Ideas and Advice for Real Songwriters (formerly songwright.co.uk)
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07.21.10Ben Walker – Technical SongwritingBen Walker, who I interviewed a while ago, has written a blog post asking the question 'Does technical thinking ruin songwriting?'. Here's a quote: There’s no such thing as a conceptual songwriter. As an artist you are free to choose from all sorts of funky media and part of the game is to work outside the box and provoke thought and criticism. Songwriting isn’t like that. Composition is like that, but songwriting isn’t. As a songwriter you’ve signed up to write songs, and the popular song isn’t a very flexible form. It’s not quite as restrictive as being a sonnetwriter, but it’s ...
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07.19.1010 More Tips for SongwritersOn Sunday 18th July, I was guest speaker at the London Songwriters Meetup. I spoke about 10 Tips for songwriters, and shared some of my favourite tips with the lovely songwriters in attendance. I also heard some fantastic songs and had a really good time. Here are the notes I wrote before speaking: 1. ( A tip from Edwin Songsville) Write bad songs Edwin says: It's more important to write lots of songs that it is to spend ages trying to make one perfect one. You look at all the good songwriters and you realise they've written hundreds of songs. That's how you get good ...
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07.15.10A Question – What Motivates Your Songwriting?I'm working on an article about songwriting motivation, and I could use your help: What motivates your songwriting? Why do you compose? Do you write songs to sell them? Do you write to express yourself? Do you write to get an audience singing or dancing? Do you write to praise a god? To attract the opposite sex? To make a point, political, moral or philosophical? Answers in the comments! (PS. Have you got your free copy of the ebook 10 Tips for Songwriters?)
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06.20.1010 Tips for SongwritersClick here to download the free ebook. 10 Tips for Songwriters is a collaborative Ebook that I've put together with the help of 17 other fantastic composers and songwriters. Here's an extract from the introduction: Introduction At my songwriting blog, www.songwright.co.uk, I often interview songwriters. I find one of the best ways to get yourself inspired and excited about songwriting is to find out how someone else does it. That's what this book is all about. It was written by 18 successful songwriters who wanted to share their 10 tips for songwriting. Have they all written commercial hits? Have they had their songs performed by famous singers, or sold ...
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06.19.10Arranging a Big Calm and Spinning a CompassRecent weeks have seen me involved in several songwriting projects. The Big Calm BigCalm by Tom Slatter This 46 minute long piece was composed by members of Cafe Noodle and edited by your truly into one huge composition. The brief was to use the title to create a piece in D minor at 75 bpm. I'm really pleased with the result and am truly blown away by the talented musicians involved. Spinning the Compass I've started a series of posts talking about the writing of my solo album, and sharing some of the demos I recorded. ...
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05.08.1010 Songwriting Tips – The story so farIn my last post, I made a plea for contributions to a free ebook I'm going to call '10 Tips for Songwriters'. The idea is that I ask a load of songwriters to contribute their top 10 songwriting tips to take up a page of the ebook. We'll then have a collection of individual takes on songwriting that we can flick through and take inspiration from - a hundred pages (hopefully) filled with a hundred individual approaches to the songwriting craft. It Begins I've already had a great response including two blog posts from DFTaylor and the man who recorded this wonderful song: I've ...
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05.02.1010 Tips for SongwritersI have an idea, and I need your help! The idea with this blog is to provide inspiration and ideas to help songwriters. Music theory, chord progression ideas, possibly structures, lyric writing strategies, I've written about all sorts of songwriting related things. In the past I've interviewed a few songwriters, and I've found that asking other songwriters to talk about their craft is one of the most interesting and inspiring things to do. My next little project is going to be a free ebook called '10 Tips for Songwriters', and I could use your help to make it happen. Essentially what ...
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04.10.10Jeff Shattuck – Can an Artist be an Atheist?Jeff Shattuck, a regular contributor to the comments on this site, and a very good songwriter: Love & Hate (pre-release) by Jeff Shattuck ... Has written an interesting blog post about atheism and songwriting. I’m an atheist, I admit it. I used to say I was an agnostic, but as I’ve gotten older and read more and thought more about religion, I’ve decided that every one is humankind’s creation. I’m cool with my beliefs, but I wonder if society really is, especially among those who, like myself, think of themselves as artists. My uncertainty stems from the countless interviews I have read with ...
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02.28.10A new discovery – Songwritingscene.comI've just stumbled across a new (to me) songwriting blog called Songwritingscene.com and a fun little post with a great songwriting idea: 'The Random Song Generator' Our assignment was based on a “Random Song Generator” — basically three columns of words…the first is the person, the second is the place and the third is the action. Choose one word/phrase randomly from each column and go forth to write! Hint: My assignment was “siblings, ages 9 and 11,” “in a coffee shop”, “stealing something.”
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02.18.10Tension in Songwriting – A few thoughts on RhythmHow can you create tension using the rhythmic ideas in your song? Recently I wrote about Gary Ewer's great post on tension in songwriting. His post is a list of tension and release related elements in songwriting - you can find more detail on each of them elsewhere on his site (and on this one!) - but it got me thinking about how tension and release can be found in the rhythmic elements of your songs. Gary talks about hooks in songwriting, and how you should "a melodic/rhythmic shape that ends in such a way that the restatement of the hook acts as ...
