Maybe I’m just not paying enough attention to today’s new music, but it seems to me that in the 70s and 80s, mainstream pop groups did a better job of using interesting chord progressions that added a lot to the overall effect of their music. As you likely know, I encourage especially newer songwriters to […]
As you know, I spend a lot of time telling songwriters that their chords don’t need to be complex or even innovative in order for a song to succeed. They just need to support the melody, and as long as that melody is catchy, and assuming the lyrics you come up with are engaging, you’ve […]
Everyone deals with creative blocks in the world of songwriting. Unfortunately, it’s part of being a human; we all have creative abilities — a kind of creative reservoir — but like a literal pool of water, that reservoir can get depleted from time to time. It’s normal. “Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make […]
In songwriting, a formula amounts to a set of steps that are predictable “responses” to whatever has just happened. And in general, they’re not necessarily desirable. What’s so undesirable about formulas? It comes down to this: most of your listeners like to hear musical ideas that are generated in a spontaneous sort of way, and […]
I think I wrote some time ago about the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“, which was used by lots of performing musicians in a bid to analyze and improve their musical skills. The book has nothing to do with music (and almost nothing to do with Zen or motorcycles, to be sure). […]
Over the past twelve years of me doing this blog I’ve written probably hundreds of articles that focus on chord progressions – how to create them, how to partner them up with a melody, how they impact the mood of music, and so on. If you’ve had problems with the chord aspect of your songwriting, […]
