, and I have our two kids, because of music, it brought us together. It's something I feel so grateful for, and I love seeing that kind of impact that music is having on the lives of the artists we're working with, and the fans that they're connecting with. It really has this amazing ability to heal and to bring people together.

Really, the purpose of all this is to allow you as an artist to express who you are, and to reach the right people who need to hear your music. That's a little bit about the purpose behind this podcast, and I think you're going to find it hugely valuable if you're an artist that's looking to reach more people and make an income with your music.

Michael Walker: One quick request. This is our first time ever releasing a podcast episode, and the way that the algorithm works is that if we want to get featured on New and Noteworthy, the best way that we can do that is by you right now, clicking the Subscribe button and letting iTunes know that this is something that you value, that you want to hear more about. If you could do me a huge favor, and click on the Subscribe button, that I'd really appreciate it, and that'll help us to be able to reach more people. With all that being said, let's go ahead and let's dive in.

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and slowly getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker: All right. I'm incredibly excited to be here today with Andrea Stolpe, who is a multi-Platinum songwriter and performing artists. She wrote songs for artists like Faith Hill, Jimmy Wayne and a bunch of other artists. Right now she's been teaching a course called commercial songwriting techniques at Berklee for 10 years. She's just an all around songwriting lyric genius. I'm really excited to talk today about some ideas for how can you take your songwriting to the next level? Because as an artist, songwriting is so, so important. It's the core of who you are and your success with your music.

Michael Walker: Andrea, thank you so much for being here today.

Andrea Stolpe: Thank you for having me. That was quite the intro.

Michael Walker: I know. I do a lot of research before I do these and it's great. You're in good company. There's some really amazing people that are bringing on and you're one of those people. I just appreciate you taking the time to be here today and just to share your wisdom, because, you don't necessarily have to share it, but you do, and it's super appreciated.

I've done a little bit of research on you, and I've heard your story. But I'd love to hear a little bit more from you about your story and how you got to this point where you became a multi-Platinum songwriter. What was your journey like?

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah. Well, I always like to say I'm extremely lucky, because I started out in the music industry in a very, not a young, young age, but I was 22, I had just graduated from Berkeley College, and I moved to Nashville. I didn't have a lot of the constraints that people often have when they wish to go into music and had gone into other careers and things. That helped, because I was able to live month to month, not really knowing where the next paycheck was coming from, but it was all good.

Andrea Stolpe: I worked at a temp agency, just doing odd jobs for about a year and a half. Then during that time, I wrote with anybody I could. The way I did that was by going to a lot of writers in the rounds, shows, performances, whatever I could get into, in order to meet people. If I heard a songwriter playing, and I dug what they did, which was pretty much everybody at that point, I said yes to everything, then I try to talk to them afterwards, ask them how they're doing, how did they get to where they are?

Andrea Stolpe: Through that process, eventually, after about a year and a half, I got a co-publishing deal. There was a writer who was signed to this particular publisher who was interested in working with me. He shared the publishing, my publishing, half half with his publishing company that he was signed to and himself. Which was a really great deal. Because I got the opportunity, I had access to the pluggers at a major publishing company, to hear my songs and give me advice, and guidance. But I also had a songwriter who, as a mentor, who had been doing it for years and years.

Andrea Stolpe: He and I wrote together a lot, and I learned about how to co-write, and a lot about what kinds of songs, the quality of songs, more on the pulse of what is Nashville, and got to see the demo process, which all those pieces are things that take a lot of time to understand. What do I need to write to sound like, to produce in order to get cuts and be heard in the Nashville market?

Andrea Stolpe: From there, it was just a series of getting a deal, getting dropped, getting a deal, getting dropped, getting another deal, getting trapped, over the course of 10 years. Until, in that time, getting some cuts and getting some momentum.

Michael Walker: Awesome. It sounds like what you're saying is that, especially at the beginning... This reminds me of our own story, and I hear this all the time is because everyone starts somewhere, right? Part of the reason that you got to this place is because you took the time at the beginning to connect with people and to show up to those songwriting rounds, and to meet and be curious and to build those relationships. That was to help you to evolve and to find your mentor. Just like a willingness to show up in the right places and meet people it seems like a really important thing to do.

Andrea Stolpe: It is, and it's a lot easier when you're in the music time time. I think definitely in the way that the times are now, we can connect with people virtually. But it's-

Michael Walker: Like what we're doing right now. We're doing the connecting through Zoom.

