Blog Archives

THE EXCUSE MAKERS AND THE OTHER PEOPLE

9/17/2019

In the music business, I see two general categories of people – the excuse makers and the other people. The excuse makers always seem to have a lot going on. So much, in fact, that they can’t ever seem to get around to doing the things that would cause them to succeed as a songwriter. They are doing LOTS of things and appear to be busy, but somehow there’s always a reason why they don’t have time to do the things that would help them get ahead.

0 Comments

QUANTITY LEADS TO QUALITY SONGWRITING

9/13/2019

0 Comments

When I got my first songwriting deal, my publisher and our other songwriter, would write 2-3 times a day. Every day. The volume of out put from our office was crazy. We were cranking out between 30 and 45 songs per week between the three of us. I had nothing to compare it to, so I didn’t think much of it. I thought every writer in town was working that hard and writing that many songs. As time went by, I discovered that most writers were NOT writing that much. I asked the other writers from our team why they wrote so much. They told me that they wrote a lot because they wanted to increase their chances of getting a cut AND because they wanted to have songs to pitch to every artist. And, they believed that writing more improved your writing exponentially.

0 Comments

REACHABLE GOALS FOR SONGWRITERS

9/10/2019

0 Comments

I was talking to someone recently about their songwriting goals. He expressed frustration over their lack of success in achieving any of them. So, I asked for more details. He laid out a list of goals that would be ambitious even for a seasoned pro. In fact, I had only achieved one of his goals. His list read something like this:

0 Comments

THE LITTLE VICTORIES

9/6/2019

0 Comments

I couldn’t possibly count the number of beginning songwriters, when asked “Who would you pitch this to?”, give answers like Keith Urban, Katy Perry, Blake Shelton, Garth Brooks, Rhianna, etc.
I’ve been writing professionally for almost 15 years, I have had multiple #1 songs and over 3000 songs recorded, yet I have never had a song recorded by any of those artists. What does that tell you about the realistic (or not) nature of those goals?

0 Comments

EXERCISES TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SONGWRITING MUSCLES

9/2/2019

0 Comments

I have to agree 10,000 percent with this quote. I have often read, mostly in interviews with recording artist, things like “I only write when I’m inspired”. I believe this is a myth that some writers and recording artists perpetuate that great songs simply fall from the heavens and only a few chosen ones, like them, are given these gifts. But the real truth is that songwriting is no different than any other skills in life. The more we do it, the more we exercise the muscle, the better we get at creating. Songwriting to me is not really that much of “talent” it’s more of “hard work”. What you need to become a great writer is to practice constantly. The more we play with words and notes, looking at all the possible meanings and emotions, the deeper we understand the possibilities.

0 Comments

THE EXCUSE MAKERS AND THE OTHER PEOPLE

QUANTITY LEADS TO QUALITY SONGWRITING

REACHABLE GOALS FOR SONGWRITERS

THE LITTLE VICTORIES

EXERCISES TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SONGWRITING MUSCLES

Subscribe for FREE weekly updates.

Archives

Categories