Making a Verse “Sound Like” a Verse

There are many reasons why a verse sounds like a verse and not a chorus. Decades (centuries, actually) of musical tradition shows us that verse melodies tend to be a bit lower in pitch than choruses. We also know that the tonic note and chord show up more often in a chorus than they do […]

Two-Part Melodies as a Complete Song Structure

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle. Over 390 pages of songwriting instruction, covering every aspect of how great songs are written! _____________ In Classical music, it’s usually known as binary form. In popular songwriting, we normally just think of it as a verse with two sections, usually without a chorus. Two-part melodies are a good […]

Starting Your Next Song With the Chorus

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle. Over 390 pages of songwriting instruction, covering every aspect of how great songs are written! _____________ A song is a musical journey, and in order for that journey to make sense to the listener, things need to unfold in a somewhat logical way. If your songs usually involve verses, […]

Songwriter’s Intuition, and the Validity of Music Analysis

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career! _____________ Students of songwriting enjoy analyzing music, attempting to figure out why songs work. Does it offer too much credit to a songwriter if you discover things that even the songwriter wasn’t consciously aware of when it was composed? If you study a […]

Hooks and Motifs: Keeping Listeners Listening

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career! _____________ What keeps a person listening to a song over and over again? Though you might describe it as undefinable charm, we do know there are some features of musical composition that make it more likely that people will keep coming back to […]

5 Ways to Make a Verse Melody Beg for a Chorus

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career! _____________ The successful song is, quite simply, the one that entices the listener to keep listening. In other words, songs that work are ones that cause us to think that something great is about to happen: you don’t want to stop listening […]