If you’re a bit new to songwriting, there’s probably at least three things you’ve noticed already: Your first few songs may have come together quickly, and this is exciting. Your next few songs took hard work, and this is discouraging. Today, you don’t even know where to start. And because you don’t know where to start, […]
Intros are meant to identify a song, and, more importantly, entice people to keep listening. They do this usually by setting up the mood, the key and tempo (though not necessarily, as you’ll see below). A good intro acts an identifying banner or flag for the rest of the song. If you find yourself always […]
Here’s an experiment you can try: take your favourite song and play the first 10 or 15 seconds of it, and then listen to the last 10 or 15 seconds and compare. What do you notice? For most songs, you’ll hear a strong similarity between the beginning and the end. Generally, the feel, key, tempo […]
The basic mood your songs convey is one of the most important aspects of songwriting. Before anyone figures out even what your song is about, they can pick up a mood pretty quickly. And the one element that often conveys mood quicker than any other is the chord progression. That, in a nutshell, is why so many songwriters […]
For some songwriters the process that takes you from that initial idea to a completed song can be long, meaning that the number of good (finished) songs you write per month might be relatively low – maybe 1 or 2. Your instincts might tell you that the easiest way to become a more prolific songwriter […]
It’s understandable to get a bit worried if you find that, after weeks of working away on a song, you’re still not finished. You might find that every time you fix one thing, something else sounds a bit off, and the cycle of editing keeps going on and on. As a songwriter, you’ve no doubt […]
