How To Come Up With A Great Intro
Catchy. You want your Intro to catch people, to grab them, to pique their interest.…
Two Ways Out Of A Songwriting Slump
I’ve never acknowledged to myself that I have ‘writer’s block’. So if I’ve ever had…
How To Change Keys Without Modulating
‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ is a classic song written by Timothy B. Schmit, Glenn…
The Right Line In The Wrong Place
A lyric might tell a specific story, describe a situation, paint a picture, create a…
A Look Backward Can Move You Forward
For me, what has always been most important is the next song. I tried my…
The Old-School Rhymes of Bob Dylan
It was a coincidence that, just weeks after writing a post about how finding an…
Pedaling the Bass
When chords change and the bass note stays the same under the moving chords, that’s…
Who, Me…? Use A Rhyming Dictionary??
I never liked the idea of using a rhyming dictionary. Occasionally, when in a song…
Don’t Worry About Making It Good. Make It Better.
At various times most of us writers worry about whether what we’re working on is…
The Inspiration… and the Carpentry
You get an idea – let’s say it’s an idea for the design of a…
Details and Trade-Offs
The big ideas in a song are most important – the Chorus, the Hook, the…
Just A Simple Blues Melody?
Melodies are fascinating. Probably the most mysterious – and often under-explored, by us writers –…
Is There A Chorus Beyond Your Chorus?
Someone sent me a link to a recent, live version of El DeBarge singing his…
Why Cut The Best Part Of Your Song?
At the start, there’s an idea – a Title, a melody phrase, a riff or…
How Billie Eilish + James Bond = an Oscar
I’m impressed by how Billie Eilish and her co-writer/brother Finneas O’Connell managed to craft a…
Free Yourself… And Your Songs
Sometimes when I’m writing there’s not much flow. The fresh ideas are not there; everything…
How To Make A Monotonous Melody Work
Regarding melodies, motion and variety are In most cases a good thing. A melody tells…
How I Learned To Call Myself A Writer
As regular readers of this blog know, I came late to taking my songwriting –…
When It’s Good To Not Know What A Lyric Means
Something that comes up frequently in songwriting discussions is the idea that it’s important for…
Your Song’s Title Is Not An Afterthought
Something I’ve encountered frequently with songwriters I’ve worked with, one of the most common songwriting…
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