Ray Charles - What'd I Say

When Songs Take More Than 20 Minutes to Write

There’s an opinion amongst some songwriters that songs that don’t form themselves quickly, usually within minutes, are duds; that the more you have to work to get a song to sound right, the less likely it is that you’ve got a song worth keeping. It’s a surprisingly common view. Even Jay-Z, in his introductory paragraph to […]

Pop Songs Need a Groove, or They're Just Aimless Wandering

Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website Follow Gary on Twitter In the pop music world, songs need a groove, and that usually means that you need to limit the number of chords you use. A groove chiefly happens when the tonic (key) chord happens over and over again. Our musical instincts […]