Piano & Guitar

Using the iii-Chord (and All Its Alternate Spellings)

For any major or minor key, you can build a chord on top of each note of its scale. That gives you seven chords that naturally exist for every key. If you do that with C major, for example, you get the following chords: I: C ii: Dm iii: Em IV: F V: G vi: Am vii: […]

Recording Studio

Writing For the Market, Or Writing For You

The free deal continues. Get a copy of “Creative Chord Progressions” free of charge when you buy “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle. Eleven songwriting eBooks that cover every aspect of composing music. Take your songwriting to a new level of excellence. No one can blame a songwriter for wanting to write and perform songs that grab the […]

Singer-Songwriter

How to Know If Your Song Is “Good”

Go on almost any songwriting forum these days, or check out the Songwriting Reddit, and you’ll see that a large percentage of the interactions are people giving a link to their latest song, with a plea for the rest of us to “check it out” and tell them what we think of it. Having others […]

Songwriting, pen, music, lyrics

Music Theory Doesn’t Stunt Creativity: It Fuels It

Predictably, the people who think music theory is a waste of time are the ones who’ve either never studied it, or who’ve learned to hate the study of it. Just as predictably, the ones who feel that music theory is a must for anyone who writes or performs music are the ones who’ve got a […]

Where Have I Heard This Before? 6 Ways to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism

With only 7 notes in common use for any major or minor key, you’d think that the possibility of accidentally plagiarizing someone else’s song would be commonplace. How many ways can you rearrange notes to come up with something truly unique? I’m sure some mathematician can come up with an actual answer for that, but […]

Songwriting - Songwriter - Formulas

Is a Songwriting Formula Really So Bad?

If you’re a mathematician or physicist, formulas play a large role in your professional life. Formulas in that context are simply a kind of equation, and without them you don’t really have a profession. Songwriters know the word formula very well. In a songwriting context, “formula” is a word that describes a process, or perhaps set […]