Microphone

Using the Range of Your Melody to Create Musical Energy

For those who don’t create (write or perform) songs, they’d probably have a simple answer to how you generate musical energy: turn up the volume! But if you’ve been a musician for a while, whether that’s writing songs, or being involved in producing or playing them, you likely know that there’s a lot more you […]

Keyboardist songwriter

Choosing Chords That Work Well With That New Melody You’ve Created

It may surprise you to know that if you go back enough in time — the Medieval era, for example — most music was all about the melody, and that harmony definitely played a secondary role: harmonies were incidentally created as several melodies were played together. While today, most music is a melody with chords […]

Guitar, paper and pencil

Five Reasons to Keep a Songwriting Journal

“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” comes with an excellent Study Guide that’s meant to get your songwriting moving in the right direction. Also comes with a FREE eBook, “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” If you’re a songwriter and you’re looking for ways to improve your skills, one of the best tools […]

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 […]

The Beatles

How High You Sing Can Have a Big Effect On Song Energy

You can define song energy in several ways, but for the purposes of this post, song energy is the sense of musical intensity a listener perceives when they hear your song. And there are several aspects of music that might contribute to intensity: Loudness Rhythmic complexity General rhythmic activity Tonal quality of the various instruments […]

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 […]