Every year around August, I (Sarah) start getting workshop requests. 

Can you come and speak to our educators about creativity? Can you share strategies for improvisation? 

I LOVE talking about creativity and how to incorporate creative action, like songwriting, into any...

F.O.S.O. (or, Fear of Sharing Out)

A few weeks ago, I was running a workshop on creativity for a group of music educators in Pennsylvania. We had multiple exercises where participants would create and share with each other. Many teachers reflected on how they felt uncomfortable sharing creative...

I can still remember the first time I recorded music on a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). I was in college and had recently purchased a Mac. I had written a handful of children's songs and wanted to make a CD for the parents of a program I ran. 

I could record songs on my computer...

Co-writing can be a really fun and engaging way to expand skills, get to know more people and expand your collaborative network, but it can also be really hard. Especially when you get into a situation when you feel you're not being heard. I find this happens a lot more frequently when...

Self-doubt and Creativity

This past week, I was reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Gifted to me by a dear colleague, this book has been one that I've come back to time and time again when I feel creatively stuck or in need of inspiration. 

As I was preparing to...

I just did an interview where I was asked why so many people dislike holiday music. (You can check the whole thing out here). In preparation for the chat, I sat down and thought about this and found some interesting anecdotes that I'd like to share.

There are a few things I came up with - some...

For whatever reason, lyrics seem to be both the easiest way into songwriting as well as the most challenging. Easy because they access language that we already have - no need for harmonic or melodic vocabulary - but hard because there just isn't a lot of real estate to say everything you...

I can't read those three words without thinking of I want it that way by the Backstreet Boys. At songwriting for M.E. this month, we've been focusing our energies on this simple phrase: "Tell. Me. Why." 

In a world full of "whats," "hows," and "whens," it can be easy to forget our...