“Hooks and Riffs: How They Grab Attention, Make Songs Memorable, and Build Your Fan Base” shows you how a good hook can make the difference between songwriting success and failure. With great examples from pop music history. Trying to sound like your musical hero is a great way to blast through a bad case of writer’s […]
The best songwriters are also the best analyzers of music. If you don’t have the ability to dig down into your own songs and assess them objectively before your audience hears them, you may not discover problems until it’s too late. There are lots of things you can do which, taken together, make it most […]
I don’t at all want to give the impression that the chorus hook is so important that it makes whatever you do in a verse unimportant. It most certainly is important that everything you write is something people want to listen to. But when it comes to standard pop song formats that use a series of […]
Back in 1982 Bruce Springsteen released “Nebraska,” his sixth studio album. It’s the perfect example of “barebones.” Springsteen played all the instruments himself: guitar, harmonica, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine, Hammond organ and synths. He even recorded the album himself at home on a small 4-track Teac cassette machine. Stuck with how to get chords that fit […]
Every once in a while on social media you’ll see debates on the topic “What is music?” These are usually frustrating interactions, because no one is going to be fully satisfied with the answers they read, and maybe that’s the point of the question in the first place. It’s a little like asking someone “What’s […]
There is a necessary simplicity in good pop songwriting. And that simplicity might make you think that transitioning from progressive rock to pop is something you’d do if you’re just tired of creating more complex music. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. Pop music can offer — should offer — every opportunity […]
