Finding meaning in music

Does Your Song Still Have Meaning If You Remove the Lyric?

Music, apart from the lyrics that might be going on, tends to convey meaning to us. In other words, you can listen to an instrumental and usually find yourself feeling something, even if you’re not sure what that something is, or what the song is supposed to be about. Obviously, we use lyrics to know what […]

guitar and candle

Remembering Your Reasons to be a Songwriter

In my last blog post I wrote about the natural ebb and flow of creativity in all of us, and how we shouldn’t be overly surprised or worried if we find that our musical imagination comes and goes, sometimes within the same songwriting session. But even though there’s something natural about that, you can still […]

The Bee Gees

Songwriting as Storytelling

Most song lyrics tell a story, whether it recounts a series of events in chronological order, or just simply implies a story. In fact, it’s probably true to say that most songs just imply a story, and we fill in a lot of details as the listener. There are any number of examples of what I’m […]

Music of the future

The Songs of the Future — What Will They Sound Like?

I had a professor once who, while commenting on what the music of the future would sound like, said, “Well, if we knew that, we’d be writing it now.” That’s very likely not true. What’s more likely is something like that scene from “Back to the Future”, when Marty plays “Johnny B. Goode”, which morphs into […]

songwriter

Writing a Song, Then Deciding What It’s About Later

If you’re at all familiar with Classical music, you may be aware that some of the world’s most famous symphonies have nicknames. Haydn’s symphonies are especially famous in this regard: his “Surprise” symphony (No. 94) and his Symphony #83, the “Hen,” the theme for which was reminiscent of a hen scratching. In most cases, the […]

Townes Van Zandt

Major with a Minor Flavour: Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty”

Townes Van Zandt was a highly respected singer-songwriter whose songs were covered by some of the world’s biggest names — Willie Nelson, Emmy Lou Harris, Merle Haggard and others. There’s a quiet kind of contemplative sound to his music and draws the audience in; they make you listen. Van Zandt’s most well-known song is “Pancho […]