I believe that our writing "muscles" are just like any other muscle group. If we want to be as flexible as possible, we have to stretch those muscles from time to time. So, this morning, I wanted to give your brain and maybe your writing muscles a little "Morning Stretch". It...
Someone pointed out this weekend that my posts often have as much to do with life as they do with songwriting. That made me think, and I realized that it's probably because songwriting is just a reflection of life. So many of the principles we talk about in our posts...
There seems to be a lot of confusion out there over the question "As a songwriter, how do I submit songs to the music business?" The truth of the matter is that there is no one way to "submit" songs to the music business. When you simplify the "song submission"...
Worked 17 years for overnight songwriting success. - Tim Hicks Several years ago, at our company Christmas dinner, I ran into an old friend, Denny Carr who told me an amazing story. Four years prior, he and I were in Hamilton, Ontario Canada for the Canadian Country Music Awards. While...
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...
There's an art to a songwriter's pitch to a publisher. You can avoid many of the mistakes I made early on if you do these things when you get a chance to pitch to a publisher. Before you even agree to the meeting, ask yourself – ...
I can’t count the times that I’ve heard a songwriter blame their lack of success on the radio, publishers, a “closed circle in the music business”, A&R people who “can’t hear a hit”, bad co-writers, just plain bad luck and the list goes on and on and on. While any of...
Being grateful and giving thanks is a discipline that I try to practice daily. From a songwriting perspective, here are some things I believe all of us creative types need to be thankful for: The Believers My mom was a huge believer in me and my music. When everyone else was telling...
WAY too often, I run into people that have been taken advantage of in regard to paying for a song demo. So, I wanted to give you all the info you need to answer the question of what should a song demo cost. Here are several demo scenarios you might...
One of the things I love most about being a songwriter is that it is one of the few things in life that you can never totally "figure out". You can always write a better song than you wrote today. There's always some new melodic trick or turn of a...