I remember one of my first public musical experiences: playing a trumpet solo at church. I was so nervous that just standing up and walking to the front felt almost literally like an out-of-body experience. My face was hot — probably glowing red, and my arms were shaking (not good if you’re a trumpet player.) I don’t […]
The Essential Secrets of Songwriting Online Store has the answer to whatever frustrates you about songwriting. Anyone who composes music — songwriter, lyricist, arranger, film score composer — is a creature of habit. You are a songwriter, and you know that this is true. You probably have your go-to way of working on songs. Those are […]
It’s quite possible to use a single chord progression in every section of your song, such as you might hear in “Controlla” (Drake et al). But if you do choose to use the same progression throughout a song without changing it, it’s the kind of progression that needs to sound tonally strong. A strong progression simply […]
These days, many or most songs that are produced for broad commercial appeal (i.e., hit songs in the pop genres) use melodies written by “topliners.” A typical scenario might be that a producer sends out a pre-made instrumental track to musicians who can create melodies over these tracks. Someone comes up with melodies and lyrics to […]
In a lyric, imagery refers to any line that touches on and stimulates our senses. Used well, imagery is able to paint a picture in our minds that fills in many parts of a story with a bare minimum of words. An example might be something like this: Let’s say you wanted to convey the following […]
It’s fair to make the assumption that most songwriters are singers, but that’s not exclusively true. So if you’re trying your hand at writing songs and you aren’t a singer, how do you write melodies? The inability to sing usually means the inability to sing well. In other words, you may be able to manage to grunt […]