Andrea Stolpe: Right. Totally. But on the other hand, just like sifting through online to try and find music that I love, it's hard because there's so much noise. How do you sift through... How do you even know who would like to connect with you? How do you build a community when you're living in Illinois, when you're living in Washington state, where do you go?

Andrea Stolpe: I think it's a different kind of a problem, and one that we can explore. But back in that time, the community was physical, and it's in front of you. You go and you just make yourself visible to people at whatever events you can. But it doesn't change. Nowadays too, it's still a powerful thing to be in the face of the people that you want to work with.

Michael Walker: Absolutely. Yeah, it's like the tools can change in terms of how you show up and how you connect with people. But at its root, it's really the same thing, just connecting with people. Of course, face to face is a good way to do that. I know that you have so much expertise around songwriting, and specifically, I think I remember seeing that you'd actually written a book on lyrics specifically. I guess my first real question for you in terms of the songwriting is when you first start, because at this point, you've worked with a lot of different musicians, and you've helped to share the wisdom and the experience that you've created for yourself with other people, what have you noticed have been some of the biggest challenges or the biggest stumbling blocks that artists have when they first come to you when it comes to songwriting?

Andrea Stolpe: It's a good question, and it's a big question. Many of the common problems in terms of writing can be, I think, boiled down to one bigger problem, which is a lack of, what do I want to create, and how do I measure whether I have created it and break that bigger idea of what it's going to sound like down into its individual parts. I think most of us know when we're not creating what we want, and that comes up when we feel writer's block. Part of the reason why we're blocked is because, for example, I'm writing things down, and I'm playing ideas, but nothing's really hitting me as special today. Oe my lyrics are all really cheesy, or I write a verse and a chorus, and I don't know where to go with the rest of it.

Andrea Stolpe: Those are common things. All my songs sound the same. Not enough contrast between a verse and a chorus, or what is a pre-chorus, and how do I write this bridge? That's all just the writing part, and then the demoing of the song, the recording of it is another beast.

Andrea Stolpe: I think through any education that we might do around writing songs, you've got the education where people say, here's how to write a hit song. That hit word gets thrown around a lot. How to be commercial? Yes, a commercial song has qualities to it, characteristics we'll say that we can mimic and then apply those imitations to what we do with our own artistry, and then therefore wind up with something that sounds like us, that fits the expectation of a commercial song.

Andrea Stolpe: I think that practice is really essential to gaining insight into how do I measure, and by what measurements do I decide if what I'm writing for my own artistry is something really good, or if it's contrived in some manner? It's very much like, if you want to learn to paint, you can either do it on your own for 30 years and hopefully, you'll have some artistic voice visually that's appealing. But it's also very accepted to say, I'm going to go to art school, and I'm going to explore... I don't know anything about art, but I'm going to explore visually, this idea of thirds, and I'm going to understand where the I is drawn, and I'm going to look at brushstrokes and paint and whatever.

Andrea Stolpe: It's the same thing with songwriting, though, I think, I was talking with somebody recently, a songwriter and hit writer, Liz Rose, who wrote half of Taylor Swift's songs or 22 of them. She was telling me that she doesn't like to think about songwriting in terms of craft. Doesn't like to write that way. I know she's not alone. A lot of big writers and musicians, artists, who are extremely successful, they don't necessarily know how to talk about the craft.

Andrea Stolpe: I think there's something unromantic about saying, "Well, I see what you did here, the shape of your melody in the verse is like this, and then you do this and then it goes like that." It takes the romance out of it, when we're trying to understand things like what are my artistic tendencies with melody? For example, do I tend to always play and then start singing after the downbeat? That's a rhythmic thing that if I know that's part of what makes what I do melodically interesting at times, or at least characterizes something that my melodies do, that's a powerful bit of insight, because now I know when I want to do something different, I know to look for that tendency, and I can control it now.

Andrea Stolpe: I think that even if highly successful writers, meaning people who are able to more consistently craft something that is on the pulse of the commercial market, and is more or less on the better side of their best work, I think that, yeah, they're definitely involving craft talent, for sure. But after you've written 1000 songs, it's ingrained. How long should the verse... Where do I feel like I should go now with a pre- chorus? How do I make sections contrast? There's all kinds of crafty things that have just become tools that you apply naturally, and it looks effortless. But it's only because it's been done 1000 times.

