Lately I’ve been getting lots of very good questions from songwriters by email regarding chord progressions, and most of those questions deal with some aspect of how to make chords a bit more creative without making them sound… well, like garbage! I thought now might be a good time to go back to offering my […]
If you’re a composer of music who is required to be writing daily (film score composers, for example), you know that you can’t count on a steady supply of inspiration to keep you writing. You know you’re going to have days when you feel the excitement that inspiration provides, but lots of other days when […]
What we call writer’s block has many possible causes, but most of them related to fear, and in particular a fear of failure. But fear is not often the first step in a creative block. For many songwriters, it’s creative exhaustion. Chapter 5 of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” shows how melody and lyric need to work […]
Tried and true refers to anything that is a proven success. In most things in life, you’re doing well to look for a tried and true method. These days we might call it a “life hack.” But no matter what it gets called, tried and true won’t let you down. Except… it can let you […]
There are songwriters that like to use complex progressions that really take us on an intricate musical journey. But the fact is that most of the time, particularly in popular music genres (pop, country, folk, etc.), chord progressions are largely predictable. No songwriter I know likes to use the word “predictable” in describing any aspect […]
Every once in a while I take a look at the visitor stats for my blog, and especially take note of which pages — and in particular the topics — are the most popular. Typically it’s been articles about chords that get the most attention – usually 6 out of the 7 top posts. So […]
