Have any of you received any tuition in songwriting, read any books or studied in any other way?
I'm interested to know how you came to be songwriters!
For me, I think I said somewhere else, I never really consider myself a songwriter, but then Ive completed so many now, that I think its time to adjust that self discription!
As for learning, I just did it. Alot of ideas come to me either musical ones, or lyrical ones, and I think the first few times are about experiencing how you manage to put it together. You learn from that and repeat the process. Until it becomes a case of knowing how you put a tune together, what steps need to be done etc.
Ive been around a few decent songwriters too - one of my friends is a writer for Robbie Williams among others, and I got to work with him on a few occasions, and gained a bit of "calm" about it by working with him, but there was no formal training per se.
I think the main thing for me is to just do it, and keep doing it. Some people learn in different ways, but I tend to find if I focus on books or courses I don't really write, I nail down techniques. Which is not a BAD thing in any way, all that stuff is useful. I just think when it comes to actually writing a tune it has to be from you. Your own creativity as it were, which will always go back to what you can actually accomplish or are comfortable doing. Techniques are things you pick up on the way that will become natural at some point, but the actual process of writing a song doesnt change that much.
So I guess my only answer is, just by doing it until Im happy with it!