Connecting Ideas Together to Reinforce Song Structure

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career! _____________ Ideally, a chorus should sound like the logical “answer” to a verse in every way. It’s easy to see how that happens in a song’s lyric, since both verse and chorus lyrics are usually addressing the same thing. But how do […]

Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”: Why it Works

Lately I’ve been hearing lots of people lament the dreadful state of pop music, and wonder what the future holds for us. Nothing’s new: every year has its hit-makers whose popularity can make any self-respecting pop music enthusiast weep. But Adele, pop soul artist from England, should give any and all reason to hope. Her […]

The Most Important Question Songwriters Should Be Asking

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and enhance your songwriting abilities! ____________ Being successful in the songwriting industry means carefully walking a line, a line that delineates between being too creative and too predictable. It’s one of the toughest things to do. Once you’ve written a song that really works well, and […]

Video Melodic Analysis: Sia's "Soon We'll Be Found"

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and learn how to write great songs! ________________ A while back I did a blog post that examined Sia’s “Soon We’ll Be Found”, from her “Some People Have Real Problems” recording. The main point of that article was to look at the way she used alternating minor-to-major […]

Chord Progression Formulas: Good. Songwriting Formulas: Bad.

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and learn all you need to know about how great melodies work. A formula is simply a predictable procedure for writing music. In other words, you’re following a formula if you say, “Once I’ve done this, I need to do that…” For songwriters, there are two […]

Strengthening Song Structure by Reversing Melodic Direction

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and learn all you need to know about how great melodies work. __________ Contrast is one of the most important elements of successful songs. You want to contrast one section (a verse, for example) with another (the chorus) enough so that they’re distinctive, but don’t differ […]