Chord progressions are the one aspect of songwriting where random improvisation can give you something amazing, but unfortunately you’ll often need to wait a very long time before that amazing thing happens, wading through a lot of garbage in the meantime. That’s because there is a logic to chords and the way they move from […]
Most people have little or no vocabulary when it comes to the structure of songs. The average person sitting in the local coffee shop listening to a song through their headphones wouldn’t know a bridge from a pre-chorus. But interestingly, if you actually ask someone, even with little or no musical background, “Is this section […]
How often does sketching become part of your songwriting process? And what does that term mean to you? In most of the creative art forms, sketching is vital. Whether you’re a novelist creating character sketches, a choreographer sketching out a dance routine, or an artist getting ideas for a new painting, sketching has two main purposes: […]
Get the eBooks that thousands of songwriters are using to polish their songwriting technique. “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” shows you every aspect of how to take your writing to a new level of excellence. One of the most impressive aspects of Lennon & McCartney songs is the incredible diversity. It seems that […]
The key of your song is usually determined by the key of your chorus. Your song’s verse might be in A minor, but it’s quite common for the key to then switch to C major for the chorus, and that’s usually what we think of as the song’s main key. When you put the magnifying […]
I’ve frequently written about the value of writing music that sounds like your songwriting hero, but it begs an important question: Aren’t you just running the risk of plagiarizing something they’ve written? And it begs a second more important question: Why is that even good advice? Why would you write to purposely sound like someone […]
