Sarah McLachlan

The Main Differences Between Verse 1 and Verse 2

Figuring out the differences between verses and choruses can be tricky enough, but sometimes the biggest problem you’ll have is figuring out what to do with a second verse in your song. And because songs are all about momentum and musical flow, the danger with a weak verse 2 is that the musical flow can […]

Guitar, paper and pencil

Comparing Emotional and Narrative Characteristics of a Good Song Lyric

When you read a lyric sheet, it may not occur to you that the best lyrics move back and forth between words and phrases that are observational and narrative, to words and phrases that display emotion. Thousands of songwriters are using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” to improve their songwriting technique. Become the […]

Synthesizer player - Songwriter

Creating Chord Progressions That Work in Practically Any Song

A good chord progression has a sense of direction. It doesn’t just wander about, one nice chord following another nice one. Once a progression starts, it’s usually the case that it targets a particular chord, making that one chord more “important”, so to speak, than the others. You see this targeting of that one important […]

Bruce Springsteen

Songwriting and Finding Your Own Voice

Put the words “songwriting” and “voice” together in a sentence, and you’d think I’m talking about singing. But there’s another aspect of songwriting and voice that comes about when talking about musical honesty. Here’s more about what I mean by that. If, once you’ve written a song, you ask a roomful of people what they […]

Guitar and paper for songwriting

Writing a Song From a Chord Progression – An Excerpt

If you like starting songs by working out the chord progressions first, you may be aware of one notable difficulty: melodies can sometimes get neglected. And that’s a problem, since the melody is the part that you hope your listeners will be humming. But there are ways to make sure that the chords-first songwriting process […]

Songwriter with guitar

7 Tips For Becoming a More Consistently Excellent Songwriter

In the music industry, there’s not a lot of interest in a one-off. If sometime in the past you wrote a great song, but you haven’t been able to follow it up with something similarly excellent, industry folks will be skeptical when you metaphorically come knocking. Have a  great melody, but stuck at the “how to […]