As a writer of songs, you’ll probably notice that you’ve got two important qualities: Your ability to come up with good musical ideas; Your ability to work for longish periods of time to get the song finished. Good songwriters usually have both of those working for them when things are going well. But from time […]
It’s part of human natural ability to understand music, at least to some degree. People with absolutely no musical training can often tell when they’re hearing mistakes as their young child works on their weekly piano lesson. Humans have this musical ability through DNA, bolstered by whatever experiences they might have as a casual listener […]
I want to take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas. I very much hope that you’re able to spend time with family and friends, and perhaps forget about life’s woes for at least a few days. I’m very grateful for each and every one of the readers of my blog. It continues […]
There’s a fascinating story about the Baroque composer J.S. Bach (1685-1750), who reportedly walked 450 kilometers (900 kilometers round trip!) to visit a composer that he considered to be one of his strongest influences: Dieterich Buxtehude. Buxtehude lived in the city of Lübeck. In those days, of course, you couldn’t just put a recording on […]
You seen me write about this before: the benefits of keeping several songs on the go at any one time, instead of putting all your energies on just one at a time. But also, don’t discount the value that comes from spreading your creativity around, and working on several kinds of projects at the same time. […]
In my last blog post I wrote about the natural ebb and flow of creativity in all of us, and how we shouldn’t be overly surprised or worried if we find that our musical imagination comes and goes, sometimes within the same songwriting session. But even though there’s something natural about that, you can still […]
