Coming Up Blank on Song Ideas? Try Using a Song Idea Generator
Staring at a blank page with no song idea inspiration is one of the worst feelings as a musician. Whether you are a beginner songwriter working on your first tunes or a pro crafting an album, you’re bound to face some serious writer's block. Thankfully, song idea generators come to the rescue!
In this post, we'll dive into these game-changing tools that can provide that much-needed spark of creativity whenever you're struggling with new songwriting ideas. I'll also share how Staccato's AI lyric generator can help take your seed ideas and develop them into fully formed songs. Let's beat creative block together!
Table of Contents
1. What is a Song Idea Generator?
Who Needs Them?
How are They Useful?
2. Explore the Top Song Topic Generators
Customisable Song Idea Generator
Song Title Generators
One-Click Song Idea Generators
3. Traditional Ways to Brainstorm Songs
4. Experiment with Lyrics to Find Your Idea on Staccato
5. So You Have Your Song Idea. Now What?
What is a Song Idea Generator?
Song idea generators are useful tools that instantly provide you with unique prompts, concepts, and titles to get your creative juices flowing. You input some basic parameters like genre and theme, and the generators will output a variety of song premises tailored to your needs. There are also many song idea generators that provide random topics without any parameters.
Who Needs Them?
Short answer: Musicians of all levels can benefit from song idea generators!
For total beginners who have never written a song before, coming up with the first idea can feel overwhelming. Generators give new writers a jumpstart by instantly providing unique titles and concepts to practice developing into lyrics and melody. Even just a simple song title or phrase is a great starting point to build from.
For experienced songwriters who have written successfully before, they can help replenish inspiration when facing dreaded writer's block. As many pros know, lightning doesn't always strike twice! Previous hits don't guarantee your next brilliant idea will come easily. Idea generators are a go-to tool to get re-inspired.
For seasoned pros with long discographies under their belts, song idea generators can uncover totally unexpected song premises outside their comfort zone. Fresh and even bizarre concepts can stimulate creativity and prevent repetition.
How are They Useful?
The main benefit of song idea generators is that they provide fast access to the inspiration that gets your creative juices flowing. While you may spend hours racking your brain for cool titles or concepts, these generators can provide dozens if not hundreds of creative prompts within seconds.
These generators are great because you'll be exposed to a far wider variety of unique titles, themes, imagery, and lyrical hook concepts than you may ever have thought of yourself. Having all these thought-starters available instantly is invaluable when staring at a blank page is too overwhelming.
The initial ideas can then send you down creative rabbit holes as you begin implementing other ideas and directions inspired by the original prompt.
Explore the Top Song Idea Generators
Customisable Song Idea Generator
Your Creative Aura: This generator allows you to customize and adjust results by specifying mood, tone, focus, and whether you want a resolution. While you only have two choices for each parameter, it still allows you to generate unique concepts that fit the type of tune you want to create. The best part about this generator is that it gives you multiple song ideas with scales, chord progressions, and tempo.
Example of what it can do:
Good for: Providing both lyrical and melodic inspiration that is tailored to your mood.
Song Title Generators
Chosic: This tool takes in mood and genre inputs and instantly gives you 20 unique song titles you can use. The generator also has a useful feature where you can check for actual songs that have similar titles to the ones that were generated.
Example of what it can do:
The “similar” button gives you songs with similar titles on Spotify. The star lets you "favourite" titles. The paper lets you copy the title onto your clipboard.
Good for: Providing some general song titles based on your preferred mood and genre.
One-Click Song Idea Generators
Indie Panda: This generator gives you topics that you can write about or interesting songwriting frameworks to follow. Simply click the “generate a random song idea” button and you’ll receive an idea instantly. These ideas tend to be really unique and testing of your musical abilities.
What it generated (results from 3 different occasions):
1. Write a song that consists of only verses (no chorus, bridge, etc)
2. If you have an instrumental demo ready to go, record yourself singing gibberish over the demo. Listen back to the recording and write words based on the sounds of the gibberish you just performed
3. Write a song about a silly/humorous argument between two friends or lovers
Good for: Pushing creative boundaries and developing unconventional songwriting skills.
