{"id":526775,"date":"2026-03-16T11:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/526775\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:42:15","slug":"oscar-nominated-songwriters-share-advice-for-aspiring-music-creators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/526775\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar-Nominated Songwriters Share Advice for Aspiring Music Creators"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOscar Sunday is here at long last. If you\u2019ve been meaning to watch the Songwriters Hall of Fame\u2019s 10th annual \u201cA Conversation With Oscar-Nominated Songwriters,\u201d you have another week to catch it on the SHOF site. (It will be available to stream<\/a> through March 23.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAll five nominated songs are represented on the Zoom session by their writers (or at least one of their writers). The session was co-moderated by Nile Rodgers<\/a>, who serves as SHOF chairman, and SHOF board member Paul Williams<\/a>, a SHOF Johnny Mercer Award honoree and 1977 Oscar winner for best original song for \u201cEvergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born).\u201d (At the time the session was taped, he was the only person on the call who had actually won a competitive Oscar.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe mutual respect among the nominated songwriters is heartening to see. As EJAE<\/a> put it, \u201cI\u2019m so honored to be on the same screen as you guys. You guys are legends. I\u2019ve learned so much from you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe best part of the session came at the end when Rodgers asked: \u201cCan you share your best advice for aspiring music creators?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter they each offered their best advice, Williams shared his take: \u201cI wrote a commercial that I didn\u2019t want to write. My partner [Roger Nichols] had to talk me into it, and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t want to write a bank commercial,\u2019 and we wrote the song, and put everything we felt into it, and it was \u2018We\u2019ve Only Just Begun,\u2019 which Karen Carpenter<\/a> turned into a big, big song for us. [Editor\u2019s Note: the Carpenters<\/a>\u2019 recording of the ballad reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 and brought Williams and Nichols a Grammy nomination for song of the year.]<\/p>\n

\n\tWilliams concluded, \u201cMy advice is: Put that word \u2018authenticity\u2019 at the front of your alphabet, because it\u2019s your authentic selves that has brought the heart and the soul to the stories that you\u2019re telling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are the responses by this year\u2019s Oscar-nominated songwriters to the prompt, \u201cCan you share your best advice for aspiring music creators?\u201d Responses were lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

\tRaphael Saadiq<\/p>\n

\n\tNominated for co-writing \u201cI Lied to You\u201d from Sinners with Ludwig G\u00f6ransson. It\u2019s his second best song nomination, following \u201cMighty River\u201d from Mudbound.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would say my best advice is whatever you love, hopefully whatever you love as a child \u2026 is something good, because it\u2019s gonna chase you for your whole life. And don\u2019t be blinded by categories of music. Music has no categories, so dream as high as you want in different sounds and different styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBryce Dessner<\/p>\n

\n\tNominated for cowriting \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d from Train Dreams with Nick Cave. It\u2019s his first best song nomination.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat Raphael said is beautiful. And I would second that. I came up playing classical music and then started rock bands with my brother [Aaron Dessner] as a teenager and then went to music school. And I\u2019m here in Prague about to play with the Czech Philharmonic. Often in school, especially, they\u2019ll say you need to pick one thing. And I actually think it\u2019s your wide interests, the diversity of what you do, that makes you you, and it\u2019s embracing all those things. And so many people on this call with us, all these songwriters, are great evidence of that. We are the sum of all our interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tDiane Warren<\/p>\n

\n\tNominated for writing \u201cDear Me\u201d from Diane Warren: Relentless. It\u2019s her 17th best song nomination and her ninth in a row, the latter an unprecedented feat.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWork your ass off, be f\u2014king great and work f\u2014king hard. Show up, show up. The secret to what I have, anything that I\u2019ve achieved is I show up, I show up to work hard. I show up for my friends. It\u2019s showing up, showing up is the secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tNicholas Pike<\/p>\n

\n\tNominated for writing \u201cSweet Dreams of Joy\u201d from Viva Verdi!. It\u2019s his first best song nomination.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think I\u2019d say two things, if you really want it that badly, and this is your life, then of course, you\u2019ve got to go for it. But most importantly, I think you have to listen to your own voice. You write what you want to write. Because there\u2019s a lot of pressure to do what you think other people want to hear but, but you are the important part. What you have to say is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tEJAE<\/p>\n

\n\tNominated for cowriting \u201cGolden\u201d from KPop Demon Hunters with Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park. It\u2019s her first best song nomination.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think a lot of people believe that success is where you learn a lot, but actually it\u2019s failure. I think we learn the most when we fail, actually, so I think that\u2019s helps to not be afraid of that. And also, whatever project comes your way, it could be like for a tiny commercial, whatever it is, I think it\u2019s important to give 110%. Do whatever you can to make sure it\u2019s like top quality. I think that\u2019s so important. I think a lot of people think like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s something small. I\u2019ll just do a scratch take.\u2019 Even for this, for Kpop Demon Hunters, I went all-out. I didn\u2019t care if it was a tiny scene. I put all the harmonies in there; made sure my vocal sounded fantastic. So, I think that\u2019s really important too, being proactive like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t


\n\tSign Up<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Sunday is here at long last. If you\u2019ve been meaning to watch the Songwriters Hall of Fame\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[47403,10546,88,216,498,29506,92905,45342],"class_list":["post-526775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-academy-awards","tag-awards","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-music-news","tag-oscars","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame","tag-songwriting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}