Michael Walker: That's fantastic. To recap, what it sounds like you're saying is that the biggest challenge or obstacle that you see for most artists who are struggling with this is that they don't really have a clear vision of what they even really want to create, and they're just stumbling around in the dark, and they don't know what they don't know.

Michael Walker: One analogy that comes to mind is like having a map. Having a map and knowing that you have this destination, it's going to help significantly knowing where you want to get to, if you're following this map. With some of the artists that are so good, that it is just natural. It's basically like, they don't need the map anymore, because they've gone in the path so many times, it's automatic, they don't have to think about it. But for everyone else who's just getting started, if you don't have any sort of education, and you're not learning from a mentor or someone that has this map, has this knowledge that can help you, then it's like you're stumbling around and maybe you'll find a way to your destination. But you also have to decide where do you want to go to in the first place?

Andrea Stolpe: Totally.

Michael Walker: Awesome. For an artist who they don't really have a clear vision, or an idea of where they want to get to, or what they really want to say, how would you recommend, where do they start? Where do they pull that inspiration from for their first songs?

Andrea Stolpe: When you say what they want to say, to me... We could break that down into lyrically and musically. A great everyday tool for generating lyric material is to do what we call sensory writing. Sensory writing is the same as journaling in that it's stream of consciousness, just dumping. But if you only do that kind of writing, journaling, what it lacks is all the stuff that makes songs believable, and unique, and specifically ours.

Andrea Stolpe: Songs are not just ranting and raving at random about a topic. With songs, we can generally expect that the chorus is going to contain a main message, and it might be hinged around a title. For country song, writing style's more tangible lyric styles, not just country, but folk, Americana, we're going to generally find that the title is clearly summarizing the main message of the song.

Andrea Stolpe: For other styles, pop, like Coldplay would not necessarily say you can't necessarily see that thin red line that says, here's how all of this verse lyric supports that one title idea in the chorus. It's a little more abstract and metaphorical. I think that, to really understand what it is that I want to say as an artist, there's a point at which I need to stop pursuing how great it's going to be when I sound like. Because we always have these sound like. I want to sound like so and so artist.

Andrea Stolpe: I love Sting and I spent so many years trying to sound like Sting. What would happen is my lyrics would sound just really annoying, so poetic and just patronizing because I was constantly trying to deliver these big ideas, and none of it was believable. Poetic to the point where you didn't know what I was talking about anymore. I was not involving my own thoughts and feelings and ideas.

Andrea Stolpe: Once I started doing this sensory writing, which is journaling, but through taste, touch, sight, sound, smell and movement, then I started to drum up visual images, and moments that were worthy of writing about. Those moments then became more verse material for songs. Then I could use the more summarizing language, the, well, how do we think and feel about that moment? That would be more of the chorus material for my songs. We find that that's the way it goes with songs in general, that they're not just random strings of words and phrases, and this outpouring of stuff.

Andrea Stolpe: When a song is that way, when it's light on the lyric, there's something going on musically that's driving the song, there has to be, or there's no anchor point in the tune. Either way, it's okay. Some of us are more interested in some songs and creating a lyrically driven experience. But not all songs work that way, sometimes it's a musically driven experience, and the lyric is going to be a little more light. But sensory writing, I think is the first thing that I would absolutely do, and the next thing would be to attempt to give myself daily writing activities that may or may not be writing a song every day.

Andrea Stolpe: It could be, this week, I'm going to write choruses. I'm going to write one a day, and I'm going to do it in 20 minutes. Through this free writing, I'm going to end up with phrases that just thrill me. I can just stream the consciousness writing and then a phrase pops out, that can be a title. The first thing I'll do is try to repeat that title four times, and just let it be, that simple. The next thing I might do is try to think of a swing line or a developmental line to throw in there. So, title, title, develop it with a new idea, then title again.

Andrea Stolpe: It feels very scripted, and at the same time, what I'm doing, another way to reframe that is, I am guiding my inspiration, I'm saying, "Awesome, inspiration, you have great ideas for me. Now, I'm going to help you to mold them into an option. Here's another option, here's another option and an option and an option, until I'm clinging less tightly to my ideas, and they are more just possibilities than something that has to work."

