All About Songwriting
While going through my song archives some time ago I noticed that I have a lot of songs written in the very early days of my musical journey that would never see the light of day. However, I still remember how these songs go in my head as if I’d written them yesterday. I thought […]
When accepting his BMI Icon award in 2010, songwriter David Foster gave a speech which was more like a ten commandments for all songwriters to live by. Here are those ten songwriting tips in a nutshell: Save your money Don’t get married Learn an instrument Don’t be too precious about your songs Be genuinely happy for someone else’s success Phone […]
In order to master the craft of songwriting you must first fully embrace the fact that there’s always something to learn about it. The more you know, the more you need to learn. I know of some songwriters that are either bored or restless with their craft. They complain that everything that they do all […]
Here is a very interesting video I found recently of one of my favourite musicians and sound artists of all time, Brian Eno being interviewed by Jools Holland in 2001. In the video, Eno talks about the concept of his Oblique Strategies cards and how they can be of immense help to songwriters, performers, studio musicians and even brain surgeons. Speaking […]
Sometimes writing songs is a linear experience. You come across a possible song title that jumps out at you and after writing the first line of the first verse, a first draft is suddenly completed from start to finish. Sometimes writing songs is a puzzle solving exercise. You take a piece here, a song title […]
Just think, as songwriters, every time we write a song we start off with a blank page. It sits there and it waits patiently for us to pick up our pen and pour out our songwriting ideas from our hearts and minds onto its surface however, a blank page can mean one of two things to […]
He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure James Lane Allen When it comes to writing songs, nothing blocks the flow of songwriting ideas more than two small but very powerful words… FEAR and DOUBT. The fear comes first. I’m talking about the fear of… Not being good enough Being ridiculed by online […]
I, like many, many songwriters have a problem with my songwriting process… It’s called “perfectionism” and along with an extremely over-zealous inner critic, this problem has plagued me my whole songwriting/music career. I have tried many times to snap out of it and to some extent have been temporarily successful numerous times over the years […]
Let’s look at the word SONGWRITING for a minute. The dictionary meaning of the word is the “… writing the music and words of songs.” Now that should give us a clue but I think the definition it goes deep enough. I reckon the meaning of the word SONGWRITING should be something like… “The process […]