Writing song lyrics

Creating an Instrumental Plan For Your Songs

Most of the time, the decisions you make regarding the instruments you choose for your song come down to decisions made at the production stage. In other words, as you write a song you’ll think about the structure of your song, the melodies, lyrics and chords, without giving particular attention to the instruments. And for […]

Music Festival

Making Long Term Plans For Your Songwriting Career

How far into the future do you think about your songwriting? Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing in a year’s time? It’s definitely worth thinking about, because if you’ve got no specific plan, it means that anything that happens with your songwriting will come down to random […]

Dolly Parton

What Melodic Direction Does to a Song’s Emotional Energy

The average listener may think that a song melody moves up and down in a kind of random way, but for the best songs, there does seem to be value in thinking about a melody’s direction as something purposeful and important. I’ve said in many blog posts (like this one: “How Making a Line Drawing […]

Singer-songwriter in concert

Consistent Excellence: It’s What the Music World Demands

If you’re a songwriter, you’re a dreamer. Not unlike the kid who dreams about becoming a professional baseball player, hitting a homerun to win the World Series, then works to become that player. As a singer-songwriter, you dream about hitting big on the charts. You dream about turning on the radio and hearing your song. […]

Song Form

What Songwriters Need to Know About Song Form

Form is one of those words that can cause songwriters’ eyes to glaze over. It sounds like a term that’s only going to help other people understand what you’ve written, but not help the songwriter so much. Got a melody but don’t know how to add chords to make it come alive? “How to Harmonize a […]

songwriting and architecture

The Architecture of Songwriting, and Changing Your Mind

Building a structure means having a plan before you start. If you’re not an architect, you’ll likely hire one, someone who knows how to create something beautiful while also being mindful of the laws of physics; you want to be sure it doesn’t fall down. Songs have a structure as well. And while I think […]