Posts by Marty Dodson

These are the 5 most common lyric mistakes I see songwriters making over and over… 1. Saying the same thing in the second verse that you said in the first verse. Don’t just re-word the first verse to make verse two. Give me something new. Take the idea to another place. 2. Letting pro-nouns get…

One day, my friend Danny Wells and I wrote a song. We were really excited about it, so Danny wanted to play it for his publisher. We went in the man’s office and Danny played it live. I could tell as he was playing that the guy didn’t seem like he liked it. When Danny finished, his…

I write with a number of young songwriters on a regular bases. And I can’t count the times that I have referenced an older song (80’s, 90’s or 2000’s) and discovered that they had never heard the song or artist. This isn’t shocking to me – You could say I once was that guy myself.…

Songwriting is grueling, brain-numbing work with little reward.  Then, there are the difficult aspects.  It’s easy to get discouraged and I’ve had many friends and co-writers lay down the pen.  So, in dedication to those who have given up writing, I want to offer 5 reasons that we should all keep writing, even when it’s…

Over the course of my career, my biggest hits have been romantic ballads or mid-tempo songs. So, I’m not the stereotypical pro writer who writes up-tempo all of the time. I’m not afraid to write a ballad! And, I don’t think you should be either. Some of the biggest songs in music history have been…

Last month was a busy month of mentoring. I believe I mentored 6 people in just one week. One theme that kept coming up is that people are really stressed out over getting their songs to “the right people“. So my message today is to relax and create. To begin with, I’m still not sure…

The biggest question most aspiring songwriters have is “Why am I not getting songs recorded by artists?”  In my experience, there are several primary reasons people don’t experience the success they want with their songs.  Here they are: Your songs aren’t good enough yet. In more than 90% of the cases I’ve encountered, this is…

That first awkward creative step… I’ve always heard that the first step is the hardest. That is particularly true in creative endeavors such as songwriting. Getting over the hurdle of “I can’t do this!” or “What if I fail?” is sometimes so daunting that we give up before we have tried. The paralysis brought on by our fears…