George Martin, producer of The Beatles

Great Songs Are at the Core of Any Successful Singer-Songwriter Career

You know that in the pop music genres, stardom is fleeting. Look at the bio of any successful artist, and you’re seeing a rise, then a fall, in popularity. Sometimes, if you’re a songwriting member of a group like, say, the Bee Gees, you might see that rise and fall happen twice – an early […]

Songwriting and copyright

The Business of Songwriting – The Stuff Songwriters Hate

Most songwriters are the kind of people that just want to write some great songs. Getting the business details right can be distracting. But if your hope is to get your songs out there for others to enjoy, the business side of songwriting, including copyright, mechanical rights, and other important aspects of the business, is […]

Springsteen - Tunnel of Love

Creating Song Lyrics That Are Relatable

While browsing about on YouTube recently I listened to one of my favourite Bruce Springsteen songs, “Tunnel of Love” (1987) from the album of the same name. I loved reading through the comments on the page, because it was obvious that other people love the tune as much as I do. I want to talk […]

Band in rehearsal

The Importance of Musical Patterns in Good Songwriting

As humans, perhaps one of our strongest skills is recognizing patterns when we hear or see them. Pattern recognition gives us great enjoyment when we listen to music. Here’s what I mean: When listening to a song, most people cannot say what key they’re hearing. Most could never identify any specific note of the melody. […]

songwriter - guitarist

Sample Chord Progressions For the Various Sections of Your Song

If you’re a chords-first songwriter, sometimes all you’re really needing are some chord progression suggestions that you can experiment with. Once you’ve got chords that you like, it frees you up to move to other more important aspects of a song, like lyrics and melody. If you like the chords-first songwriting process, you’ll want to […]

Joni Mitchell

Creating Beauty Within a Song

Beauty is one of those song characteristics that is incredibly hard to define, but we seem to know it when we hear it. Not every great song is beautiful. That’s because as long as a song makes an emotional connection to the listener, it’s usually going to work. Therefore, whatever we might define as beauty becomes […]