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If you think studying music theory is boring, you've never seen it taught this way before. Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory on CD-ROM Read more |
Songwriting Tips by Gary Ewer.
Write better songs and chords by learning The Essential Secrets of Songwriting
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The Power of the "Oscillating Key Change"  |
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| Thursday, July 29, 2010, 12:21 pam AST |
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Choosing a key for your song is usually a no-brainer. Just find the key that works for your voice, given the range of your melody. Usually, you'll choose lower keys if you want a relaxed feel, and higher keys if you want to bring out more intense emotions. But there's another way of dealing with keys: choose two different keys for your melody, and move back and forth between them... [READ FULL ARTICLE... ] |
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The Essential Secrets of Songwriting website shows you how great songs work. Read daily articles that explore the fascinating world of songwriting.
If you struggle with writing a great song, and you can't seem to finish any song you start, Gary Ewer has written a set of songwriting ebooks designed to get you doing the thing you love. Let those e-books be your guide. They'll show you how to improve your writing skills by showing you how lyrics, melodies, hooks, chord progressions, and every other aspect of good music works. The books take a look at hit songs from the past, showing how and why they became winners.
Along with tons of chord progressions and formulas you can use, you'll be writing the songs that you always knew you could write! The instructional e-books come with sound samples and a glossary of musical terms, so even if you don't read music, these e-books will clear up the muddle and get you enjoying songwriting again.
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| Previous Songwriting Articles: |
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Using Strong and Fragile Rhythm to Generate Real Punch |
| Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 9:19 am AST One of the things that made The Police so popular in the late-70s and 80s was the sense of communication between guitar, bass and drums. "Roxanne," from their 1978 album "Outlandos d'Amour" is a case in point. I think the song would have been much less interesting musically if the band had simply laid down basic time as a backing rhythm throughout. The song intro, however... Read more |
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How an Open Cadence Builds Song Energy |
| Monday, July 26, 2010, 9:04 am AST There's so much you can learn from the hit song "Need You Now." I analyzed this song in a previous post, mentioning the use of motif, plateau pitches, vocal harmonies, etc. There's another aspect of how the harmonies work in this tune that you can use in your own songs: the use of the so-called open cadence. A cadence is a particular set of chord progressions that end a musical... Read more |
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Songwriters, Is It Time to Step Back? |
| Friday, July 16, 2010, 10:31 am AST Are you a non-stop songwriter? Sometimes, in the music world, moving forward happens best when you take a break and change your focus. And the summer can be a great time to take a few days away from that thing you love to do, and just do a bit of reading. Over the past few years I've been writing articles that relate to songwriting from almost every angle: composing, arranging... Read more |
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Stevie Wonder's Superstition: A Song's Hook as a Summary |
Thursday, July 15, 2010, 1:09 pm AST As you likely know, I'm fond of telling others that a song's hook is often a bit misunderstood. The hook, as a stand-alone entity, is not a necessity. The Beatles hardly ever created songs around hooks, per se, opting instead for the more subtle element we call the motif. A hook, in common usage, is a short idea that repeats over and over in more-or-less the same way throughout... |
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Is There a Song Inside You? An Intro to Songwriting |
Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 1:46 pm AST If you're an adult reading this, you might legitimately wonder if it's possible to begin writing songs at your stage of life. Surely songwriting must be something that one does as a younger person. While many of today's songwriters would profess to have been composing since their early- to mid-teens, you can most certainly start writing music no matter what age you are, and no... |
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What is a Circle of Fifths Chord Progression? |
Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 11:26 am AST A circle of fifths progression is one where the roots of the chords are related to each other specifically by ascending 4ths or descending 5ths. Circle of fifths progressions are considered to be harmonically very strong, in the sense that they pull our ear toward one chord being the tonic, or key chord. In that sense, they're very satisfying; you'll probably see a great use for... |
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3 Ways Songwriters Can Improve Their Ear |
Monday, July 12, 2010, 10:10 am AST The younger you are, the easier it is to train your ear. There is a "window of opportunity" that starts to close through a person's teenage years, so the sooner you can get to improving your ear, the better. Don't believe the myth that some people are "tone deaf" and can't be helped. I've been teaching ear training for years, first at the grade-school level, and now at university, and I can tell you... |
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The Beauty of Partnered Chord Progressions |
Friday, July 9, 2010, 11:31 am AST If you really want a chord progression that works, you've got to consider the entire song, not simply look for a "killer progression." Some of the biggest hits in songwriting history use simple melodies that were created over very simple progressions ("Hound Dog", for example). A song becomes a hit when all the song elements complement each other. The fact that a song's various... [Read more] |
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What a Song's Bridge Needs to Make It Work |
Thursday, July 8, 2010, 11:11 am AST The bridge, also called the middle-8, can be the trickiest part for songwriters to get a handle on. In general, the problem seems to be that bridges will wander about too much without any real direction if you're not careful. Not every song needs a bridge, and you'll know if it needs one if, by the end of the second chorus, you're really needing something different. So the bridge... |
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5 Subtle Ways to Build Song Energy |
Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 11:55 am AST Songwriters know that energy should build as a song progresses. Song energy is one of those musical terms that is difficult to define with any exactitude. Suffice it to say, if you find yourself feeling more excited as the song moves along, you're experiencing an increase in song energy. This principle is a vital one, because increasing energy is what keeps a listener listening. If... |
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The Black Eyed Peas |
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| Let's get this much out of the way: The lyrics for I Gotta Feeling are not the reason it's been such a successful chart-topper. But there's got to be a reason why this song has enjoyed so many weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. This song may be simply joining that long list of songs that gets people's attention at a certain point in time without a strong musical reason to explain Read more |
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Imogen Heap |
| Imogen Heap's new album, "Ellipse", features an extraordinary song called "Tidal." Using small melodic cells, Heap constructs the overall formal map in much the same way that the world's greatest classical composers have been doing for centuries. Read more |
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