To borrow an important observation from Barry Gibb, “Songs are about feelings.” To put it another way, if you haven’t caused your audience to feel something when they hear your songs, you’ve probably missed the point of songwriting. Emotions are funny things: you usually can’t tell someone what to feel. One event or circumstance can cause […]
For all the times that you ask others for their opinions about your latest song, you might be neglecting the obvious: your audience’s reaction. Once all the knowledgable musicians we know have weighed in, what really counts is your target audience. Audiences aren’t going to fill out a questionnaire regarding the excellence (or not) of […]
A hook has several defining attributes that all partner together to make it memorable and catchy: It’s main identifying characteristic is its shortness, making it easy to remember. It has a melodic component that frequently includes some sort of leap, usually upward (“Born in the U.S.A.”). It has a rhythmic component that frequently includes a […]
We use the expression “practice makes perfect” to remind ourselves that simply knowing something isn’t enough. Once armed with knowledge, you need to put it to work for you. And that’s the practice part. In school you learned the basic concepts of mathematics. Once you acquired that knowledge, your teacher gave you endless exercises to help you […]
You can spend a lot of time trying to get your next song working, but sometimes you have to stop and wonder: has the time you’ve put into it been worth it? On the one hand, you could argue that the answer will always be “yes.” I’ve felt that if a song takes you a year […]
