Songwriter

Seven Things That Really Matter In Your Songwriting

If you find that someone is able to write a complete song every few days, you might be tempted to think that there’s something magical about whatever process they’re using that helps them be so prolific. But the truth is that good songwriting is rarely about whatever process a writer might have used to create […]

Guitar in a nature setting

Songwriting, and the Power of Holding Back

This blog article is a bit of a ramble, so I hope you’ll forgive me for letting my musical mind wander a bit! Sometimes when I look at a painting, I find myself wondering what I’m not seeing. It might be that the painting is a landscape — a winding river with a grassy hill […]

Bob Dylan - 1962

What You Can Do to Make Your Songs More Easily Remembered

It’s a given that in order for a song to be powerful and effective, it needs to be memorable. But what makes a song memorable? As we know, songs are a partnership of many different elements all working together. So it’s difficult to point a finger at one particular component and say that it alone […]

John Legend - Nervous

How Controlling Musical Energy Keeps People Listening

There are some songs, when you compare the start of the song to the end of it, make it obvious what we mean by musical energy. “Stairway to Heaven” is a great example: it starts very quietly, uses subdued acoustic guitar and recorders, with a nostalgic, mid-range vocal approach. The hook is probably the most […]

Tony Orlando and Dawn

What Can Kill a Song’s Staying Power?

Some songs are still with us fifty or more years after they hit the top of the charts (Smokey Robinson’s “The Tears of a Clown“, for example), but other songs, even ones that were big hits when they came out, are rarely heard anymore, not because they aren’t good, but… well, it’s hard to say […]

Songwriting

Is Your Verse Doing What It’s Supposed to Be Doing?

There is a lot of attention paid to song choruses, and for good reason. A chorus is where the catchy bit is either going to do its job and pull in an audience, or it’s not. So there’s a lot riding on the success of a chorus. If you’re ready to take your songwriting to […]