Beats Per Minute: Online Tools
Beats per minute (BPM) is a major component of your song. It’s basically the tempo of your song. It helps set the overall tone of...
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Songwriters’ Notebooks: Nashville Pros
Songwriters’ notebooks are the holy grail of ideas, titles, hooks and great phrases. Afterall, a songwriter’s notebook is a...
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Songwriter Craig Wiseman
Craig Wiseman is one of Nashville’s pre-eminent songwriters. He’s had more than a dozen songs reach number one on the country...
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Song Idea: Underwood’s “Wasted”
How do songs get started? Where did the song idea come from? How do co-writers end up connecting on an idea and then writing it?...
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Organize Your Hook Book
Organize your hook book! It’s one of the best things you can do to make sure you’ve got ideas and lines at your fingertips...
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Pro Tip: Having A Songwriting Life
I was recently in Nashville recording a demo at The 515 Studio, and got to know Chip Hardy, a long-time music industry producer and...
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SBTS: Blake Shelton’s “Sangria”
Story Behind The Song Blake Shelton’s “Sangria” has a great Fleetwood Mac kind of sound to it – but it...
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Songwriter Ashley Arrison
Below are excerpts from an interview with Ashley Arrison on Rob Brayl’s BeyondBeyonce.com back in January of 2011. Q So I know...
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6 Tips To Make Your Songs More Commercial
6 SIMPLE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR SONGS MORE COMMERCIAL By Brent Baxter (@RazorBaxter) If your goals are like mine- getting cuts, hits, etc.,...
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Original Demo: “Bette Davis Eyes”
The third best-selling song of the 1980’s sung by Kim Carnes was a originally a pop ballad appearing on Jackie DeShannon’s...
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Story Behind Song: “Wild Child”
Kenny Chesney talks about the main character his newest song “Wild Child” co-written with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. The...
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Song Start: “My List”
You hear about list songs all the time. If you go to any NSAI meeting, eventually, a song type being taught will be “a list...
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Songwriter Lori McKenna
Lori McKenna is one of my favorite songwriters on the planet – Janet (sorry – just a habit from the 80’s). You may know...
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Song Start: “She Don’t Love You”
Written by Eric Paslay and Jennifer Wayne, John Wayne’s granddaughter, the song was originally being written for George Strait....
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Song Start: “Jesus Take The Wheel”
Written by Brett James, Hillary Lindsey and Gordie Sampson, “Jesus Take The Wheel” started out as a: What? Pass! moment in a...
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Original Songwriter Demos
Hit songs come from the original songwriter demos being pitched to different publishers in Nashville. Ever wonder what your favorite...
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Songwriter Lance Carpenter
I met songwriter Lance Carpenter (@LanceCarpenter) because he had volunteered to kick off NSAI coordinator training. He ended up spending...
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CMA Songwriter Series Interviews
On its 10th anniversary, interviews with founder Bob DiPiero on why he started the series as well as perspectives on participating from...
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Pistol Annies’ Angaleena Presley On Songwriting
Angaleena Presley talks about songwriting and the 12 tracks she wrote or co-wrote on her debut CD ‘American Middle Class.’...
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Song Start: Alabama’s “Forty Hour Week”
Written by Dave Loggins, Lisa Silver and Don Schlitz, this #1 song and the title track on Alabama’s ninth album was their 17th hit...
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Songwriter Brett James
In this songwriter profile we’ll take a look at one of Nashville’s biggest hit makers, Brett James. He’s had over 300...
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Songwriter Interview: Bob McDill
Interview with Nashville songwriting legend Bob McDill in American Songwriter on the state of country music. [Excerpt from the interview]...
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Interview with Marshall Chapman
American Songwriter Magazine spent some time with Marshall Chapman. This is a great interview covering her songwriting process, some new...
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NPR Project Song Moby & Kelli Scarr
Despite being given only 48 hours to complete a song, Moby and his collaborator Kelli Scarr completed theirs in one day. And it’s...
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NPR Project Song: Chris Walla & J. Robbins
Project Song documents the songwriting process over the course of two days. All songs created as part of the project are based on an image...
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