by Ed Bell | Feb 15, 2018 | Inspiration, The Creative Habit
The trouble with finishing a song is that songwriting is hard. Possible, manageable, achievable. But hard. It’s hard because songwriting, like any kind of creativity, means making something that doesn’t exist yet. And the trouble with making something that doesn’t...
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 | Jan 11, 2018 | Music Tools, The Creative Habit
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...
by Ed Bell | Jan 5, 2018 | Inspiration
William Wordsworth said it best: “To begin, begin.” And, if I may, I’d like to expand on his pithy philosophy. To begin, begin. To continue, continue. To finish a song, finish a song. To write something new, write something new. To write in a different genre, write in...
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...
