Writers like singers use words to convey what they have to say. The only distinction is the medium. Writers can make their characters sing and singers can use words to make a song.
Singers should definitely develop a reading habit. It allows them to edify their minds and open up their imagination to things they didn’t think their mind was capable of imagining. It’s almost a necessity to keep your mind sharp to create interesting things of your own.
It’s a decent habit to have, I don’t think having more readers will ever be a bad idea. Let’s dive deeper into knowing specifically how reading can help.
To Edify The Mind
There is no doubt that when you get a new perspective it broadens your horizons to places that you did not think it was possible for your mind to go. It was only a thought that your mind could be this vast expansive place of understanding but it is only in the doing we find that we get to be better than we are.
The World Needs Thoughtful Lyrics
I find it highly odd when adult pop stars are still asked to sing love songs, it’s like they never grew out of their childhood loves and never tasted adulthood. It leads to making certain songs feel, hollow from within.
Reading is just one of the ways to become a thoughtful person and that is going to flow into your writing as well. You will write about things that move or bother you. Things you truly love, like the struggles of people in everyday life and how helpless you might feel by not being able to help everyone but only yourself.
Critical thinking is essential in being aware of yourself. It is when you are aware of yourself that you can write about things in a deeper way. For most of us, earning millions of dollars is not really an option but having the ability to write a good song given our abilities is always a possibility.
It is this possibility we must take and make the best of it to present to others a song that we have carefully thought of.
To Become a Better Thinker
Critical thinking is going to aid you to have deeper thoughts about everything from politics to world affairs and news. You might argue that all things are filtered through our bias but you also have to remember our end goal is to create art.
Without bias to a predisposed notion, there are no original thoughts. In the end, an artist can only portray what they feel, regardless of what bias they have applied to their thoughts.
That is how the mind of an artist works. Very few are able to control it, the best way to live with it is to accept yourself as the person you are and strive to become better, without thinking much about where you have come from. The journey’s end is the ending point not where you currently are.
Deep thoughts can develop through reading. To know another’s perspective on something that you haven’t. Reading books that you have no particular knowledge about will allow you to expand your worldview and improve your life. Permanently.
It’s hard to look at things any other way once you have seen them through a lens that is clearer than yours. That’s the beauty of life. The lens is never spotless. It only gets cleaner and better to see, never backward.
To Get Out of the Normal Way of Writing Songs
The market is currently flooded with songs about love.
All of life cannot surround the idea of relationships. Some artists ought to be putting songs out there that talk about other areas and aspects of life.
You can only do that once you embrace life, learn and move on to explore other things in life. Rarely do people do. There is some peace to be found in living a life where you create what you think. But the only way to think better in the modern day is to read a book.
Why Books?
Books take a long time to publish because the author writes the material and then it goes through the editing process. After that, it becomes more apparent what needs to be omitted or expounded upon to make the understanding even more clear. Even if it is a fiction book.
So each word and each sentence is put in a particular way so the reader doesn’t have any ambiguity about what is being told to them. The information is concise yet needs to be further delved into to understand how or why what the author is saying, works.
How Much Should One Read?
I aim at a good 15-20 minutes a day. I do it first thing in the morning and I have started to take on longer books because I can rely on my habit to read to finish them. I don’t think twice about it I don’t have to make a decision on which book I must read.
I have recently shifted from self-help books toward more historical books now with the importance of religious history. I didn’t think I would be reading these books when I was 18 but here I am, not just reading them but enjoying them.
Don’t Forget to Practice
There are many things you could do but the end results will still need you to be able to sing. I just want to take a few sentences to tell you that both need to coexist together. The practical and the mind.
To that end, I have written extensively on why everyone should have an online course in their library. You can read it here.
My personal recommendation is going to be the ‘The Four Pillars of Singing’ but you can check this whole page out where you can learn how to sing! Here.
Don’t forget to enjoy yourself!