Hueristic Inc: Another generator that only requires you to click one button. This idea generator is great because it really puts your creativity to the test. Rather than straightforward song topics, it provides thought-provoking conceptual prompts that require imagining different viewpoints .
What it generated (results from 3 different occasions):
1. Write from the persona of a teacher you had in middle school.
2. Invent a world you would like to live in.
3. Use an Oxymoron as your song title and write the song based on: Original Copies
Good for: Unveiling unexpected directions for songwriting inspiration.
Traditional Ways to Brainstorm Songs
While song idea generators are invaluable tools, don't forget there are plenty of old-fashioned ways to stimulate your creativity as well:
Browse Idea Lists: As an alternative to generators, you can also browse big lists of pre-written song ideas across different genres and themes. Sites like The Song Foundry and Improve Songwriting have hundreds of song ideas to flip through until something piques your interest.It's a more passive approach but allows for scanning through many ideas quickly.
Look inwards: Pay attention to your everyday thoughts, emotions, experiences, and sensations. These can inspire fantastic lyrical concepts. One artist who exceptional at using emotion to drive lyric composition is Taylor Swift – Take a look at Taylor Swift’s songwriting evolution here.
Draw from real life: Think about notable people, places, stories, and moments around you. Turning these into metaphors or narratives can drive powerful songwriting.
Study what you love: What artists, albums, films, books, or other works resonate with you? Analyze what makes them impactful and channel those elements into your original songs.
Embrace the unexpected: Sometimes a random phrase we overhear or an odd thought before bed can spark genius if we capture it. You never know what will stimulate your next hit song! Charlie Puth’s creation process of Light Switch is an awesome example of how everyday objects can inspire you.
The aim is to maintain an openness to inspiration from the world around you. With the right antennae, you're bound to stumble upon great material. This article on Song Idea Inspiration is also a great resource to learn from.
Experiment with Lyrics to Find Your Idea on Staccato
While Staccato does not provide a tool that strictly generates song ideas, we do offer a lyric generator tool that can help you find inspiration or create and finish entire songs.
A great place to start is to use the “generate random lyrics” feature on Staccato’s lyric tool (see marker 1 in the image above). You can regenerate the lyrics as many times as you like until you find something that suits your needs.
Alternatively, you can use Staccato’s lyric generator tool to experiment with different moods, genres, and styles (see marker 2 in image above). You may just stumble upon a theme you connect with to drive your song.
You can see how it all works in this video that explains all of Staccato’s AI Lyric Writing Tools.
So You Have Your Song Idea. Now What?
Coming up with a great song premise is only the first step - you still have to turn it into a fully realized tune. But songwriting is a long, intensive process with many hurdles.
One way you can write an entire song with ease is with Staccato. With its unmatched musical knowledge and deep learning capabilities, Staccato acts as your AI co-writer. Our platform hosts a large range of features that allows you to turn ideas into full songs with ease.
When you land on your song idea, prompt Staccato's AI lyric generator to write sections or a full song and it will provide high-quality lyrics instantly. If you are not happy with the output, take advantage of the various AI capabilities to fine-tune your lyrics:
Next-Line Suggestions (Left): Input any lyrics to get next-line suggestions for lyrics in any mood and tone.
Rewrite (Right): Rewrite any part of the lyrics instantly.
Within seconds, Staccato allows you to turn a title or hook into a full song. This instant start helps you capitalize on inspiration rather than losing steam. If you want more lyric writing guidance, check out our article on Tips and Tricks for Writing Lyrics.
Start Generating Your Next Song Idea!
I hope this post gave you some fresh tips and tools to overcome writer's block as both a beginner and an experienced songwriter. Song idea generators are game-changers for providing that initial spark.
Tools like Staccato take it to the next level by helping develop your basic ideas into production-ready songs through human-computer collaboration.
Next time you're staring at a blank page, turn to the power of song idea generators for an instant burst of ideation. Stop overthinking it and start creating! The only limit is your imagination.
Dr. Jeffrey Lupker - Co-founder, Staccato
International Speaker & Published Author on Deep Learning & Music.
Dr. Lupker has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has given lectures internationally in the fields of deep learning, machine learning and music. Beyond Staccato and his own research, Dr. Lupker is an active performer on guitar and keyboards and has played across Canada and USA with award winning artists.