Michael Walker: Obviously, with a song, it's not always this way if it's more metaphorical, but a lot of times the title is going to be the hook or it's going to be the point and everything revolves around this main point that you're making with the song. One really valuable exercise to do is to get into your sensory experience and to do some free flow stream of consciousness writing, like journaling, but more directed towards the songwriting practice. A lot of times, versus and pre courses, those are an opportunity in a song to go really deep into the sensory experience, and to take moments and to actually... Moments that you can see, and you can feel and taste and that you can actually experience vicariously.

Michael Walker: Then the chorus is an opportunity to Zoom out a little bit and talk about what the verses really lead to or what the whole point, how they come together. The other thing you recommended was that figure out some time for a daily practice in terms of songwriting, whether it's writing songs, or just being creative writing in general, like 20 minutes.

Michael Walker: One question I had for you about the stream of consciousness writing, because that idea sounds really cool, and just fun to try out. How does that look? Do you have a notebook? Do you physically write out and you just sit down and set a timer and then you just write everything that comes up in your mind as it comes up, or do you type it? How exactly does that work?

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah, for sure. Sometimes I type it, sometimes I write it. Sometimes I take a walk, and I'll just talk and dictate on my phone. The way that works best might be something that everybody can play with, depending on your own style and comfort. I think what I'm trying to do is do it in a way that removes the filter, removes the sense of needing it to be any particular way. Sometimes when my hands are engaged in the writing, I'm thoughtful about is this a good idea? Is this a good idea? So, that internal critic gets engaged and we don't want that.

Andrea Stolpe: This brainstorming part of the process is the one part where it's separate from editing, it's separate from me looking at the ideas and saying, "But I want you to be commercial, but I want you to be the up tempo on my record of balance. But I need you to be... " You're just allowing it to flow. What happens is when we do this, we're able to write lyrics, lift phrases, and words out of that, more helpful phrases that are actually capable of being lyric. They're much more conversational, easy to sing. They don't sound crafted.

Andrea Stolpe: A good way to do this can be, and this is in my book, Popular Lyric Writing, and I'm not the first person to ever say this. This has been done many, many, many years ago in creative writing, of course, first place to do it. Then in other songwriting books. The way to start might be through an object. You choose any object, and then start to write about that object as if it's a visual in your mind, photograph in your mind, in terms of how it looks. Usually sight is the first one we come out with, and then usually, that's where we stop.

Andrea Stolpe: But we have taste, touch, sight, sound, smell, and movement. If you're talking about tea cup, then it doesn't have a taste. But maybe the Earl Grey tea is a little bit bitter because, once again, grandma left the tea bag in there for a long time, and it's cold. The cream has got a film on the top. You'd start to see these things, and have an experience with the teacup. Maybe there's a crack, and it's kind of a glossy ceramic, but the crack is dark gray, and it's jagged. I'm just going to allow myself to experience that object.

Andrea Stolpe: When it comes to smell, sometimes we'll dig into similes, it smells like and that's okay. But you can also just approach it as an adjective. The Earl Grey tea acrid, flowery. You can dig into adjectives and really get into the smells and more specificity rather than it was smelly. It's not really describing anything.

Andrea Stolpe: Another thing we can do is dig into a location to write about. I call it writing from a where or a who, or a when, and those are the three. In that case, you can hear in... Can I quote some lyrics here?

Michael Walker: Oh, yeah. I think so. Yeah. I think it's totally fine.

Andrea Stolpe: You can totally see in many, many songs, how the location is the setting for the first verse. Sarah Bareilles, King of Anything, the first verse describes her sitting, looking out the window. I'm imagining a coffee shop, I think, and the cars are streaming by, or blurring by. In John Mayer, Why Georgia, and he does this in so many... He's just an expert at setting scene. I am driving up 85. The very first line says who, when and where.

Andrea Stolpe: This is the product or can be the product of when we sensory write. Sensory writing, you can do it from a location like airport or airport watching a plane takeoff. You can do it from a when, like midnight on the Fourth of July. The more specific we get, the sometimes easier it is to dig in and write something. Let's say just after the fireworks, Fourth of July, packing up the picnic blanket. Crowds are dispersing. The more I fill in there in terms of the scene, the more I feel like oh, I can write something.

