When you sit down with your guitar but can’t come up with anything creative, you’re likely to think that you’re going through a bout of writer’s block. And then it’s a matter of waiting it out until the creative juices start flowing again. But there’s a problem with this quick analysis: creativity in humans is […]
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 […]
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 […]
Great songwriting, from a listener’s point of view, flies under the radar, by which I mean that the best songs are great without making it obvious why they’re great. A song might have a gorgeous melody, but the average listener won’t know exactly why it’s so beautiful. It might have a really captivating sequence of chords, […]
I don’t want to say that thinking about your songwriting process is a waste of time, because it’s not. And I often write about the importance of process on this blog. But a songwriting process usually only attempts to give you a set of steps to achieve that song that’s bouncing around in your head. […]
I always say that it’s not rules that we consider in good songwriting, but principles, which serve as guidelines for us. Perhaps a sport can provide us with a good analogy here. When you watch an excellent tennis player, we’re not at all amazed by their following of the rules of the game. Tennis has […]
