If for you the lyric of a song is the most important feature, you’re definitely on the right track. Those songwriters who become most well-known and who have the most powerful legacies are the ones for whom lyrics are the most poignant part of the final product. “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make […]
Every once in a while I see it: an online reference to “We Built This City,” a 1980s smash hit for Starship, now considered in most polls to be the worst song of all time. And just yesterday I saw a 2016 article that I hadn’t read before: “An Oral History of “We Built This […]
It happens to everyone – the closer you get to finishing your song, the more you realize you hate it. It’s just not working. You can’t even tell where the problems are, so you don’t know how to fix it. Most of these songs never get finished, because you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns: […]
In songwriting, the first notes a listener hears are vital ones. Listeners will continue with, or abandon, a song based on those first few seconds. It’s not just pop songwriters that deal with those tricky first few seconds. It’s been a challenge for composers for centuries. Once you’ve got a melody, how do you know […]
If you chat at all with songwriters, the word “process” comes up a lot, and most competent songwriters will express the importance of having a good one. But here’s the problem: if you use the same basic procedure for all your songs — the same process — you’ll wind up with songs that all sound pretty […]
Are you afraid of having others hearing your songs? Do you lack artistic confidence? Writing songs means striking a balance between predictability and innovation. Every song is at least somewhat predictable. That’s partly how we have genres in the first place. And every song is at least somewhat innovative, or we hope so. If there’s […]
