Keyboard and guitar

Your Chosen Instrument Influences Your Songwriting

It’s fair to think that your songwriting ideas come from your musical mind, and so your uniqueness as an individual, including all your life’s experiences, will influence those ideas. But the instrument you use to give life to your ideas also influences your songwriting. In a way, your chosen instrument acts as a kind of […]

Cool W.A. Mozart

Using Ideas From Mozart to Improve Your Songwriting Process

Once in a while I like to see what I can find out about how famous composers of classical music actually composed. I find myself wondering: Is there anything today’s songwriters can learn from their process? Get this eBook FREE when you purchase “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”10-eBook Bundle package. Eleven songwriting manuals for $37 USD! In the […]

singer - songwriter

Getting Creative with Chord Inversions

Inverted chords, often called “slash chords” because of the way they’re notated (C/G: “C slash G”) can add a very useful sense of creativity to an otherwise ordinary chord progression. In fact, if you’re looking to make your progressions sound a bit more inventive, exploring ways to use inversions should be your first step. Here’s […]

Songwriting - speed writing

A Speedwriting Exercise for Songwriters

The perfect combination: “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” and a Study Guide! Dig into the songwriting manuals that thousands of songwriters are using to polish their technique, complete with a study guide to show you how to progress through the materials. If you’re a celebrator of Christmas, you’ve reached that time of year […]

Songwriter with guitar

Spontaneity: Live Performance Vs Studio Recording

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the role of spontaneous musical creation and its role in songwriting. I’ve been writing for many years on this blog about how I believe writing quickly is an important skill in typical songwriting. That’s not at all to say that once you’ve created something quickly, you […]

Songwriter - Guitarist

How Playing Music Can Enhance Your Songwriting Abilities

One of the best ways to get inspired to write your next song is to turn your attention from writing music to playing it. As a player, you create sounds under your fingers, some of which come from other people’s songs, and some which you create spontaneously as a product of your musical imagination. Those ideas can then […]