Song Writing Inspiration

I've got some students in my involved in a songwriting workshop, at the end of about 2 months they'll have written and sung a song of their own. Mind you, these are 5th graders, so they're about 11-12 years old. The reason I mention this is that, when I see people on Yahoo ask for songwriting help, they get answers like "nobody can help you write a song, it has to come from your heart" or "if you just sit down to write a song you can't do it, you have to be inspired." That really is a load of crap. Totally. I'd venture to say that well over half of the music out there today is written by professional songwriters writing for an artist. Not to mention the fact that until Beethovens time, almost ALL music was written by contract. Meaning, the artist worked for a patron/client who told the artist what to write and supported/paid them for their services, just like an architect or maid, or butler.

So imagine this: the king is having some fireworks so he says, "hey Handel, write me some fireworks music, make it upbeat or something, 'fireworky', you know" Handel says, "you know king you have to feel it in your heart, you can't just sit down and write music." The king says, "you write me my music or you're going to feel my boot in your ass".

See, the thing is, we have empathy, we can put ourselves in other peoples skin, so to speak. Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein on a bet. She didn't know what it was like to be a monster or a "mad scientist". Yet she wrote the book, a book that kicked off a whole genre of literature and film. You don't need to be something to write a song about something. You can pretend you're something you're not. When people tell you, "feel it in your heart" remember the (probably apochryphal) words of Aaron Copeland. When asked when he wrote music he said "when I'm inspired", he was then asked when was he inspired, the reply? "From 8:00 to 4:00 Monday through Friday". Which brings me to the words of Grouch Marx "Sincerity is everything, when you can fake that you've got it made" Song Writing words to live by people.