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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 […]

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 […]

Guitarist - Songwriter

The Three Steps to Creating an Emotional Response in Listeners

Sometimes the idea for a song will hit you on the spur of the moment, and you’ll sit down with your guitar and try to flesh out that idea, and see if anything comes of it. But at other times, you know that you need to write something, but you don’t have a particular idea […]

songwriting partnership

Five Ways to Know You’ve Found a Good Songwriting Partner

It’s not unusual in the pop music genres to partner up with one or more others to write songs. For many of the songs you see on the Billboard Hot 100, they come about as the result of a well-established songwriting team working together in a very formulaic way. Those songwriting teams can involve many […]