There are no direct academic or professional qualifications you need to proceed as songwriter as it is a profession that relies on skills as well as being good at networking and knowing the correct people to get the opportunities of writing with others or on songs. To be an effective songwriter there are certain things that are required to be a great songwriter in a professional sense. Writing compelling lyrics, in whatever genre that is; Writing effective melodies and harmonies, structure songs effectively, etc.
Optional avenues to help you towards becoming a successful songwriter are to gain a degree in music/songwriting. By doing this you further your knowledge of theory, composition, production skills and networking with future professionals.
Types of professional experience can really be beneficial towards becoming a songwriter, such as practicing writing daily and creating a portfolio so you have something to show others, when asked what you write and create. Collaborating with others can help, not many songs now-a-days are written by only one person so it is important that you are able to write songs with others as well as having other people around when writing is useful as you can all bring ideas and bounce ideas off each other. It is important to know about the industry and the music business in general. This could be learning about copyright laws, royalties, publishing deals, Working with PROs (Performance Royalties Organisations) and sync licensing.
By looking into production, E.G Daws, You are able to add to the list of things that you are able to do. By using a daw you will be able to effectively show others what you think the song should be like and be able to add more to the song than just the words, E.G the chords, Drum patterns Etc.
You need to be able to speak openly about ideas that you have as this is an important aspect to being a songwriter. If you are unable to do this, it could lead to other lyricists thinking that you have no ideas or want to contribute things. You need to be a person who is able to talk to anyone, not necessarily outgoing and sociable but has the ability to talk to people without the environment being awkward. A great skill that can help towards being a great songwriter is training your ears.
Gary Barlow says “There are two ways to train your ears. The first is to listen. The second is to get going. Get in there. Get that laptop open. Start making music. Start doing drum patterns. Start with keyboards. You’ve just got to get out there and just get on with it” (How to start a songwriting career | BBC maestro 2023)
By doing this you are able to find the chords for where the melody line may go. There is not a typical day for a songwriter as everyday is different. Through research I have found that some songwriters choose to use the mornings as their productive hours while others choose to work through the night. An example of this is Clay Mill’s day to day life, who chooses to work in the morning, have a few hours to do errands and then work further into the afternoon and evening. (Mills, A week in the life: A surprising look at the schedule of a pro songwriter 2016). Another example is songwriter Rob Wells, he prefers to work in the morning doing emails, talking with lawyers, etc, then doing the creative stuff in the afternoon and finishing in the early evening to be able to wind down from the day. Only recently has there been a deal made for songwriters in the UK, that makes sure that any songwriter who attends a session or camp is awarded £75 per day plus the cost of whatever travel they took and food expenses. As before they were expected to cover their own fees and may have only been paid after the song was released. But even after that, songwriters aren’t given a large portion of the royalties. This was brought to the attention of record labels as Raye at the 2023 and 2024 Ivor Novella awards stated “It would be an insult to suggest that you go to work for free,” and that “And it’s an insult that you think songwriters should do the same” (Savage, Ivor Novello awards: Harry Styles wins, Raye calls out music industry greed 2023).
If you have a 10% share of the royalties of a song that gets 1,000,000 listens on spotify you would only be given £180 and that’s before any managers/labels/distributors take their cut. (Spotify royalties calculator: Most accurate (December 2025) 2025)
If a songwriter decides to sign to a publisher, the publishing company may agree to give them an advance, but sometimes they decide that the money needs to be paid back before the songwriter earns the income to pay it back, as well as it can sometimes be structured to make it slow or difficult for the songwriters to pay back the advancement. Because of this it also means that if the money is not paid back then the publisher won’t give the songwriter any royalties. After the money is paid back to the publisher, the royalties are then split 50/50 between the songwriter and the publisher. (Regan, 4 types of advances: Record label, Distribution Advances, & more 2025)
When it comes to tracking songs, it can become complex. This means that delays of up to 1-2 years, can occur when being paid. PRS (Performing Rights Society) has a website that helps you check unpaid royalties, to help combat this. (Check unpaid royalties 2025)
Legally songwriters need to understand copyright ownership, this is usually split between the writer and the publisher. It discussed the questions of who owns the copyright? Who controls licensing? And how long is the contract itself?
Songs are sometimes the songwriters intellectual property as they have written the song so there is a law stating that you own the intellectual property if you created it, bought the property rights form the creator or a previous owner or have a brand that could be a trademark. (Service, Intellectual property and your work 2014)
Each songwriter will have a personal brand that they will have to market to others, to be able to get work. Awal has 3 different approaches to finding your own brand.
Approach 1; Start by asking yourself why? Why are you creating this type of music? How does the music you make reflect you and the music you create? And most importantly what is that type of music?
Approach 2; Finding your ‘Hedgehog’. To find your ‘Hedgehog’ you must ask yourself 3 questions “What are you most passionate about? What can you do best in the world? What drives your economic engine (i.e., what will people pay for)?” By asking yourself these questions you’re able to find out what aspects of music you enjoy the most. Is it the music writing? Is it because people will relate to your songs?
Approach 3; By defining your brand. Other artists/companies create a visible thing that correlates towards them and how they are. By knowing what you want to be gives you a great place to begin. It sets an eyeline and an aim to which you can focus on to help towards your career. Also by being unique as a person or through the music you create can give you more of a chance of standing out from the crowd.
AWAL states that there are 5 steps that you can use to help achieve creating a successful brand.
Step 1. Find 3-5 other artists you admire and define their brands.
