songwriter - lyricist

Being Your Own Best Critic

“Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base” shows you how a good hook can make the difference between songwriting success and failure. With great examples from pop music history. If you’re like most songwriters out there, you’re probably dealing a lot with your “inner critic.” That term simply […]

The Beatles - Get Back

McCartney’s Songwriting Process

If you’re ready to study — to learn why a great song succeeds — and then to apply those discoveries to your own songs, you’re ready for “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.” It’s a treat to watch some of the video snippets from the recently released “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary. I’ve not had opportunity to […]

Ray Charles

The Importance of Silencing Your Inner Critic

You can learn as much about songwriting by listening to bad songs as you can by listening to good ones. And that applies to your own songwriting efforts. In the pop genres, there is something to be said for getting something written as quickly as possible, and then try to figure out if it’s any good. […]

Guitarist - Songwriter

Songwriting and Healthy Self-Criticism

One piece of advice songwriters hear over and over (and I think it’s usually good advice) is to “silence your inner critic.” The belief is that songwriting can grind to a halt when you spend all your time finding fault with what you’re writing, before it’s even finished. Being critical, though, need not always be […]

5 tips for Silencing, then Awakening, Your Inner Critic

Being critical of what you’re writing is an essential step in perfecting your craft. Anyone who wants to improve at anything needs to be able to objectively critique what they do. To not have this kind of honest reckoning with yourself as an artist means limiting how much you can improve. The problem with being […]