Should You Write Music or Lyrics First? Honestly, Either Is Good.
“So do you write the music or lyrics first?” If I got a dollar for every time someone asked me this at a party I’d make more money each month than most songwriters get paid for Spotify streams. And the honest answer is, it depends – and doesn’t really matter. As for...
Write with Your Heart, Not Just Your Head: Why Songwriting Is About Much More Than Craft
“Sex sells,” the saying goes. Well, it’s not as sexy, but songwriting craft sells too. It’s teachable. It’s concrete. It’s measurable enough that you can watch it improve. The trouble is, a song isn’t just the nuts and bolts that hold it together. Just like a chair...
107 Song Prompts for When You’re Really Stuck
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 –...
How to Come up with 100 New Song Ideas
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...
Why You Should Study The Classics
When I was 17, I ordered a copy of Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets from Amazon. Amazon was pretty new back then, and I remember opening the packaging and pulling out this thick blue book and thinking how cool it was to own a big chunk of history. It was the first...THE ART OF SONGWRITING
