If you’re a songwriter, you probably have experienced this fear at least occasionally: the thought that something you’ve just written has already been written by someone else, and you’ve unintentionally copied it and called it your own. At the least, it’s embarrassing, and at most, it could be a legal liability. The good news is […]
This morning I retweeted a great article by producer/engineer Bobby Owsinski, “It’s Getting Harder And Harder To Write A Song Without Committing Plagiarism.” The article makes the point that because the judicial system now considers similarity of the basic feel of a song to be considered in a plagiarism case, along with melody and lyrics, […]
Sometimes the idea for a song will hit you on the spur of the moment, and you’ll sit down with your guitar and try to flesh out that idea, and see if anything comes of it. But at other times, you know that you need to write something, but you don’t have a particular idea […]
Most of the people that listen to your songs will immediately pick up the mood of the music. In fact, the mood — the feeling they get when they hear your song — is the first thing they’ll experience. But they don’t often know what generates mood in music. Are you ready to have LYRICS […]
This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, and so I’ll state this up front, and then give you some additional thoughts: Good music is not meant to express emotion; good music IS meant to create emotion. I want to tell you a bit more about this. To say that a good song […]
When you’re dealing with a creative block, you’ve probably discovered that making a big change in your songwriting process can be rewarding, and you’ve likely tried most of them: Speedwriting (stream of consciousness). Composing on a new (or otherwise unfamiliar) instrument. Partnering up with another songwriter. Changing key from major to minor, or vice versa. […]
