Where Should Your Song’s Title Go?
What’s a Title-based song? I’d say one in which the Title phrase – of words…
How To Make 3 Chords Explode
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of vintage Rolling Stones’ songs in various places… and…
How To Fix a ‘Key’ Problem With Your Song
The key in which you write a song often occurs randomly. You happen to start…
How To Keep Your Melody Alive
A good melody tells a story. It doesn’t just help tell the story of the…
Let The Words Change The Melody
We songwriters spend a lot of time contending with what I call the ‘crossword puzzle’…
Take The Great Leap In Your Songwriting
Melodies are a songwriter’s secret weapon. More than any other part of a song, a…
News Flash: You Can Improve Your Melodies!
It may seem too obvious to say that melodies, like all other aspects of a…
How To Come Up With A Great Intro
Catchy. You want your Intro to catch people, to grab them, to pique their interest.…
How To Change Keys Without Modulating
‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ is a classic song written by Timothy B. Schmit, Glenn…
Pedaling the Bass
When chords change and the bass note stays the same under the moving chords, that’s…
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 –…
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…
How To Make A Monotonous Melody Work
Regarding melodies, motion and variety are In most cases a good thing. A melody tells…
Lennon… or McCartney…?
It’s happened to me before. I fall into the trap of comparing the relative value…
Two Ways To Make Your Melodies Better
I doubt that anyone could define what makes a melody great. But in considering what…
Don’t Be Afraid To Change Your Phrasing
Before I commit myself to a musical phrase, especially when it contains a Title, it’s…
Finding The Best Key For Your Song
You don’t have to play your song in the key in which it was written.…
The Bee Gees and the Power of Repetition
I was listening to Rick Rubin’s podcast, Broken Record. He was interviewing Barry Gibb of…
The Lyric Is Not What Your Song Is ‘About’
It’s not uncommon for songwriters to be asked, “What’s this song about?” The question is…
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