Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. __________ Everyone has a time of year when the regular grind comes pleasantly to a halt, and it’s time to think of family, friends, and the things that make life happy. Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, or most other faiths, people get in the mood through […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. ________ Coming up with the list of chords that work in a particular key is relatively easy: simply build triads (3-note chords) above each note of a key’s scale. Of those seven chords, you’ll find that you use I and V the most, with […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. Anything that elicits an emotional response can be the source of a good lyric. We usually like to draw on positive, upbeat emotions, so you’ll find more songs describing love than any other. But there are other great song topics: social activism, the climate, […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. _______ There’s a somewhat romantic notion out there that the best songwriters are the ones who just somehow create music without even knowing how they do it. It just flows. But that’s really not how it happens. True, there are songs that come together […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. __________ I truly believe that most of the time we worry too much about our chord progressions; they are the aspect that can get by with the least amount of innovation, and as long as they simply work, you’re fine. The I-IV-V-I progression has […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. ___________ A song works best when all elements work together. No lyric, chord progression, or melody exist in a vacuum; they are like partners that complement each other. That means that all good songs are better than the sum of their parts. Your job […]
