Have you ever been in a position where you’ve got a great line of lyric for your verse or chorus, but you simply can’t come up with anything that follows it? It can be a great frustration. In this video, you hear George Harrison trying to come up with a second line for his hit […]
Let’s face it, it’s not that hard to come up with chord progressions, because when all else fails, you can simply grab a book of progressions and steal them, guilt free. But if you’re the kind of songwriter that wants to make their mark on the music world, simply taking a progression sitting in a […]
In most songs of the pop music genres, chord progressions can be used to identify the song’s key. This happens whether the songwriter who created the progression is aware of it or not. They may like E C#m B as a progression to build a chorus on, not knowing (or caring!) that those 3 chords belong to […]
There’s interesting research into the phenomenon we call the “earworm” if you take some time to study it. You might find this article, “Why Do Songs Get Stuck in Our Heads” (written by Chau Tu), to be helpful if you’re the kind of songwriter who is looking for ways to write them. In that article, they […]
Some of the best learning happens when we’re working on the job, as opposed to studying, and writing music is no different. With every new song you compose, you probably notice your skills improving, and your technique modifying. That’s certainly not to say that you can’t also approach songwriting as a scholarly pursuit – as a student of the […]
As a student of music composition a number of years ago, I never wrote a piece of music for which somebody didn’t express an intense dislike. Those were pre-internet days, so I didn’t have to deal with online trolls, who can demolish your confidence if you let them. The key phrase there is “if you let them.” It […]
