Storytelling: Tell Songs Like A Movie
Storytelling can get pretty messy pretty quick. And, in a song, you only have three to four minutes. So, how do you make sure you’re telling a great story…
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Melody: 5 Essential Books
Melody is the messaging highway of your song. It helps maintain the interest of your listener much like scenery along the route. They can give your lyrics either a…
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Effective Similes In Songs
Creating effective similes in songs can take a ho-hum lyric and turn it into a “wow!” lyric. The magic of a simile is that it allows you to use a direct…
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Joni Mitchell ‘The Magdalene Laundries’
On her 1994 album Turbulent Indigo Joni Mitchell has one of the most descriptive, powerful songs you’ll ever hear. She crafts a first person story about a young girl incarcerated in one…
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Creating Better Melodies
Melodies can be tricky to find, invent and build – especially when we keep hearing the same thing in our head. So, how do you break the pattern? Melody…
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Organize A 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 when you’re working toward your…
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Kacey Musgraves ‘Merry Go Round’
Kacey Musgraves, along with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally, uses the play on words in ‘Merry Go Round’ bring the images and the story of “a life” from a…
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Rhyme Patterns
Understanding rhyme patterns is one of the best ways to increase your songwriting ability. What Are Rhyme Patterns To me, rhyme is one of the fundamental building blocks, or…
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Adele ‘Chasing Pavements’
A recent comment on the blog got me thinking. The comment was downplaying the songwriter’s lyrics, mentioning they sounded as if they were written by a 17 year-old, because,…
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Writing Lyrics: Allusion Exercise
Find the Allusions Around You One of the best ways to pull a new technique or concept into your songwriting is do a lyric allusion exercise. For this one,…
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Songwriting Glossary
Songwriting Glossary For Songwriters A songwriter glossary of common terms you’ll be using as you learn how to write songs can be extremely helpful. And, knowing what specific songwriting…
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Partial Capo: Create Variety in Your Songs
Partial capos sound complicated. But – they can make your guitar playing easier and add a unique quality to how your songs sound. Why try partial capos? I’ll review…
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Guitar Capo: Choosing and Using One
There are a lot of good reasons to use a guitar capo. I know, you’ve probably heard a guitar player say you shouldn’t. But, if you have no intention…
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FREE 5 Step Songwriting System eBook
Who doesn’t want an easy system for writing songs? With the free 5 step songwriting system, you’ll be able to use right now. Today. To write your next song….
