If you want to make a living as a songwriter, Nashville is unquestionably the best place to be — even after a decade of dwindling record sales, it’s still home to a thriving publishing industry, as well as some of the most seasoned tunesmiths in the business.

But that doesn’t mean a good song is necessarily easy to find. In fact, Miranda Lambert found the experience so frustrating that she ended up learning how to play guitar just so she could write her own material.

“I really didn’t enjoy the songs I had been sent by producers in Nashville,” Lambert recalled during a recent video interview segment taped for Guitar Center. “So I decided I would try to write the songs, because I thought I had a lot to say. So my dad taught me three chords: G, C, and D. That’s really all you need if you’re a country artist anyway.”

The experience proved a powerful lesson for Lambert, and she used it to impart some useful advice for viewers considering a career in music. “Make sure you know who you are from day one. People will always try to change you and maybe somebody will be better than you and make you feel like you’re not good enough, but if you know who you are and you have something to say in your music, there’s someone out there who wants to hear it.”

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