Andrea Stolpe: When we have no ideas, as we're sitting down and thinking what the heck am I going to write about? A lot of times, we're just floating on the surface of nothing in particular. If you give yourself some anchor point, whether it's a who or where or a when, or a mixture of those, then ideas start to come. I think that's why many times song ideas are sometimes hard to write because these concepts of writing about a breakup, writing about meeting somebody special. Those are the concepts of hundreds of thousands of songs, millions of songs. It's clearly not the concept of a song, generally that writes a great song. But it's the inside guts of the tune, melodically harmonically, lyrically that make it something special.

Michael Walker: What's up guys, so quick intermission from the podcast so I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. Because this is our first podcast ever, I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public, they normally reserve for our $5,000 clients that we work professionally. This is a presentation called Six Steps to Explode your Fan Base and Make a Profit With your Music Online.

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Michael Walker: If that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you click on to go get that. Another thing I want to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating a new podcast, is if people click Subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's New and Noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. That'll help us reach a lot more people.

Michael Walker: If you're getting value from this, and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the Subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker: It sounds like what you're saying is that a part of the beauty of this style of songwriting is that it allows you to get into a lot more detail. When you can describe the senses and the experience, then it's a lot more evocative than if you just were being a little bit more vague. But if you can dive in, and to really talk about and to set the scene, then that makes it a lot more, it allows you to visualize it and to actually experience it.

Michael Walker: One thing that you mentioned that I thought was really interesting, and I've heard this a lot, and I've experienced this in my own songwriting is the two different modes of songwriting where it could be like the brainstorming part at the beginning, where you're just being creative, and it's like, there's no right or wrong, it's just coming out, and the refining and the editing, and how the editing can just kill the creative part so quickly.

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah.

Michael Walker: Do you have any special processes... You talked a little bit about how in that brainstorming, when you're doing the stream of consciousness, it's really all about just no filters, just letting it all come out.

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah.

Michael Walker: Do you just structurally set up some different points where it's like, okay, I'm going to have this first when I'm writing a song, I'm going to just do all the creative brainstorming, I'm going to let it all out. Then, a day from now, I'm going to come back, I'm have my refining, I'm going to edit it a little bit more. How do you balance those two different components?

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah. There's no single bullet that's going to take care of every song, every idea, right? But I think the big, broadest answer to that is, when I feel a stalling of my ideas, or I'm getting unsure of what's good and what's not good, what suits the idea what doesn't musically and lyrically, I changed my process, or I put it down. This has been a product of, I used to be able to spend three, four or five, seven hour writing sessions, what that heck else do I have to do? Now, there's plenty of else to do.

Andrea Stolpe: I have found that shorter writing periods, even going for a walk where, okay, now I'm just going to... Wait, what am I really trying to say with this song? I'll talk it into my phone, can help me to just unlock

what the next step that I need. Sometimes I need to finish a song and accept that it is not how I had hoped it would be. I could either spend another 10 hours trying to rework an idea, where frankly, the groove and the underlying foundation of the song is just not awesome. Maybe it's good, but it's not what I had hoped it would be.

Andrea Stolpe: Sometimes I have to just stop and say, wait a minute, is it better that I work on this for 10 hours, or is it better that I start something new? Or give this to a collaborator and be like, "Can you do anything with this because I'm really digging the pre-chorus and the chorus but I think this verse isn't working."

Andrea Stolpe: I think beginning to look at these things as assets, as options is what I've had to do having less time on my hands. It'd be nice if I could finish everything on my own and write five, just amazing songs and deliver an EP in the next three months. I do have delusions like this frequently, that this will be my life, but it's not reality, and that's okay. You do the best you can. But I think putting a time limit is a big part of my process. Because it's really a decision that I've made to sit and bang my head against the wall with an idea that's not going where I'd like it to go.

Andrea Stolpe: I guess part of that answer is, even though I've got all these tools, and I know that there are many tools I can rely on, sometimes it's just inspiration that I need and can't access.

Michael Walker: Awesome. It sounds like what you're saying is that, that sometimes if you force it, if you try to force it, if you try to refine it, and it's just not coming, then it can be counterproductive, and it's going to just make it worse. You've gotten to a point where you have a good internal sense of how much time should I really invest into this? If I find myself really hitting a block, then resisting it and trying to force it isn't going to fix it. Either you have some different ways of shifting your process, or you might have some connections, you can collaborate with and share this along with some other people.

