Songwriter

What Playing Your Instrument and Listening to Music Does For Your Songwriting

Thousands of songwriters are using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle to polish their songwriting technique. Every aspect of how to make a song better is covered. Stop wasting time — take your songwriting technique to a new level TODAY. Ten eBooks, plus a free one: $37 USD (Immediate download). Probably the best two activities any songwriter can and […]

Chords and songwriting

Chord Progressions: Moving From Fragile to Strong

When you listen to songs, you’re likely unaware of the concepts of fragile and strong being played out, but it’s actually a very important aspect of good songwriting. If you’ve written a melody and you want to explore the many ways there are to add chords to it, you need to get “How to Harmonize a […]

Pink Floyd

Writing a Chorus Hook – or Any Hook – That Grabs Attention

We associate the concept of the hook with pop music, though many genres, even classical music, have them. And when we say hook, we usually mean the chorus hook — that bit of the chorus (or sometimes the entire chorus) that listeners can’t get enough of, and hum it (hopefully) all day long. There are other kinds of […]

Studio singer

When Online Criticism Tries to Knock You Down

If you like the chords-first songwriting method, you’ll want to read “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It deals with the common chords-first problem of how to write a great melody straight from the chords. It’s part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle. It’s a very different world to practice the art […]

Lang Lang, piano

…And On the Other Hand…

A few days ago I wrote a post in which I talked about the chords-first method of songwriting (“Giving Your Melodies Some Shape in the Chords-First Songwriting Process“), and warning of the main pitfall of this process: the ignored and uninteresting melody that might result. As in all things in songwriting, you can find exceptions […]

Guitars

When Art Turns to Craft: Songs That Are Too Similar to Every Other One

As a songwriter, being unique is a vital part of your success. If you’re not giving the world something that’s singular and distinctive — in some way different from all the other songs out there — then you’re simply copying someone else’s success. Songwriters are very familiar with the chorus hook, but there are other kinds […]