by Ed Bell | May 24, 2018 | Inspiration, Lyric Tools, Music Tools
Songs prompts, oh, song prompts. If I’m honest, I have mixed feelings. I don’t really do writing by numbers. I get nervous around anything for songwriters that sounds like spoon-feeding. And I think the most important thing a songwriter – well, anyone –...
by Ed Bell | Apr 6, 2018 | Lyric Tools
In last week’s article I laid out five (well, eight) fundamentals that’ll help you write better lyrics in your next song. All of these principles were about the woods not the trees, because – controversial as this might sound on an internet listicle – most of...
by Ed Bell | Mar 26, 2018 | Lyric Tools
If you’ve ever wondered how you can write better lyrics, I’ll give you the honest answer: practice more. Seriously. Lyric writing is pretty much the most difficult thing you can do with words. You have to say exactly the things you mean, using only a few words,...
by Ed Bell | Jan 15, 2018 | Lyric Tools, Music Tools
Here’s an important truth about coming up with new song ideas: you should write about what interests and inspires you, not what some internet listicle tells you to. So if you were expecting a 100-item list, I’m sorry to deflate your dirigible. Instead, I’m going...
by Ed Bell | Nov 22, 2017 | Lyric Tools, Music Tools
They say the best things come in threes: The Hanson brothers. The Little Shop of Horrors backup singers. The examples in this paragraph. And songwriting has its own Holy Trinity too: idea, style and hook. I’ll explain, but first let’s be clear on what these three...
by Ed Bell | Nov 7, 2017 | Lyric Tools, Music Tools
Life is full of interesting questions. Why is the sky blue? Can Russian Twitter bots really swing an election? And where do broken hearts go, Whitney? Where? But today, let’s try answering something more practical: What is prosody? And why should you spend the next...
