Guitar - chords - songwriter

Top 5 Important Bits of Advice For Songwriters

You could fill a book with advice for songwriters, and because of that it’s sometimes hard to sift through all the information to determine what’s most important. Because everyone’s writing style is different, and because everyone has their own reason for being a songwriter in the first place, certain bits of advice will be important […]

Songwriter

Do These 5 Things as a Way to Avoid Writer’s Block

“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” comes with an excellent Study Guide that’s meant to get your songwriting moving in the right direction. Also comes with a FREE eBook, “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” Writer’s block causes you great anxiety  because when you’re suffering from it, there’s no way of knowing 1) […]

Writing Lyrics

Rewording a Sentence to Find a Lyrical Gem

Coming up with song ideas is hard. You start down a path and then you realize that whatever you thought your song was going to be about is just leading to dead ends. There are lots of ways to stimulate your imagination. Sometimes just picking up a pencil and writing, stream-of-consciousness-style, can yield surprisingly good […]

Van Halen - Jump

What a Strong Chord Progression Does For Your Chorus

There are many ways to categorize chord progressions, but the best way system for songwriters is to classify them as being either fragile or strong. These two words, fragile and strong, pertain to the key of your song, and specifically refer to whether a progression makes the key very obvious or somewhat ambiguous. Getting melodies […]

Music Studio Sound Board

Getting a Handle On the Business of Songwriting

Like starting the songwriting process by working out the chords first? There are benefits and dangers. Read “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression” to get this process working properly for you. If you read my blog regularly you know that I deal mainly with the structure of songwriting. I think of songwriting in the popular genres […]

Musical Energy

The Best Songs Often Sound Spontaneous

The more you read about The Beatles and how they put their songs together (from about “Rubber Soul” onward, at least), the more you get the sense that each component of the song was planned, calculated and thought about. Their first album, “Please Please Me,” was recorded quickly, mainly all on one day. But as […]