by Ed Bell | May 4, 2018 | Building a Career, Inspiration
Sometimes being a songwriter sucks. Sometimes it’s awesome. Let me try to explain why. — Five Reasons Why Being a Songwriter Sucks — 1. You never feel good enough You’re too close to the thing you’re working on. You’re the last person on...
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 | Dec 18, 2017 | Cool Stuff, Inspiration
One of the big ideas I write about a lot is that songwriting isn’t just about songwriting. Songwriting is about life, because art is about life. You have to be good at being a person before you can be good at being a songwriter. It’s an idea I come back to...
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...