Your song’s chorus is often going to be the most energetic part of your song, with the possible exception of a bridge that might really take things to new levels. But even in songs where the bridge is energetic, you’ll find that the return to the chorus afterward is all the more dynamic and lively. In […]
Do you ever find that while songwriting can be fun and rewarding, you rarely get that “wow, I really like what I wrote” feeling? Without having that feeling at least sometimes, you can feel more and more negative about your songwriting over time. Back in the days when I was teaching in the public school system, […]
For some songwriters the process that takes you from that initial idea to a completed song can be long, meaning that the number of good (finished) songs you write per month might be relatively low – maybe 1 or 2. Your instincts might tell you that the easiest way to become a more prolific songwriter […]
Writing a song that’s mainly a set of verses, each one ending with a pay-off line, has a simplicity that really works well. The pay-off line– a refrain — often sneaks into the song at first, without it being obvious that it’s operating as a powerful closer that’s going to keep coming back. Bruce Springsteen’s “All That […]
It might be over simplistic to say, but one of the main jobs of a song verse, particularly in the pop genres, is to get the listener to the chorus. That’s certainly not to say that a verse is unimportant. A good verse does several important things: Through the lyric, it sets the scene and describes […]
There are lots of tricks that composers have used over the centuries to create new melodies based on already-existing ones. Some ideas: Slowing a known melody down so much that it becomes unrecognizable as the original. Example: The first phrase of Mozart Piano No. 16 in C major served as the main melody for “Hey […]
