Last year at some point I became acquainted with UJAM, the site that allows pretty much anybody to create music easily using their free online software. In addition to being a way to write songs, I really believe UJAM is the kind of program that can be a great compositional tool for songwriters. It takes your melody and immediately creates a backing band accompaniment in whatever style you want. It’s easy to change chords, adjust your melody, change the instruments… like I say, a great tool.
The folks at UJAM have asked me if I might write a guest article for their blog, and they’ve started publishing it in instalments. It’s a bit of a primer for songwriters, and much of what I say in the article is the kind of thing I’ve been saying for years here on my own blog.
But if you’d like to read it, have at it.
And while you’re on the UJAM site, give their online songwriting software a try. It’s a lot of fun. And I really believe that any time you create music in a different way, using different tools, your music takes on a new sound. So you might be surprised by what you come up with.
The guest blog: Creating a Song That Really Works
The UJAM online songwriting software.
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The biggest challenge facing musicians who want to make a living today is the amount of music that fans have access to. A musician needs to do something really special and creative in order to make it in music. Musicians really need to compete for fans because we have such a choice but, sadly, there are those in the major record labels/RIAA/BPI who do not want to compete. They want to rely on their monopolies of bygone days and this is why we are seeing a rise in independent musicians, because they are coming up with creative new ways of making and distributing music.
It is my opinion that we are living in a golden age of music.Songwriting
I think I agree with the basic thought that musicians today must be creative to make it. But I think that has always been the case, even when you factor in the ease of making music easily accessible. I think all YouTube, SoundCloud, MySpace, Facebook, and other media have done (and I don’t mean this to sound overly harsh) is given people greater access to bad music. But I agree with you that access is much easier than it has ever been. The problem it creates is that it does not help to bring the best singer/songwriter/musicians to the front. That is still a big challenge.
Thanks very much for your thoughts,
-Gary