Joni Mitchell

How the Shape of Your Melody Can Help or Hurt a Song

If you write purely by instinct, it’s time to guide those instincts with songwriting knowledge. “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle shows you, with sound samples and other examples, why great songs sound great. Comes with a Study Guide. Most listeners to a song aren’t aware of many of the structural things that make […]

Singer-Songwriter

Writing Songs That Are More Easily Remembered

If, after listening to your song, a listener can’t really recall much about it, they’re far less likely to seek your song out to listen to it again. What makes music memorable can be a bit complex, but there are certainly things you could be doing as you write your next song to make it […]

Don McLean - American Pie

Helping Your Audience Connect to a Complicated Story Song

When you write lyrics, you obviously want your audience to connect to those lyrics and feel something. That would seem to imply that the meaning of your lyric has to be at least clear enough that your listeners understand what’s being sung about. But that’s not necessarily the case. There are plenty of good examples […]

Songwriter

Connecting a Verse to a Chorus – Keep the Musical Energy Moving Up!

No matter what genre you write in, there’s one thing that all songs have in common: they take listeners on a musical journey. That means that for every given moment within a song (assuming it’s well-written), listeners eagerly anticipate what’s going to happen next. In other words, just like a real journey, where you are always […]

Guitar - chords - songwriter

What If the Chords I Choose Are the Same As Another Song’s Chords?

Most songwriters know that melodies and lyrics are the two major components of songs that you can’t take from another copyright-protected song to use in your own. The original writer of the melodies and lyrics own the copyright — even if they never registered that copyright — unless that copyright has expired. Songwriters are very […]

Guitar

The Problem With Practicing Your Songwriting

Everybody knows the old adage “Practice makes perfect.” On the face of it, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t know of any skill that doesn’t get better by practicing. There is a problem with practicing, though, and it applies particularly to songwriting and other activities for which we don’t usually have a teacher: […]