Jewel Kilcher Talks Songwriting Process Ahead of Bravo Reality Show

Posted on October 28, 2010

Bravo has announced that Kara DioGuardi and Jewel Kilcher are the judges of its new reality tv songwriting competition called Going Platinum. The competition will involve 12 budding singer-songwriters. The show is currently in production in Los Angeles and is scheduled to premiere in 2011 with 10 episodes. Jewel shared the details on her blog.

Jewel also posted an interesting video about songwriting on her YouTube channel. She says Cole Porter is a special singer-songwriter to her because he wrote both melodies and the music. She says what makes a great songwriter to her is when they sing about their lives. She says to write a hit song that has intelligence is "a really difficult thing."

Jewel also talked about her process for writing a song. She says she doesn't tend to have an idea to begin with. She says she will sit down and start playing a guitar and use a strong emotion that comes up as the inspiration for a song. She says she uses the emotion as "the string to build a necklace around." She says, "I know I'm doing my job right if when I sing a song for a person they feel the emotion as strongly as I do."

She says the process is a little more clinical if she is co-writing a song.