Musical Notation

Copying Music By Hand as a Way of “Listening”

I was thinking a bit more about my post yesterday, and the importance of listening as a way of developing your songwriting skills. I started that post by mentioning that the classical composers may have had innate talents and skills that made them great composers of music, but mainly they worked hard at it — a […]

Home studio

What You Listen to Informs How You Write

It’s easy to think that the great classical composers — Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, etc. — were born with an innate ability to compose — that they were born with what some might call a “God-given talent.” There’s probably something genetic about musical ability, to be sure, but I truly believe that the great composers were […]

Songwriting Inspiration

Ideas to Make the Bridge the Most Powerful Section of Your Song

“Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” is FREE with your purchase of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle. $37 USD. Immediate Download. In songs that are in one of the verse-chorus formats, the optional section we call a bridge will typically happen after the second chorus. For verse-bridge songs, the bridge will […]

A Tribute to My Brother David

I’m very saddened to let you all know that my twin brother David recently passed away after a brief illness. He was a really wonderful person. Though he worked in the tech/IT world, his first love was music. He received a music degree in performance, and was an excellent percussionist, drummer and composer. He was […]

Songwriter writing lyrics

Does Good Grammar Matter in a Song Lyric?

It’s not hard to find songs that use slang or grammatical and spelling “errors” in the title or lyric. Lots of “ain’t”, “gonna”, and also a lot of dropped g’s as in Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’”. I occasionally get messages or emails from songwriters asking what I think of grammatical correctness in a […]

Imposter Syndrome - Songwriting

Facing Imposter Syndrome in the World of Songwriting

If you’re ready to take your songwriting to its highest level possible, you need “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.” Get the manuals that thousands of songwriters are using. Comes with an all-important Study Guide. Imposter syndrome is the psychological condition of feeling that you aren’t worthy of your achievements, as though you’ve stumbled […]