Cher - Believe

The Cher Effect Diverted Our Attention Away From Why “Believe” Works

If you’re ready to take your songwriting to its highest level possible, you need “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.” Get the manuals that thousands of songwriters are using. Comes with a Study Guide. Every singer-songwriter likely knows what the “Cher effect” is. It’s the extreme autotune effect that Cher’s producers Mark Taylor and […]

Singer-songwriter in concert

Consistent Excellence: It’s What the Music World Demands

If you’re a songwriter, you’re a dreamer. Not unlike the kid who dreams about becoming a professional baseball player, hitting a homerun to win the World Series, then works to become that player. As a singer-songwriter, you dream about hitting big on the charts. You dream about turning on the radio and hearing your song. […]

Singer-songwriter

Bypassing “Am I Allowed to” Questions and Writing Better Songs

I always say that it’s not rules that we consider in good songwriting, but principles, which serve as guidelines for us. Perhaps a sport can provide us with a good analogy here. When you watch an excellent tennis player, we’re not at all amazed by their following of the rules of the game. Tennis has […]

Songwriting duo

In Songwriting, Does the End Justify the Means?

If, in the end, you get what you want, does it really matter how you got there? If you ask that question in some settings, it’s a loaded one, with intense moral implications: if you were able to get enough money to finally buy that car you’ve always wanted, great. If you got that money […]

Singer-songwriter-guitarist

Polishing Songs Has a Limit

Scott Borchetta is an American record executive, known mostly as the founder of Big Machine Label Group. You may not know who he is, but suffice it to say that he’s spent a lot of his career working in the business end of music. He started Big Machine Records, and his first major client was […]

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 […]