songwriter's challenges

The Most Important Part of Being a Student of Songwriting

The best songwriters that I know consider themselves to be “students” of songwriting, even if only in an unofficial sense. They consider every song that they hear to be an opportunity to learn something. The problem with being a student of songwriting is that we all hold very strong opinions about music. We have our […]

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 […]

Band in rehearsal

The Importance of Musical Patterns in Good Songwriting

As humans, perhaps one of our strongest skills is recognizing patterns when we hear or see them. Pattern recognition gives us great enjoyment when we listen to music. Here’s what I mean: When listening to a song, most people cannot say what key they’re hearing. Most could never identify any specific note of the melody. […]