1) Write a better first line. Interesting first lines grab the listener and make them want to hear more. They can be the difference in an artist or A&R person listening all the way through or passing on your song right away. 2) Make your chorus bigger. A chorus that...
We get lots of questions here in “town” that relate to the economics of songwriting. I’m going to try to break down some of the basics and help explain WHY things work the way they do. Let’s start with song splits. In my world, we always split the song equally among...
I’ve had people come up to me and introduce themselves in a setting where I suspected that they were also songwriters. When I ask if they are writers they say, “Not a real writer – I’ve never had anything recorded”. That always breaks my heart. I believe that commercial success does...
Even those who have written thousands of songs could benefit from reviewing the basics of what a beginning writer does when writing their first song. Every now and then, someone joins SongTown who is just trying to learn how to write that first song - to turn their own...
I believe that it’s never too late to be what you might have been. I was in my mid thirties when I started trying to write professionally. A friend of mine just landed a starring role (Her first) in a movie with some HUGE actors at age 49. I...
When I saw this sign, it immediately struck a chord with me. Sometimes I’m very hard on myself. I expect myself to write a hit song every time out. I expect great blogs that move people every time I sit at the computer. I want to be the perfect husband,...
If there is one thing that I have learned in my journey through the music business it’s that I’ve never made one dollar from excuses. “It’s harder than ever to get a cut” “You have to write with the artist to get a cut” “I write songs that are too deep for the...
One time, I was playing a songwriter show in Las Vegas and had one of the funniest, yet most profound experiences of my musical life. After the show, the hotel’s entertainment booking person wanted to have an “after party” with all of the writers who played and some of her special...
These kinds of thoughts keep a negative cloud over you and your writing AND they actually decrease your chances of success. If these thoughts creep into your head, kick them to the curb before they derail your creativity and your forward progress. 1) "My songs are better than...." It doesn't matter...
I can't count the number of times songwriters have complained to me that the music business was trying to keep them out. These writers believe that the people already in the music business spend their time devising ways to prevent newcomers from breaking into the business. Nothing could be further from...