Songwriting tends to happen in two stages. First, you spend a certain amount of time creating ideas, and second, you experiment with, pull together and reshape those ideas until you get the song into its final form. Some songwriters find the first stage relatively easy, but get frustrated trying to make a finished song. They get […]
Do you ever find that you spend a lot of time improvising on ideas, but often not able to come up with a song? Improvising plays a crucial role in musical composition of any style, so what’s happening when you’re improvising but there’s no song to show for your efforts? An analogy might help here. […]
There are two kinds of successful marketing strategies in songwriting/performing: you’re either targeting audiences, or you’re waving a big flag. The majority of songwriters (knowingly or unknowingly) target an audience. Targeting simply means trying to figure out what fans are looking for, and then give it to them. You may be the kind of writer, […]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about song hooks, and how to diagnose problems you might be having with the hook for your song: “When Your Song’s Hook Isn’t Doing Its Job.” In that article I gave a list of four important characteristics of good hooks. “Hooks and Riffs: How They […]
In most songs, the bridge will happen after the second chorus. As you’re approaching the end of the bridge, you get two options: do your final chorus repeats and end the song, or do a third verse. What you choose to do will have an affect on what the end of your bridge sounds like, […]
Tonight I have the thrill of conducting a performance of J.S. Bach’s “St. John Passion,” so I’ve had my head a little out of songwriting world while concentrating on preparing for that performance. I’ve mentioned Bach often on this blog in the past. And mostly because the way Bach composed is not that far off from […]
