A number of years ago I taught aural skills (ear training) at Dalhousie University. As part of that course, students had to listen to melodies as I played them at the piano, and then they would write down in musical notation what they heard. As you can imagine, some students found this relatively easy while […]
As a songwriter, if you’re not taking regular breaks from your writing activity, you’re probably not getting the most from your creative brain. It’s been well-researched and well-documented that we’re more likely to have bursts of creativity immediately following a period of downtime. (Read this interesting article, How Resting More Can Boost Your Productivity.) There’s […]
Do you find yourself wishing that your chord progressions were just a little more interesting? Here’s a quick tip for taking something that’s basic and simple to come up with something that sounds more imaginative: transpose your progression. Here’s what I mean. Let’s say that you’ve been improvising on a simple progression like: C Dm […]
When you think of the word meaning as it applies to your songs, are you talking about the picture that gets created from the lyrics? Or perhaps you’re talking about the picture that gets created from the sound of the instruments? For me, I pull more meaning out of the instrumental/vocal performance of a song than […]
I’ve been enjoying reading the transcript of an older interview (June 2011) with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon on the Pitchfork website. Vernon is a singer/songwriter I have a lot of respect for. He puts a lot of thought into the music he writes, and in particular the lyrics. Get “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBooks. They’ll […]
Monday’s blog post, “Uniqueness is a Powerful and Necessary Element in Good Songwriting”, got me thinking a lot more about the challenges of writing something singular within a particular genre, and so think of this post as a kind of “Part 2” to that article: One thing that practically all artistic works have in common, […]
