Coming up with song ideas is hard. You start down a path and then you realize that whatever you thought your song was going to be about is just leading to dead ends. There are lots of ways to stimulate your imagination. Sometimes just picking up a pencil and writing, stream-of-consciousness-style, can yield surprisingly good […]
Every once in a while I write a blog post that refers to the importance of repetition in music, and how song melodies without repetition are problematic because they’re hard to remember. We already know the power and need for repetition in music when it comes to basic elements like the backing rhythms. Most songs […]
Most of the time when you talk about the hook of a song, you’re talking about the main, distinctive part of the chorus. There are many different ways to hook a listener, but you could argue that the chorus hook is the most important one, as it gives listeners the most memorable part of the […]
When every song you start seems to grind to a halt, and finishing it seems difficult or impossible, you’ve got the makings of writer’s block. Your musical imagination can help you through a creative block. But you’re likely thinking, “HOW can I use my musical imagination to help me, since it’s my lack of imagination […]
There is an expression that I keep on the front burner of my creative mind anytime I feel less than excited about writing music: Inspiration doesn’t create music; music creates inspiration. That’s not just a catchy phrase to me; I really believe that. The opposite, by the way, can be the case as well. But more […]
For most songwriters, the act of songwriting is about 10 percent imagination/creation, and then 90 percent working and reworking those ideas until a song is complete. Because of that, don’t be surprised if the first ideas you get for a song seem a bit lame. It can take some time before everything sounds the way […]
