Tonight I have the thrill of conducting a performance of J.S. Bach’s “St. John Passion,” so I’ve had my head a little out of songwriting world while concentrating on preparing for that performance. I’ve mentioned Bach often on this blog in the past. And mostly because the way Bach composed is not that far off from […]
A number of years ago I was teaching music in the public school system. I had several choirs. One of them, a medium-sized high school auditioned choir (45 members), rehearsed with me once a week for two hours. Another was a smaller jazz choir (20 members), which rehearsed twice a week, but only 35 minutes […]
We know from looking at decades of songs in the pop genres that the songs that really resonate with us and make us feel strong emotions are the ones that shift back and forth between sections of lower and higher emotions. “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” is FREE with your purchase of […]
Originality is everything in songwriting. Every time you sit down to write, you obviously need to be writing something that no one else has written before. It’s that need for originality that causes a kind of fear in some songwriters: the fear of accidentally plagiarizing someone’s song. In particular, some songwriters are afraid to spend […]
The love of music is a natural part of being human. For many, loving music means listening to it, dancing to it, singing or playing it. For others — many readers of this blog would fall into this category — it’s not enough to enjoy someone else’s music; they get enjoyment out of creating their […]
A hook has several defining attributes that all partner together to make it memorable and catchy: It’s main identifying characteristic is its shortness, making it easy to remember. It has a melodic component that frequently includes some sort of leap, usually upward (“Born in the U.S.A.”). It has a rhythmic component that frequently includes a […]
