Songwriter

Seven Things That Really Matter In Your Songwriting

If you find that someone is able to write a complete song every few days, you might be tempted to think that there’s something magical about whatever process they’re using that helps them be so prolific. But the truth is that good songwriting is rarely about whatever process a writer might have used to create […]

Singer-Songwriter

Using Your Own Good Songs as Models For Your Next Good Ones

If you like starting songs by working with a chord progression, you need to read “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It will give you the pros and cons of this songwriting method, and help you create songs that really work! Many years ago I was a band teacher for a junior high school. […]

Cool W.A. Mozart

Using Ideas From Mozart to Improve Your Songwriting Process

Once in a while I like to see what I can find out about how famous composers of classical music actually composed. I find myself wondering: Is there anything today’s songwriters can learn from their process? Get this eBook FREE when you purchase “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”10-eBook Bundle package. Eleven songwriting manuals for $37 USD! In the […]

Keyboard

Starting Your Progressions on Something Other Than the I-Chord

If you want to know what key a song is in, it’s typically the chorus you should be looking at. That’s because verse progressions might wander about, making identification of the actual key a bit difficult. But by the time you get to the chorus, things usually become clearer. It’s not unusual, for example, for […]

Two guitarists-songwriters

What a Songwriting Process WON’T Do For You

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. […]

guitar, pencil, music theory

Using Music Theory to Speed Up Your Songwriting Process

The one thing that music theory gives songwriters is vocabulary. With one word or phrase, a musician can describe and communicate an entire idea to other songwriters: “I think if we modulate to E major at that point…” The time you save is incalculable, but theory does more than offer you a communication tool. It is […]