Thousands of songwriters are using the eBooks in “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” bundle to improve their technique and solve their problems. Time to take your songwriting to a new level of excellence. Get a copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” FREE. A few days ago I wrote a post that […]
For many songs in the pop genres, creating the title is a bit of a no-brainer. You simply take the bit of lyric that comes along with the chorus hook or refrain, the bit that repeats probably more than any other bits, and there’s your title: “Happy” (Pharrell Williams) “Just Give Me a Reason” (Pink, […]
In today’s social media world, we can get fooled into thinking that because something sounds smart, clever or pithy — or even just rhymes — that it must be true. “You never learn anything by doing it right.” (Yes, you do.) “Rules are meant to be broken.” (No, they aren’t.) Clever online statements of course […]
No matter what your favourite songwriting process is, all songs start with you getting some sort of musical idea. It might be a fragment of lyric, a catchy chord progression and rhythm, or even just a short bit of melody. Who knows where these ideas come from… often they seem to pop out of thin […]
Improvisation is an important part of most musician’s songwriting process. You sit at a keyboard, or set up some loops, or start strumming your guitar, and you generate ideas spontaneously. It’s fun to work this way. And I suppose you might say that the stronger your musical imagination, the more likely you’ll hit upon hook-like […]
I’ve written a few articles on this blog about the notion of drawing a line that represents your melody (like this article I wrote a few years ago). It’s not just that it’s kind of neat to see your melody sketched out as a line; there is a real purpose and benefit from seeing your […]
