I like to think of imagery as any lyric that seems to create more pictures in the mind than what you’d normally expect from so few words. A quick example: “The trees glowed as the moon shone brightly” describes a scene in a literal way, but… “The trees, bathed in moonlight…” gives us the same […]
Every songwriter has an Achilles’ Heel — a weak spot in their writing technique. Surely that shouldn’t surprise us too much. That’s probably a truism that applies to practically anything we do in life: we have the things we do well, and then the things we struggle a bit with. As you practice that weak […]
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 […]
Many songs will use the same chord progression in both the verse and the chorus, and of course it’s completely fine to do that. A classic example is America’s “A Horse With No Name”, which toggles back and forth between the two chords Em and D6-add9/F# for both verse and chorus. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” […]
“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle gives you lots of help when it comes to writing song melodies. Chapter 5 of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” shows you how lyrics and melody work hand-in-hand, and “How to Harmonize a Melody” shows you how to add chords to that melody you’ve just created. If you go to […]
Thousands of songwriters are using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” to polish their songwriting technique. Discover the secrets to writing great melodies, lyrics, chords, and more. After a period of time answering emails, doing video tutoring, and just generally talking to others generally about music and specifically songwriting, I find that I repeat […]
