Forward motion is a term that refers to the sense of musical energy in a song. In real terms, forward motion is what makes a listener want to keep listening to a song. In other words, the listener wants to believe that as good as the song is at this moment, it’s going to sound […]
I find that whenever I think of what the Bee Gees went through in the early 1980s, with the public in general suddenly expressing an intense dislike for their music, I feel a lot of sadness. The Bee Gees as a songwriting partnership wrote some of the best songs in the history of pop. Maybe […]
It’s been a tough year for us all, there’s no doubt about that. And at holiday times we’re used to looking forward to being with friends and family, and we usually take great joy in that. This year a lot of “being with friends” is going to happen virtually. For many, it’s going to be […]
If you like studying the chord progressions used in your favourite songs, you’ll know that a minor key verse leading to a major key chorus is pretty common. But most of the time, that minor key will be what’s called the relative minor of the major key that follows. Trying to get a handle on writing […]
If you’ve been trying your hand at starting the songwriting process by writing a melody, I applaud you. It may seem tricky at first to create a melody when you haven’t come up with chords first, but once you get the hang of it, you (and your fans) will appreciate the quality of your melodies. […]
What do you do when you’ve got a day — or a week or a month — where your creative juices are letting you down? What do you do when songwriting, which used to be fun, exciting and fulfilling, is now frustrating? Feeling that you’re getting nowhere with your songwriting often comes from setting the […]
