Musical momentum, in practical terms, determines how likely a listener is to keep on listening to your song. Momentum propels music forward. When you hear a verse, and it sounds like it is begging for the chorus, that’s musical momentum at work. You might also use the word energy, but the result is the same. Every […]
How much of a connection should a listener hear between the verse and chorus? In other words, except for tempo, key and general feel, can a verse melody set up a chorus well if it bears little to no similarity to that chorus melody? Take the classic hit “Witchy Woman” (Don Henley, Bernie Leadon). Compare […]
Improvisation is an important part of most musician’s songwriting process. You sit at a keyboard, or set up some loops, or start strumming your guitar, and you generate ideas spontaneously. It’s fun to work this way. And I suppose you might say that the stronger your musical imagination, the more likely you’ll hit upon hook-like […]
In everything you do, there is the theoretical side and the practical side. Theory refers to the intellectual understanding of a topic – the studying. Practice refers to actually doing what you’re studying about. In the fine arts, including the performing and/or writing music, theory refers to the nuts and bolts of what makes music […]
When you look at paintings, you’ll notice that most of them have a noticeable point of focus — the area of the canvas that your eye gets drawn toward. Music is not much different; in most songs, you’ll notice that there’s a point of focus. The only difference is that in songs, you usually have […]
What role does chance play in the writing of a good song? Since good songwriting is guided by principles and not rules, there’s undoubtedly going to be a certain amount of random good luck. On that particular day, at that particular moment, your imagination created that melodic idea. There’s no way to get around it: good songwriting involves […]
