Nashville-based Krissy Nordhoff is a professional songwriter and author.
Krissy is the creator of The Writing Worship Course and the Worship Songwriter Mentorship. Her songs have been recorded by a variety of artists including Natalie Grant, Jenn Johnson (Bethel Music), Darlene Zschech and many more! Passionate about training and encouraging the next generation of songwriters, Krissy now mentors, teaches and creates resources, including informative podcasts and her popular 'Songwriter Personality Test'. She has also penned a new book, Writing Worship: How To Craft Heartfelt Songs for the Church that offers spiritual and practical insights for aspiring songwriters and worship teams that want to write original songs for their congregations.
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Top Songwriting Tools and Apps
Hey everybody! I wanted to share with you some tools and apps that I hope will really make a big difference in your songwriting. These are things that I use in every write, and if you could have them ahead of time - get them set up on your computer and ready to go - it'll help you a whole lot. So, I usually have four tabs (at least!) open on my computer as I'm writing. These are the things that I use...
1. RhymeBrain
The first one is called Rhymebrain.com. I love a songwriter setting they have on Rhymebrain, which means I can type in a word and not only will it give me rhymes, but it'll also give me additional information. They also have an inventor word type setting, which is really fun if you wanna just experiment!
2. Google Docs
The second tab that I always have open is Google Docs. Some people go back and forth on how they feel about this, especially if you're in a co-writing situation, because you can see what somebody else is typing in live time. I personally love it! I love to see what people are thinking, and then we can compile all of our thoughts onto one document. I would add though, don't delete other people's information that they've shared on there. What I usually do is just move it down to what I call the basement (move it down on your page). That way, you still have it to use, or they still have it if they want use the idea in a different song.
3. Dictionary
The third tab I always have open is dictionary.com. I love it because I can search deeper meanings of words or synonyms. I also can search on that website, click over to thesource.com and get other synonyms and things that I need.
4. Bible Gateway
The fourth one that I always have on my computer is biblegateway.com so that I can have scripture easily accessible. A lot of times, I'll think of a verse, but I won't remember the reference. I can type in a few words there and usually find what I'm looking for! Many, many times, just those fragments of verses that are stuffed in my heart will lead us to a verse, or a chorus, or whatever it is that we need. So make sure you use that resource as you're writing worship songs, as there's nothing more important than God's words!
A couple of other things on my phone that I always have handy...
5. Notes App
I use my notes app all the time to put my song ideas in and it's very helpful! That way, you'll always have your song ideas with you if you need them. This is especially helpful when you go into co-writes, as you always wanna bring ideas.
6. Voice Memos
And finally, voice memos. Melodically, you don't want to forget what you have written down lyrically, and it's so easy to record a quick voice memo! I love now that you can search within voice memos too. You can title each memo, which means you can quickly search and find those things when you walk into a co-write. I have been titling all my ideas as 'idea something', and then 'idea'. So for example, if it's a surrender song, I put 'surrender idea' in the voice memo title. That way, when I walk into a write, I can type in the search bar, and it'll bring up all my ideas. Then I can look through and decide if there's something that is worth sharing for that co-write, or meant for that day.
I hope that those all help you with your songwriting! Go and check them out, and practice pulling those things up on your computer, or that you have those apps on your smart phones. And I wanna hear your songs! So upload them to SongShare to share them with your church, your city and your world.
If you don't know where to start with writing songs, or if you're an old hand in need of some fresh new tips then Krissy has some amazing resources on her site writingworship.co. A great place to start is by taking the Songwriter Personality Test, which will help you to understand where your personal strengths are with songwriting, and who you need to team up with! If you want to dig deeper with others in your church then have a look at Krissy's book Writing Worship, and her online course.
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