Musical energy is the lifeblood of a song. When you talk about a song’s ability to grab the listener’s attention and then keep them listening for the three or four minutes that it lasts, that all comes down to musical energy. So often people equate musical energy with volume (loudness) or tempo, but that’s not […]
Not every song will have a notable melody. In general terms, the slower the song, the more important the melody becomes. Perhaps that’s because slower songs use melodies that use longer notes, making them more noticeable. With fast songs, melody notes typically fly by, and the basic groove of the song is probably more important. […]
One thing that brings a smile to my face is thinking about the fact that chord progressions work pretty much the same way today (in a pop song) as they did more than 300 years ago (in a Bach aria). If you’ve written a melody and you want to explore the many ways there are […]
Building a structure means having a plan before you start. If you’re not an architect, you’ll likely hire one, someone who knows how to create something beautiful while also being mindful of the laws of physics; you want to be sure it doesn’t fall down. Songs have a structure as well. And while I think […]
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 […]
If you listen to early Bee Gees tunes, you’ll notice how much they favoured slow tempos. Everything (well, almost everything) seemed to be a ballad. That’s not a criticism of their compositional prowess. But they were definitely, at least mostly, in ballad mode in their pre-disco days. Check out their 1971 album “Trafalgar” and you’ll […]
