Earth, Wind & Fire

Speeding Up Your Songwriting Process

Whenever anyone asks me how long it takes for the average song to be written, I usually tell them that it takes as long as it takes. That’s my way of saying that there is no norm. A song might come together in fifteen minutes, and it might take weeks or even months or more. […]

Pink Floyd

Writing a Chorus Hook – or Any Hook – That Grabs Attention

We associate the concept of the hook with pop music, though many genres, even classical music, have them. And when we say hook, we usually mean the chorus hook — that bit of the chorus (or sometimes the entire chorus) that listeners can’t get enough of, and hum it (hopefully) all day long. There are other kinds of […]

Keyboard lessons

Using Familiarity and Innovation Within the Same Song

All songs are a mixture of things that we find familiar and predictable, with a touch of innovation and newness tossed in. The familiar things, as far as a listener is concerned, start with the very sound of the music: the sound is often what gives the genre away. “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting […]

Elvis Presley

Providing Contrast in a Song That Uses a Lot of Repetition

In songwriting, the term contrast refers to providing opposite-sounding characteristics to any one song component: melodies that move higher, then lower; chords that are mainly minor, then major; instrumentation that’s at one point soft, then loud, and so on. It’s not important that every element within a song show a degree of contrast. For example, you can […]

Creating Musical Ideas

How Your Song’s Chorus Should Differ From Your Verse

Don’t be surprised if most of the time you start your songwriting process by working on getting the chorus happening first. For most of your listeners, your song will be defined by what’s happening in the chorus; it’s the chorus that really needs to shine. Songwriters are very familiar with the chorus hook, but there are […]