Melodic Ideas from Stone Sour's "Say You'll Haunt Me"

Develop Your SONGWRITER’S MIND! – Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and START WRITING GREAT SONGS! ______________ Try this little experiment. Take your latest song and sing the first few notes of the verse. Then immediately sing the first few notes of your chorus. And if your song has a bridge, sing that as […]

Is "Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus" Fact or Myth?

Get FANTASTIC RESULTS! – Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and START WRITING GREAT SONGS! Is it true that the longer it takes you to get to the chorus of your song, the less likely it is that it’ll be a hit? On the face of it, it would appear to be true. After all, […]

How Do I Know if My Song's Structure is Working?

You can write a lot of songs without even thinking about “structure.” But if you’re not at least giving a passing thought to how the various elements your music are organized, you could be unintentionally confusing listeners, and ultimately turning them off. Structure, also known as form, governs everything from the overall formal plan (verse, […]

Dealing With Emotion in a Lyric is Tricky

Ultimately, what causes the connection between a song and a listener is the emotional response of the listener. The listener needs to hear something that makes them go, “I’ve been there before..”, or “I can imagine that happening to me..” That kind of empathy is important; if the audience isn’t putting themselves in the shoes […]

Will a Song Without a Chorus Just Bore Us?

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-book bundle, and FINE-TUNE your songwriting skills! When discussing song form, there’s a fairly common understanding that you’re talking about verses and choruses, with a bridge and pre-chorus often thrown into the mix. But the song without a chorus is actually a fairly common form, and it can be […]

Using a Pre-chorus to Build Anticipation

A verse needs to progress in such a way as to make the chorus feel like the next logical step. By this I mean that verse lyrics, melody and chords should be constructed to build certain tensions that are then resolved in the chorus. But sometimes, moving from the verse to the chorus can seem […]