A lot of the time, the musical ideas you conjure up will be chorus ideas, because it’s often easier to think up short, “hooky” fragments that will serve as a good chorus. They’re the kind of musical ideas that are short, repeatable, singable, and generally fun to perform. But sometimes a musical idea will pop […]
For many songwriters, writing a chorus is a logical first step. It’s the part with the hook, and you can make great use of repetition to come up with something that’s catchy and memorable. If you’ve started your song with the chorus, the next section you’ll work on is verse 1. That’s because whatever emotions […]
Songwriters know (or should know) that songs are the best teachers. When you hear something you love, the artist in you instinctively wants to know why you love it. Through that kind of simple musical curiosity, you begin the next stage in your development as a writer. Adele’s “Hello” (co-written with songwriter-producer Greg Kurstin) is a […]
You may have just as many people who hate your music as love it, but that shouldn’t bother you too much. Hoping that everyone loves what you do is unrealistic. Any time you express your thoughts, opinions and feelings in musical form, people will react; sometimes in favour of your art, and sometimes against. The […]
You may not know the song “Comme d’habitude“, written by French songwriters Claude François and Jacques Revaux, but you’ll no doubt know “My Way,” a big hit for Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and others. Paul Anka acquired the rights to the melody (for $1), and then penned a new English lyric that brought the song to […]
There are several different kinds of hooks you might find in the song, but they all do essentially the same thing: they all give the listener something catchy, something singable, and something that will bring them back to the song. So no matter where your main hook appears (chorus, intro, backing accompaniment, etc. ) here […]
