My songwriting process
Where ideas begin, and songs find their way.
I usually start with a song title or a phrase that captures my imagination. I keep a running list of ideas on my phone—phrases like Blast Radius, Lost Letters Burn, or The Rusty Range. Sometimes they come to me in a dream, and I’m not even sure what they mean at first. But that’s part of the fun—discovering their meaning over time, like a little gift from the muses.
Once a title grabs me, I start thinking about how it might connect to my own experiences. When I sit down to write the lyrics, sometimes everything comes together in an hour.
Other times it’s two or three days of wrestling with words, pacing, and feeling until it finally clicks. There’s so much magic in the small details, and I’m always chasing that moment when a line suddenly feels right.
After the lyrics are finished, I move to the piano and let the words reveal their melody. I used to start with a chord progression and then try to fit the lyrics into it, but lately my process has shifted. Now I like to speak the lyrics out loud, listening for their natural pitch, rhythm, and stress patterns, and let that guide the melody instead. I try to get out of the way as much as possible and let the song tell me what it wants to be.
Sometimes this leads me into genres I don’t even listen to very often—and it’s been a joyful surprise to discover that somewhere inside me, a little folk singer has been quietly waiting her turn.
Once the melody and chords are fleshed out, I make a humble demo with just my voice and piano. I’m not really a great singer, so I’m pretty shy about anyone hearing those demos—but everything important is there.
From there, I upload the demo to Suno and use it to create a “cover,” where my vocal is replaced with an AI vocalist and the song is produced with full instrumentation. I’m careful to make sure the final track follows my melody and chord progression exactly.
The result is a fully produced, professional-sounding demo with emotive vocals that I can confidently use to pitch the song to artists. And while I use AI to help realize my demos, the songs themselves are 100% written by me—
from the first lyric to the final melody.
