What kind of song do you get when you think of a place that’s meaningful to you, get out a map, and include place names?
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Massive thank you to Akito Goto for the amazing cello and violin work - akitogoto.com. 
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What kind of song do you get when you can't be arsed to write a song?
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What kind of song do you get when it's snack time for your 5 year old?
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What kind of song do you get when you're writing about a lie that's gone off like a bomb in somebody's life?
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What kind of song do you get when you just had your first Covid vaccine?
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What kind of song do you write when you just started a new job and you’re stressed out of your gourd?

A song to my imposter syndrome (who can't tell me what to do because it's not my Mom.)
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Written by Emi Jarvi and James Carmichael

Special thanks to Holly Taymar who gave me the prompt for this week's song.

​And massive thanks to my hubs, James, who texted me the glorious piano part one Sunday night and said "Here are some piano chords in case you need to write a song!" Because, in fact, I did.​
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I’m writing a new song every two weeks and I think you should too. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of creating and finishing something new, it’s AWESOME.

Every two weeks you’ll get a song writing prompt and a bunch of ideas and tricks to help you get writing.

​Every episode, I’ll play my new tune (warts and all) and also share what you’ve written (if you send it to [email protected]). 

The rules of Song Starter are super simple: 

1. A song is done when it has two verses and a chorus
2. The song doesn’t have to be good, it just has to exist

Download the audio files and use them as a prompt
I’ll also give you access to all the audio files from whatever I record. I often use loops or ideas from other songs to write new stuff, so feel free to give that a shot, too:

Every episode of Song Starter comes with:

• A songwriting prompt to spark your next song
• My latest song idea / song sketch based on last week’s prompt (warts and all - every song won’t be good, but it will be done!)
• A link to download all of the raw audio files (You can find them all on Google Drive here).
  • Each .zip file has all the tracks you’ll need. If you drag and drop all the tracks in to your DAW at bar 1 (e.g. drag them into Logic Pro, GarageBand, etc), they’ll all line up and be in the right place.
  • If there are other ways you’d like the tracks, let me know. For example, I can provide a Logic Pro and/or GarageBand file if that’d be useful.
• Freedom to share, adapt, remix, and transform it into whatever you want under Creative Commons (here’s the fine print on that)

Share what you’ve made, I would LOVE to hear it
Send me what you’ve made! Send a link to [email protected] so I can have a listen. I’d love to maybe share it on a future episode of Song Starter if you’re up for it.

Questions? Comments? Feedback?
Send me a tweet at @emiliabeth or email me at [email protected].

And that’s it! Time to get writing.