Step 2. Define what makes you unique in no more than 2 sentences
Step 3. Define 3-5 core values that fit with your brand statement
Step 4. Define your brand tone of voice with 3-6 keywords
Step 5. Make a list of all the key activities you do as an artist and then how you can adjust each one to better reflect your brand
It can be a struggle to find an original idea, as there are struggles with avoiding certain cliches when it comes to lyrics and chord structure. To help find when coming up with more original ideas, Songwriter Clay Mills suggests watching movies to come up with song ideas. “I personally used this technique to pen my first #1 song “Beautiful Mess.” I had been binge watching movies one afternoon and heard the phrase spoken in two movies in a row. After searching the internet, I discovered no one had written a hit yet with that title” (Mills, How to find great song ideas – songtown – courses 2024). He also suggests that even something as simple as conversations help towards the creativity of song lyrics.
Making a song can be a personal challenge as you put your personal thoughts, memories or insecurities into the world and for everyone to listen too. There is no real way of changing this, other than deciding how much information you want out into the world. Not every heartfelt song is about something or someone, but a song that truly means something to someone is more of a challenge to release to the world.
Creating any song can be nervewrecking, especially when you are creating a song with other people. Rejection and criticism can make you feel unworthy of being within the songwriting industry and give you major imposter syndrome. According to BMI “The most important thing is to avoid taking rejection personally”, which can be difficult as it’s a human instinct to feel this type of way when someone says they don’t like something that you can created. How you deal with this to realise that “when a publisher or other music business professional passes on one of our songs he or she is not saying, “You are a worthless, untalented loser who will never be successful,” although that might be what we hear. What is actually meant might be, “This song is strong, but I already have similar songs in my catalog.” Or, “The artist has already recorded a song with this topic.” Or, “This artist needs a more youthful, less traditional approach and the lyrics would benefit from more details.” (Blume, Ouch!-How to cope with songwriting rejection 2017)
Motivating yourself to write a song is a challenge sometimes, especially when you don’t have any idea of what to write the song about. Motivation and discipline is what is that problem. Ways to help with this are, Writing what you know. Jack Francis states “Writing can even help us to understand them better by pulling the words and emotions from our subconscious, perhaps even revealing truths that we hadn’t seen before”.
There are ways that you can grow creatively that will help you towards available opportunities being a songwriter. To build confidence with writing, and feeling confident with what you’ve created; It’s a good idea to create videos for TikTok or instagram, to help build an audience as well as build your confidence with singing to people. Other ways of helping towards available opportunities are working with peers and learning music theory, creating lyrics, melody creation and great ways to structure a song.
Songwriters can also move into other fields alongside creating songs for artists or themselves, they’re also capable of creating songs for Tv and film; this means a song that is created is available as sync licensing and companies are available to pay to use a song in their choice of media.
Songwriters can also move into commercial songwriting E.G writing songs for adverts or jingles. Some people view it as selling out, as you have nothing else to create, but it is an important thing as it is something that helps towards media creation. Songtown has a few steps to help when creating commercial music to help you without being a “sell out”. By deciding what type of songwriter you are, then figuring out how to create your music to resonate with a lot of your listeners. So it’s enjoyed by lots of demographics. This will help you to create music that still means something other than just commercial. (Mills, How to write commercial songs – without selling your soul – songtown 2024)
Bibliography
How to start a songwriting career | BBC maestro (2023) BBC Maestro . Available at: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/blog/starting-songwriting-career (Accessed: 03 November 2025).
Mills, C. (2016) A week in the life: A surprising look at the schedule of a pro songwriter , Song town. Available at: https://songtown.com/on-songwriting/a-week-in-the-life-a-surprising-look-at-the-schedule-of-a-pro-songwriter/ (Accessed: 10 November 2025).
Wells, R. (no date) The life of a hit songwriter, with Rob Wells (Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and many more), The Songwriting Academy. Available at: https://thesongwritingacademy.co.uk/video-tips/the-life-of-a-hit-songwriter-with-rob-wells-ariana-grande-justin-bieber-and-many-more/ (Accessed: 10 November 2025).
Spotify royalties calculator: Most accurate (December 2025) (2025) SoundCampaign. Available at: https://soundcamps.com/spotify-royalties-calculator/ (Accessed: 02 December 2025).
Savage, M. (2023) Ivor Novello awards: Harry Styles wins, Raye calls out music industry greed, BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65640882#:~:text=Pop%20star%20Raye%20used%20the,75%20years%2C%22%20he%20said. (Accessed: 02 December 2025).
Regan, E. (2025) 4 types of advances: Record label, Distribution Advances, & more, Sound Royalties. Available at: https://soundroyalties.com/four-types-of-advances-in-the-music-industry/#:~:text=A%20songwriter%20will%20not%20receive,until%20the%20balance%20is%20cleared. (Accessed: 02 December 2025).
Check unpaid royalties (no date) PRS for Music. Available at: https://www.prsformusic.com/royalties/claim-unpaid-royalties (Accessed: 02 December 2025).
Service, G.D. (2014) Intellectual property and your work, GOV.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview (Accessed: 02 December 2025).
Awal (2022) Don’t be boring: A musician’s guide to branding, AWAL. Available at: https://www.awal.com/blog/musician-branding/ (Accessed: 15 December 2025).
Blume, J. (2017) Ouch!-How to cope with songwriting rejection, BMI.com. Available at: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/ouch-how-to-cope-with-songwriting-rejection (Accessed: 16 December 2025).
Mills, C. (2024) How to find great song ideas – songtown – courses, Song town. Available at: https://songtown.com/on-songwriting/how-to-find-great-song-ideas2/ (Accessed: 15 December 2025).
Mills, C. (no date) How to write commercial songs – without selling your soul – songtown, Songtown. Available at: https://songtown.com/on-songwriting/how-do-you-write-commercial-songs-without-selling-your-soul/ (Accessed: 20 December 2025).