Michael Walker: That strikes me as really important, is having those songwriting collaborators or people that you trust, or people that you can bounce ideas off of. It seems like a challenge that a lot of artists have is that they have this idea that they need to do it all on their own or maybe they're somehow sacrificing our artistic integrity if they co-write some songs, or if they get ideas from other people. How would you recommend someone start building those relationships? If they're writing their own songs, and they have that experience where they're like, "I'm feeling a little bit blocked." How would you recommend that they start collaborating with other songwriters?

Andrea Stolpe: Yeah, for sure. Well, I think it's not difficult to say, "I will now find other people who do music or some kind of writing, poetry or something, and I will play my ideas for them and see if they wanted to collaborate on something." I think, generally, we can figure out ways to do that, to find groups of people, whether it's through class at the community college and online platform going out to a show and seeing some music.

Andrea Stolpe: I think the next step after that is finding a community, whether it's one or three or five people, or 15, who are interested in hearing us, and really understanding where we're coming from artistically. So, really listening, and considering our ideas, at the same time as we would like to consider theirs. I think with that, realistically, it's how do you... Maybe a simpler way to say that would be how do you find somebody who you believe is able to elevate your creativity? Because you want to be working with people who have complementary skills, bring things that you can't bring, or don't like to bring. That might be one place to start is to start by understanding your own skills and preferences.

Andrea Stolpe: I think that it would not be a great choice to go out and find other lyric writers, if the goal is to wind up with some songs that can be really proud of, because then the two of us are going to probably be struggling to finish songs again. But I would rather go out and say, I'm going to explore the possibility of meeting some instrumentalists that I could work with, with my lyrics. If I don't sing, similarly, I'm going to make sure that whomever I connect with has the ability to really hear my lyrics, has a lot of experience singing other people's songs, and maybe even write.

Andrea Stolpe: I think that's the first thing is understand my assets and work on finding people with complimentary skills. That could be anywhere. It could be a church community, it could be a community college or a program, whatever it is. NSAI has... Nashville Songwriters Association has groups all across the country where other songwriters and people meet, could be a possibility. But there again, I think getting clear about what are my assets, what's the strongest element of songwriting that I bring?

Andrea Stolpe: Try and be real honest with that, because that's what you're leading with in order to say, I'm going to let this song's element rest on me and find a similarly strong element in someone else. Sometimes what we find when we just look for songwriters to collaborate with, is we're a Jack of all trades, expert at none. If you want to elevate your craft, look beyond the folks that would do everything a little bit, because it's harder to learn from that.

Michael Walker: Fantastic. When it comes to collaborating, it's really important to one, dial in yourself, and have some honest self-reflection, and maybe even get some feedback from people who have the expertise and the perspective to be able to share with you, this is where you're really strong, and to see the pattern, so that you know your assets, so you know, not only what you're good at, but what you can compliment in another person. Having that knowledge is going to allow you to look for complimentary collaborators, or people that fill in the gaps, people that maybe they're really good at this thing, but they're not as good at your strength as you are. When you come together, then you can fill in each other's gaps.

Michael Walker: What would you say are... If you had to break down songwriting as a skill set, with lyric writing and melody writing and writing harmonies instrumentally, how would you describe some of the strengths that people could reflect on in themselves, I think? What are my strengths? What are some of those things that you would look at?

Andrea Stolpe: I think that it's absolutely essential that we play our songs for other people, people who are interested in listening, really listening to us. It's by that feedback, and this is what artists do, who play their songs, and perform for years and years on end, even if the feedback is not necessarily verbalized in a way that's directly commenting on the song, it's a nonverbal transference of information when you're playing for an audience, and you can feel it in the room over time what the audience is really responding to.

Andrea Stolpe: If you get comments, for example, after performing, and presenting your songs, like, "Oh, I really love your voice." You get that over and over again, take that to heart, you have a nice voice. Does it mean that you need work on your songs? It might. It might be that your vocal is the driving element that people are drawn to, and that's a beautiful thing, huge asset.

Andrea Stolpe: You need to dig deeper then with how do you get useful feedback from other people? This goes for people in the music industry too, because, we all listen through the lens of what we appreciate at the moment. It can be, we need something that's highly commercial, memorable within the first 15, 20 seconds. If this doesn't fit what I need, I'm not going to bother giving you feedback. It's also really challenging to give feedback on songwriting, because I think useful feedback will give the songwriter a tool to address the issue.

