Guitars

When Art Turns to Craft: Songs That Are Too Similar to Every Other One

As a songwriter, being unique is a vital part of your success. If you’re not giving the world something that’s singular and distinctive — in some way different from all the other songs out there — then you’re simply copying someone else’s success. Songwriters are very familiar with the chorus hook, but there are other kinds […]

Songwriter-guitarist

Writing Songs Daily, and Creating the Inspiration to Make That Happen

It’s hard to write every day if you’re a songwriter, because you find yourself either running out of ideas for songs, or running out of inspiration. What can you do to keep creativity from drying up? Let’s deal with the inspiration part first. There are lots of sources for inspiration, but the kind of inspiration […]

Piano and microphone

Craft Versus Art, and What That Means to Songwriting

Whenever you make something — whether you’re building a chest of drawers, sewing a dress, painting a picture or composing a song, you’re bringing together two important aspects of human endeavour: craft and art. Craft refers to the technical skills involved in actually constructing something. If you’re painting a picture, craft would refer to one’s […]

songwriter

Your Purpose

Why do you write songs? How do you measure your success? Those are important questions because they help define your purpose as a songwriter. Most of the good music we hear in our lives has been written, performed, produced and recorded by professionals. For most of those professionals, they have a very specific definition of […]

Creating Musical Ideas

Songwriting and Deepening the Pool of Ideas

Don’t miss out on a free copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” It’s free when you purchase “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” Where do musical ideas come from? I like to think of ideas as coming from a well, or a pool, within our imagination, and every time we […]