If you ever needed a reminder that the excellence of music in the pop genres (or any genre) starts with the quality of the song, you need to listen to this great interview/discussion of music on the “Professional Musicians React” YouTube channel. In that video (“This bassist has played on over 2000 ALBUMS!!!“), bassist Leland Sklar, […]
Pop songs are typically 3 or 4 minutes in length. And because this is not a long bit of time we’re talking about, it can be a problem if you put too many ideas together when you write that song. Think of it as a kind of musical “economy.” You’ll use one melody for the […]
In my last post, “Finding Your Best Starting Point”, I offered suggestions for how to build a songwriting process when you’ve got a small fragment of music as your starting point. One of those fragments might be a bit of lyric. For many songwriters, starting the process with lyrics can yield great results. There are […]
“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” contains several eBooks that are meant to get you moving quickly in your songwriting process. They’ll give you progressions, formulas for creating your own, and all the info you need to add chords to an existing melody. Many songwriters love the chords-first songwriting process, for several reasons: Chords […]
I’ve recently returned to listening to an album that really impressed me when it was released in 2015: “Carrie & Lowell,” by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. I hope you take the time to give it a listen. What I love the most about it is its transparency of sound. With simple guitar and keyboard accompaniments, […]
Most of my writing these days is for vocal/choral groups. Sometimes that means writing for piano as an accompanying instrument, and sometimes I’m writing for full orchestra. Some of them are original compositions, and some are arrangements of already-existing songs (public domain folk songs, for example). But in any case, I practically always start by […]