Andrea Stolpe: I've had plenty of feedback over the years from publishers who didn't sign me and those who did to address issues in the songs, but they had no idea how to fix those issues. There again, I know that feeling of being overwhelmed with, okay, they said they don't, it's not clear who the characters are, what's happening to whom or, when it's happening, or I thought they felt this way, and then down here, they feel another way. That's just lyrics, right?

Andrea Stolpe: It's really helpful to get feedback from a few people who can address how to fix what your issue is. Again, how do you know what your strengths are? When you play someone a song, sometimes playing them a whole song is just too much information. You might play just a verse and a chorus. Say, "Okay, here's a couple of questions. Did you like the groove? What do you feel like when you're listening to the music? Does it feel like it's saying what the lyrics are saying? Do you feel like the message of this... What do you think the message is? What do you feel like I'm telling you? Do you like this artist who's singing? How do you feel towards the artist who's saying these things? What genre do you feel like this is? Was it clear? Was the chorus section clear to you, or were you unsure of where you were in the song? Can you sing the melody of the verse? Can you sing the melody of the chorus? Were there any areas in the song where you checked out? Did you start thinking about what you're going to have for lunch at any point in this experience?"

Andrea Stolpe: What we can also do is play people a few... A group, I always do this, I play somebody, not one song, but three, and I ask them about their favorite. Ultimately, they'll just go right in and tell me which one was their favorite. But what that does is get them talking about something because now they have a contrast, they have an ability to hold one against the other, and that's helpful for people who can't really access the language to describe it.

Andrea Stolpe: I think I would definitely ask for those specific characteristics to try to understand how they're feeling musically. Because, when we play songs for people, we're fighting with all kinds of things, they're hearing a recording many times, they're also hearing... If they're hearing a production, a produced version of your song, then they might confuse the song with the production. People really don't know what they're commenting on. So you really got to ask them to try to pull out the answers you need.

Michael Walker: It sounds like what you're saying is that it's really important in general to get honest feedback and get true feedback. It can be a little bit challenging based on who you're asking, because they might not even really know how to give the feedback. If you're pretty precise with the questions that you ask, then you can get much better answers.

Michael Walker: An overall message that I feel like I'm hearing from you is, in general, to be successful in songwriting, is to sometimes let go of what you think it should be, of putting it into being more open, and maybe that's a way of even getting perspective yourself, because you're creating space to let go and observe it for what it is. Specifically, starting to build a network of people that you can depend on, that you can reach out to, maybe sharing three different songs and starting out the conversation. Which of these three was your favorite?

Michael Walker: That is a good way as an icebreaker to get the flow of the conversation going.

Andrea Stolpe: Right. Cool.

Michael Walker: Andrea, you're awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Andrea Stolpe: Thank you so much. It's so fun to talk.

Michael Walker: If someone right now is watching this, and they're like, Andrea is awesome. I want to go get her book. I want to connect more with her. How can people find you?

Andrea Stolpe: You can go to my website, andreastolpe.com. You can also reach me, Andrea@andrestolpe.com. I'm on Facebook, Andrea Stolpe Official. All those places are pretty good ways. I think the book is on Amazon, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling. I have another book called Beginning

Songwriting that I wrote for my students at University of Southern California. It's a comprehensive introductory into songwriting book. Teach courses at Berklee Online, which are really excellent for learning these tools that we're talking about.

Andrea Stolpe: I know getting better, growing as a songwriter, writing better and better songs, it can feel like a huge mountain to climb. At the same time, it is possible to improve and to improve drastically with dramatic results if we know what to do, where to put our energy. I just want to encourage people to whatever you do, look for resources, here's tons of resources out there on how to improve as a songwriter, and I'm happy to post or respond to inquiries about what are those resources?

Andrea Stolpe: But look everywhere and anywhere and see what you can drum up because if you do exercises that help you to become better, you'll see dramatic improvement over time. It just takes making yourself do the daily writing.

Michael Walker: Love it.

Andrea Stolpe: Cool.

Michael Walker: All right, awesome. Andrea, again, thank you so much. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Great meeting you. Thank you for the interview, and I'll talk to you again soon.

Andrea Stolpe: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Michael Walker: Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you'd like to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. Third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.