How Thinking Backwards Helps You Finish Your Song
When writing a lyric, we songwriters often have trouble answering a very mundane question: What…
Who’s In Charge… You Or The Song?
If I’m lucky, I start out a song with an idea I like – music,…
Afraid Someone Might Steal Your Song?
“If I play this song in public and it’s not copyrighted, isn’t there a chance…
News Flash: You Can Improve Your Melodies!
It may seem too obvious to say that melodies, like all other aspects of a…
Are You A Writer Who Isn’t Writing?
Recently I was with a friend of mine who’s in a creative field and quite…
How To Find Your Habit of Songwriting
It’s hard for most of us songwriters to write a bunch of good songs unless…
How To Organize Your Lyric Sheets & Chord Charts
I used to be lazy about keeping track of the songs I’d written. When I…
Don’t Worry About The Rhyme – At First
The way I often write lyrics that rhyme – and I don’t think this is…
How To Find The Lyric That Points The Way
Tonight in a songwriting workshop I was working with a writer and something came up…
Finding the Angle to Your Chorus
Often the trickiest part of writing a song is finding what I call the ‘angle’…
Consume Or Create – Our Choice
Our opportunities to consume grow every day. There’s stuff – things we spend money on.…
The Secret Ingredient in a Hit Song
We take in songs on different levels. One is with our heads. We like or…
The Two Stages of Writing A Song
There are as many songwriting processes as there are songwriters, and there’s certainly no ‘right’…
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…
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