Posts by Marty Dodson
Did He Steal My Song Title?
A few years ago, I was searching for song titles by reading through quotes on the internet. I found what I thought was an amazing quote. It said something like “How can you be old and wise if you were never young and crazy”. The next day, I threw that title out and my…
Read MoreSongTown: We Deal In Real “Truth”
At SongTown we deal in real… People often ask Clay and me why two writers who have had multiple #1 songs and are still getting cuts would spend time doing something like SongTown? SongTown is the community we wish we had in the early stages of our careers. It’s a true labor of love. We…
Read MoreWhy Good Songs Don’t Stand Out
Marty Dodson and Clay Mills give pro tips on how to make your songs stand out. There are more than 100,000 songs a day uploaded to Spotify. Making your songs rise above is crucial. Good is not good enough. Let’s fix that with SongTown’s real-world writing advice. Clay & Marty’s 10-day video series: This video…
Read MoreHit Songs Don’t Have To Beg For Attention
Being realistic about your songs… Clay and I talk to people every week who are obsessed with finding a publisher to hear their songs or a song plugger to pitch them. 99.9% of the time, those songs are not ready for a publisher or a song plugger. Why? Because they haven’t yet gained a realistic…
Read MoreThe Scariest Songwriting Moment
I believe that the scariest songwriting moment in songwriting is the moment before you start. Most of us have voices that play in our heads. Those voices often tell us that the task at hand “can’t be done”. “You aren’t good enough”. “You can’t handle this”…. you know the drill. It is the rare…
Read More5 Things That Make A Chorus Better
The chorus is often the most important part of a song. It’s the piece that (hopefully) people will be walking around singing for years to come. So, spending a little extra learning to write a better chorus will pay huge dividends. Here are some things I always try to keep in mind. Make the chorus…
Read MoreHow To Enjoy Sustained Success In The Music Business
I’ve enjoyed a 25+ year music business career that has exceeded my imagination by far. I wanted to pass on some of the things I’ve learned in that time period about keeping cuts coming over time. Here are the ways I have turned a couple of cuts into a bunch of cuts: Don’t develop a…
Read MoreLook Around: Don’t Underestimate Your Songwriting Peers!
One of the biggest mistakes I see aspiring writers make is that of overlooking their peers. When we are trying to get things going with our writing, too many of us are so busy looking up that we forget to look around. There are people at your level right now that are easily accessible to…
Read MoreHow Valuable Is “Exposure” for Songwriters?
If I had a dollar for every time someone offered to let me entertain them for free in exchange for some songwriter exposure, I could buy a new car. I’ve had offers from TV shows, wanting me to grant them a license for my song for free so that I could “pad my resume’” and…
Read More3 Exercises To Strengthen Your Songwriting Muscles
Songwriting skills are like muscles. The more you use them and challenge them, the stronger they get. Sometimes when I have a few spare minutes, I use these exercises to keep my writing muscles in shape. 1. Choose a song from the music charts and come up with a response to it. For instance,…
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