The Early Genius of Brian Wilson
As time has passed – it’s been 55 years since ‘the ‘60s’ ended – it’s…
As time has passed – it’s been 55 years since ‘the ‘60s’ ended – it’s…
Witness Bob Marley and the Wailers’ ‘Waiting In Vain’, written by one of the 20th…
Let’s face it. To get a song ‘right’… usually it’s hard. Hard in the sense…
A good melody tells a story – without the words. You may think it’s the…
Sometimes songs with very few words can be really effective. I’m not talking here about…
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘How Much A Dollar Cost’ is a harrowing story of an encounter in…
Skill is a big part of the difference between an amateur and a professional. Just because…
“If I play this song in public and it’s not copyrighted, isn’t there a good…
Some years back I heard songwriter/music publisher Eric Beall talk about the value of uptempo…
A big part of my preparation and education, if you want to call it that,…
It’s more useful and important than ever for songwriters to be fluent with recording and…
There are probably two main ways songs start. One is having an idea, a musical…
Some songwriters don’t do music; they just write lyrics. Some just write music; no words.…
We all have an ongoing internal monologue. It changes as we move through our day…
When asked which came first, the music or the words, the great lyricist Sammy Cahn…
What’s a Title-based song? I’d say one in which the Title phrase – of words…
Writing is active. Moving forward, one note leads to the next, one word follows another.…
In a song, music, especially melody, almost always carries more weight than words; especially when…
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of vintage Rolling Stones’ songs in various places… and…
Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ (written by Freddie Mercury) consistently intrigued me. I’ve always been…