This is not a how-to guide, but one of the things I’ve enjoyed about the streaming experience is to be able to write a few songs.

I don’t really have any formal training in how to write a song, but I was quite musical as a child. I sang in a choir for quite a long time, and I played recorder and drums, and had some piano lessons. But I wasn’t really any good at anything.

Thanks to streaming, and weirdly the DMCA music thing that happened a few years back, I decided to pick the piano up again. I’d tried a few times over the years but I never really got anywhere. But finally, I managed to get to a position where I could make 4 chords sound kind of ok. If you do want a tip, there’s plenty of Youtube videos that kind of teach this method, although its one of those things that suddenly ‘clicks’ in you mind that gets you going.

I still can’t really play tunes, but instead I sing them, which kinda works for me, and that quickly brought me on to wondering whether I could write my own songs. This time, I didn’t use Youtube much, I just kind of went for it, using some classic chord sequences and a lot of online thesaurus and rhyming apps. I did google ‘how to compose a song’ but there’s loads I don’t understand there and it worries me. So I’m ignoring it.

What is great though is to have the outlet through the stream where I can try out this stuff with friends, but maybe without too much risk. I’ve really appreciated that, and I love that I’m able to at least add something.

One thing that does seem to be needed with song writing is a bit of inspiration. And the stream has given me that. I wrote one song for the sky anniversary, another for the ‘your favourite sky creature challenge’, but I think the most special was the one I got to write after my character from Sandrock had a torrid love affair with Pen – an NPC. It’s called Everything Wrong.