Music Studio Sound Board

A Good Recording Needs a Good Song As a Starting Point

I still believe that no matter how excellent the quality of gear is these days, and how easy it is to do your own sound recording, that if you really want an excellent product to “shop around,” it’s a great idea to hire a professional producer. A producer is positioned to be more objective about […]

Making Best Use of a “Fragile” Songwriting Idea

To describe a musical idea as “fragile” means that there is a certain measure of ambiguity. I like to use the term especially when describing chord progressions. A fragile progression is one in which any of the following are true: The chords do not strongly indicate the key. For example, moving back and forth from Am […]

Recording Studio

Writing For the Market, Or Writing For You

The free deal continues. Get a copy of “Creative Chord Progressions” free of charge when you buy “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle. Eleven songwriting eBooks that cover every aspect of composing music. Take your songwriting to a new level of excellence. No one can blame a songwriter for wanting to write and perform songs that grab the […]

Singer-Songwriter

How to Know If Your Song Is “Good”

Go on almost any songwriting forum these days, or check out the Songwriting Reddit, and you’ll see that a large percentage of the interactions are people giving a link to their latest song, with a plea for the rest of us to “check it out” and tell them what we think of it. Having others […]

Songwriting, pen, music, lyrics

Music Theory Doesn’t Stunt Creativity: It Fuels It

Predictably, the people who think music theory is a waste of time are the ones who’ve either never studied it, or who’ve learned to hate the study of it. Just as predictably, the ones who feel that music theory is a must for anyone who writes or performs music are the ones who’ve got a […]

Where Have I Heard This Before? 6 Ways to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism

With only 7 notes in common use for any major or minor key, you’d think that the possibility of accidentally plagiarizing someone else’s song would be commonplace. How many ways can you rearrange notes to come up with something truly unique? I’m sure some mathematician can come up with an actual answer for that, but […]