Songwriting tips, techniques, and ideas
Last night, there was a show-and-tell, in which the writers read and the artists showed slides of their work. Most of all, I enjoyed listening to the artists describe their work. They are unapologetic …
Continue Reading about A Simple Idea Songwriters Can Steal from Visual Artists and Sculptors →
Every week my guitar students file in and, inevitably, at least a few of them won’t make eye contact with me when I ask whether or not they practiced. I ask them not to feel guilty about it. Instead, …
Continue Reading about Did you Miss Practice Today? Quit Hitting Yourself. →
If you’re a songwriting jack-of-all-trades like myself, you may not even think about it anymore—when it’s time to write, you set up your instrument. You warm up your voice. You take it all on at once. …
Every songwriting book I’ve ever read recommends that songwriters keep an idea file, which is simply a notebook or folder full of lyric ideas and loose ends. For years, I’ve dutifully kept such a …
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I didn’t think I even liked Auto-Tune, the studio production trick used to create robotic-sounding voice textures on club and dance tracks. Then I found this fateful video clip on YouTube that uses …
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Dedicated songwriters have a lot of craft to learn. Rhyme schemes, lifelike description, structure… every song poses unique challenges. It’s a lot of fun to rough out a lyric with scruffy charm and …
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For years I’ve noticed a murky distinction in some songwriting books—drawn between commercial and non-commercial songwriting. The commercial label is used to describe any song that’s well-crafted and …
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Psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis got curious about what happens in our brains while we’re reading. …the scientists used a brain scanner to see what regions lit up during the reading …
This week I’ve been singing the praises of object writing, a creative writing exercise that I learned from the book Writing Better Lyrics by Berklee professor Pat Pattison. I’ve outlined the …
In the previous article I quickly explained the process of object writing. I first learned of object writing through the book Writing Better Lyrics by Berklee professor Pat Pattison, and I've had …
Continue Reading about How to Select Big, Juicy Object Writing Keywords →
Many of my songwriting friends and students have suffered this dreaded feeling at least once: the feeling of wanting to write a song, but having no lyric ideas at all. Some of you may be suffering …
Want to use your talents to help your listeners out with whatever's going on in their lives? Your own troubles--past or present--are key. This will involve exploring some uncomfortable territory, but …
Continue Reading about Songwriting Prompt: Reach Out to a Listener →