Take Your Song to the Next level: Write a Countermelody

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and give your songwriting skills a jolt! _____________ A countermelody is a second melody that gets played or sung at the same time as your main melody. It’s best used in choruses, to heighten the energy level of the song, and for this reason will usually appear toward […]

Major and Minor Tonalities Within One Song

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and get a new perspective on how chords and melodies work together! _____________ The word “boring” is a shorthand way of saying “not enough contrast.” That’s true whether you’re talking about songwriting, a football game, or life in general. Songwriters know that boredom can happen if the melody […]

Avoiding the Tonic: the Never-Ending Progression

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and get your songwriting career going! _____________ If you want to know what key a song is in, you need to look at the entire list of chords used, and find the one key that uses all, or at least most, of them. That will get you close, […]

How Tension and Release Creates Successful Songs

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and get your songwriting career going! _____________ I’ve been listening to Foo Fighter’s fantastic new hit, “Rope“, from their newly released album “Wasting Light”, and it got me thinking about song energy, and specifically about the issue of tension and release. “Rope” is a relentlessly powerful tune, […]

Got Songwriting Ideas, But Can’t Finish the Song?

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and learn how to pull all your musical ideas into a GREAT song! _____________ When we just can’t seem to generate anything that sounds like a songwriting idea, we usually chalk it up to writer’s block. But there’s a particular kind of problem that’s a bit different: […]

Ten Quick Tips for Writing a Better Song

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career! ____________ In a way, when philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, he gave composers of music some good advice without realizing it. With songwriters, the issue is that it’s possible for us to […]