Original songs sound too similar

[Davis Webb]

Its a really common problem and plagues professionals as well. Think of how different each Lady Gaga song is...or rather, isn't. Or most pop artists.

The only way out for me, at least, is to listen to many other musicians and incorporate new ideas. One band that helps me break out is Foster the People, so does Leslie Feist and Broken Social Scene. I spend every night watching youtube music concerts, from all kinds of artist, from country to classic rock, to jazz.

I think to write fresh material, you have to listen to alot of other people's material and emulate what you like best about their approach. Not copy, but emulate, ie, bring elements into your own style.

[tdq]

I'm hardly a prolific songwriter so take this with a grain of salt...this was not so much a repeat song but a tune I was working on that just seemed unsatisfactory somehow. I don't know if you use different tunings, but in this case I wrote it in Open D. I then reworked it in DADGAD and just naturally different things came out. Then I actually changed time signature from 4/4 to 3/4 which really helped it. Eventually I went back to Open D but the other bits from the DADGAD version stayed with it. I guess what I'm really saying is give the tune(s) a different framework, however you do it, and see what happens.

[Cobby]

Here are some things that have worked for me:

Randomness: This could be a random rhythm or a random sequence of notes or a random chord progression. Just play around with it and see if it sparks anything - see if it leads to any ideas. I'm always surprised by how often a random rhythm sparks ideas for me. Another thing I used to do sometimes - and works if you can read music - is to write words on a staff and then put notes at the intersections of the lines of the letters. Then see if you can make something out of the resulting melody. Sometimes it works, sometimes not...

Collaboration: find someone with similar taste as you and with a creative spirit and bounce ideas off of each other. That'll often lead in new directions. One thing my brother and I used to do is play the "four-measure" game. One of us would write four measures of a song and then hand it off to the other for the next four measures. That would often get us going in new directions and give our melodies and progressions a surprising twist or two. We often ended up with more interesting pieces than we would have come up with on our own.

Sequencer: Try writing using a sequencer program. Use the "staff" mode and just start throwing notes on it and then shifting them around and copying and pasting until you've got something you like. When I've done this I never known what's going to come out at the other end. Doing this has gotten me furthest away from my typical patterns than anything else.

In general I think it works best to approach writing with a spirit of playfulness. Turn off the judgmental part of your brain until later (way later) and just play around and try new things...