Do you ever feel that your chorus has problems, but no matter what you do you can’t seem to get it to work? When that happens, the problem often seems to be that the chorus doesn’t sound like a chorus. You expect a certain kind of musical punch to come from a chorus, but figuring out […]
Do you find frustration building practically every time you sit down to write a song? Sometimes you find that a song’s first ideas will come to you quickly, but what to do with those ideas… That’s when the frustration kicks in, and everything starts to feel hopeless. One of the most common causes of songwriting frustration […]
Good songwriting means creating a strong partnership between all the various elements of your song. You know you’ve got a good song when your lyrics, melodies, chords, rhythms, instrumentation/production and formal design all support each other. It’s not easy to troubleshoot a song that has problems. You can tell just by listening that something’s not […]
Most chord progressions work best in the forward direction, and the longer a progression is, the truer that statement is. For shorter progressions, you’ll still often find that a progression sounds best when played beginning to end, but you’ll notice that playing them backwards isn’t a total wash-out. For example: C Am F G C […]
When it comes to technology that helps us as musicians, we’re living in wonderful times. Using smartphone apps or the internet, we have instant access to tuners, metronomes, mixers and recorders. We’ve got software that can write out our musical scores, then print up the parts, all correctly transposed. We can work out lyrics with […]
If you’re not familiar with the music of Jack Garratt, you’re missing out. Every aspect of his music is worthy of some pretty intense study: the melodies, the power of the vocals, the fantastic production, and then those captivating videos. I think what I like most about his music is his ability to create something […]
