When you write lyrics, you obviously want your audience to connect to those lyrics and feel something. That would seem to imply that the meaning of your lyric has to be at least clear enough that your listeners understand what’s being sung about. But that’s not necessarily the case. There are plenty of good examples out there of successful songs where the words being sung are clear enough, but the actual story is a bit unclear. “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle comes with a free copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process,” along with a St ..read more

It would be a no-brainer to say that I think Paul McCartney discovered things about songwriting that many other writers just don’t ever get to know. But one aspect of his writing that I think has contributed to his success is his very loose concept of what song form is. Most of the time when we talk about song form, we’re talking about the basic structure of a song — the verse-chorus design. And it’s possible to dig down even deeper into the concept of form, and talk about things like rhyming scheme, use of instruments, or rhythmic patterns. If you’re ready to take your songwriting to its ..read more

If you find yourself always succumbing to writer’s block, you may find yourself thinking that there’s as much frustration in the act of songwriting as there is fun. What can you do to prevent a creative block from constantly showing up at the worst times? One of the best ways I know to keep writer’s block at bay is to create smaller goals for yourself. That may seem strange to you. After all, you’d never say to a mountaineer who’s trying to climb the world’s highest peaks, “Climb smaller mountains and you’ll be just fine.” “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle includes ..read more

No matter what genre you write in, there’s one thing that all songs have in common: they take listeners on a musical journey. That means that for every given moment within a song (assuming it’s well-written), listeners eagerly anticipate what’s going to happen next. In other words, just like a real journey, where you are always wondering what’s going to be around the next corner, a good song entices us to wonder what’s going to happen in the next few seconds, and then the next few seconds after that, before finally coming to a satisfying end. Trying to get a handle on writing song lyrics ..read more

Most songwriters know that melodies and lyrics are the two major components of songs that you can’t take from another copyright-protected song to use in your own. The original writer of the melodies and lyrics own the copyright — even if they never registered that copyright — unless that copyright has expired. Songwriters are very familiar with the chorus hook, but there are other kinds to experiment with, and you will want to discover the power of layering various kinds of hooks in the same song. “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base“ shows y ..read more

Some songwriters can’t compose unless they feel inspired to do so. That word inspired refers to a kind of excitement that drives our creative process and motivates us to write. You might think of the word in its less metaphorical form: to inspire, meaning to breathe in. It’s like saying that the excitement to write comes from somewhere else, and we pull it in and use it. To be sure, there is a kind of inspiration that comes from without; when we see a stunning waterfall, or witness an exciting event like a birth, or someone’s high school graduation, it fills us with a kind of excitement t ..read more

While it’s most certainly true that a good song is a musical journey, it needs to be more than a mere journey if you hope that people will return to your song to listen again. For most songs in the pop genres which are typically under four minutes in length these days, the hook plays a crucial role in bringing listeners back. “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base” shows you how a good hook can make the difference between songwriting success and failure. With great examples from pop music history. Buy 'Hooks and Riffs' ($9.95 USD) or Read ..read more

In my most recent blog post, I wrote about forward motion, also called momentum, and how tension and release is a vital way for increasing that momentum within a song. But what if the tension and release aspect of your song is working just fine, but you want the whole thing to sound a bit more energetic? What are the ways that audiences pick up a stronger sense of energy in music? “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base” shows you how a good hook can make the difference between songwriting success and failure. With great examples from pop m ..read more

If you take a look at a photograph that’s been reversed, or look through your car’s rear view mirror, you’ll probably not see anything that looks weird, unless there’s a road sign or something else with words on it. Most of the time, you can look at things that are “backwards”, and they still make sense to your eyes and brain. Music usually doesn’t work that way. If you reverse music, a lot of what you hear might make some sense, but you’ll notice that there’s a strange feeling of the music being without direction — kind of meandering and wandering about without the normal sense of drive ..read more

Everybody knows the old adage “Practice makes perfect.” On the face of it, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t know of any skill that doesn’t get better by practicing. There is a problem with practicing, though, and it applies particularly to songwriting and other activities for which we don’t usually have a teacher: If you’re doing something “wrong”, or could (or should) be doing something better, then practicing might simply be reinforcing bad habits, and making it harder to improve. Trying to fix a song gone wrong? Check out “Fix Your Songwriting Problems – NOW!” $9.95 USD, or purchase it as ..read more