As a songwriter, when the song you’re working on seems to be going nowhere, it’s a source of great discouragement. You find yourself facing a day of reckoning: Do you keep going with it, or do you declare it a dud and toss it? There is another option: put it aside, and revisit it at some […]
You might assume that a verse should have some connection to the chorus that follows it — something that makes the verse and chorus sound like musical partners. Creating musical partners of various sorts is usually a goal in good songwriting. But (with the possible exception of the lyrics) it is possible to write a verse and […]
An inverted chord is one where the letter name of the chord (C, let’s say) is not the lowest sounding note. Normally, if you play the C chord in your band rehearsal, that means that the lowest sounding note, the one played by the bass or left hand of the keyboard, will be C. “The Essential […]
We are living in times that we haven’t seen in our lifetime. I am very impressed by the positivity I see from so many people as we deal with this COVID-19 crisis. And the truth is: we will get through this. As a songwriter, you’re uniquely placed to bolster the mood and resolve of the […]
Songs are short. Most of them, anyway. And by short, I mean usually less than four minutes. That may seem like an insignificant detail that’s hardly worth mentioning, but the shortness of songs is a kind of musical challenge: in a very short period of time, you need to offer the audience a complete musical […]
It’s a stereotypical notion that major keys sound happy and minor keys sound sad. In reality, it takes a lot more than simply choosing major or minor. You can have sad songs in major keys (“Someone Like You” – Adele, Dan Wilson), and you can have happy songs in minor keys (“Happy ‘Cause I’m Going […]
