The best songwriters are the ones who are the most curious. Curiosity makes you wonder. When you hear something amazing or unusual, curiosity is that drive inside your musical mind that makes you ask, “How in the world did they do that??” By being curious, you develop the ability to take other musicians’ ideas and modify […]
Every time you create something, whether writing a song, painting a landscape, or writing a novel, you are pulling two vital aspects of artistic creation together: your technical abilities and knowledge, and your creative imagination. In songwriting, we refer to technical abilities by using the word technique, and we summarize the phrase creative imagination by simply referring […]
There was something about the best music teachers of my youth that made me want to be better. They weren’t just good teachers; they were good musicians. Because they excelled, I wanted to excel. To excel at anything requires two things: An instinct A passion Those two qualities go hand-in-hand. It’s unlikely you’d develop a […]
If you’re an instrumentalist, you know that practice is an important part of getting better. Practice requires you to put a magnifying glass on your technique — and sometimes your musicianship — and focus in on what you find difficult. Some instrumentalists maintain that they make their best improvements by simply playing, rather than by working out […]
It’s hard to build audiences for songs, if you mean sending your songs “out there” for others to hear and appreciate, and then building a fan base for yourself that way. Songs on their own, standing simply on their own strength, may be excellent, and producers might build their careers around finding great songs. But audiences usually […]
