Pushing At The Edges Of Creativity
To see Gary’s songwriting eBooks, visit http://bit.ly/1YfxloK
A hook is anything that’s short, catchy, and brings an audience back to a song. They exist in most genres of music, but they’re seen to be a crucial part of pop songwriting. In this video, we take an introductory look at what makes something a hook, and 5 typical characteristics
Gary EwerThe Essential Secrets of Songwriting
In music, the tonic chord is the chord that represents the key of the song:
C Dm Am G C
In that progression, the key is C major, and C is the tonic chord.
The psychology of music makes the tonic chord sound like “home” to us. Our brains relax when, after a long sequence of chords, we hear the tonic chord happen. Play that progression and you’ll hear what I mean. We hear a kind of musical “tension” building up as the progression moves from Am to G, and that tension is released when we hear C return.
f you like starting songs by working out chord progressions, you need this eBook: “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It shows you how to avoid the typical problems that can arise from this common songwriting process. Get it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.”
Writing a Song From a Chord Progression ($9.95 USD) or Read More
Posted on January 2, 2020 by Gary Ewer
In music, the tonic chord is the chord that represents the key of the song:
C Dm Am G C
In that progression, the key is C major, and C is the tonic chord.
The psychology of music makes the tonic chord sound like “home” to us. Our brains relax when, after a long sequence of chords, we hear the tonic chord happen. Play that progression and you’ll hear what I mean. We hear a kind of musical “tension” building up as the progression moves from Am to G, and that tension is released when we hear C return.
If you like starting songs by working out chord progressions, you need this eBook: “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It shows you how to avoid the typical problems that can arise from this common songwriting process. Get it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.”Writing a Song From a Chord Progression ($9.95 USD) or Read More
It’s common for progressions to start on the tonic chord, like that sample one above. But sometimes, particularly in verse progressions, it can be musically advantageous to start a progression on a chord other than the tonic.
The problem with starting on a non-tonic chord is that you can feel a bit like the progression is trying to find a direction, and not being very successful at it. That usually happens when you improvise on chord progressions.
So here’s a much better way to create progressions that don’t start on the tonic chord: Write one that does start on the tonic, and when you’ve got one that you like, simply remove the starting tonic.
It’s often the case that you can’t easily remove a chord from a progression and have it work well. In the spot where the chord has been removed, it often (though not always) sounds like something’s missing.
But removing the first chord from a progression, particularly if it’s the tonic, usually works just fine. For example:
C Am Bb F C
That’s a progression in C major that uses one non-diatonic chord (i.e., one chord — Bb — that doesn’t naturally exist in C major). As it is, it’s a fine progression; there’s no reason at all that you can’t use it in that form, starting on the tonic chord.
But there’s a nice momentary “where are we?” sound that comes from not starting on the C, but choosing to start on the Am instead. Listen to the following sound file, and you’ll hear what I mean:
That’s a progression in C major that uses one non-diatonic chord (i.e., one chord — Bb — that doesn’t naturally exist in C major). As it is, it’s a fine progression; there’s no reason at all that you can’t use it in that form, starting on the tonic chord.
But there’s a nice momentary “where are we?” sound that comes from not starting on the C, but choosing to start on the Am instead. Listen to the following sound file, and you’ll hear what I mean:
Posted on January 2, 2020 by Gary Ewer
In music, the tonic chord is the chord that represents the key of the song:
C Dm Am G C
In that progression, the key is C major, and C is the tonic chord.
The psychology of music makes the tonic chord sound like “home” to us. Our brains relax when, after a long sequence of chords, we hear the tonic chord happen. Play that progression and you’ll hear what I mean. We hear a kind of musical “tension” building up as the progression moves from Am to G, and that tension is released when we hear C return.
If you like starting songs by working out chord progressions, you need this eBook: “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It shows you how to avoid the typical problems that can arise from this common songwriting process. Get it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.”Writing a Song From a Chord Progression ($9.95 USD) or Read More
It’s common for progressions to start on the tonic chord, like that sample one above. But sometimes, particularly in verse progressions, it can be musically advantageous to start a progression on a chord other than the tonic.
The problem with starting on a non-tonic chord is that you can feel a bit like the progression is trying to find a direction, and not being very successful at it. That usually happens when you improvise on chord progressions.
So here’s a much better way to create progressions that don’t start on the tonic chord: Write one that does start on the tonic, and when you’ve got one that you like, simply remove the starting tonic.
It’s often the case that you can’t easily remove a chord from a progression and have it work well. In the spot where the chord has been removed, it often (though not always) sounds like something’s missing.
But removing the first chord from a progression, particularly if it’s the tonic, usually works just fine. For example:
C Am Bb F C
That’s a progression in C major that uses one non-diatonic chord (i.e., one chord — Bb — that doesn’t naturally exist in C major). As it is, it’s a fine progression; there’s no reason at all that you can’t use it in that form, starting on the tonic chord.
But there’s a nice momentary “where are we?” sound that comes from not starting on the C, but choosing to start on the Am instead. Listen to the following sound file, and you’ll hear what I mean:
As you hear, I’ve opted to keep the final C, after which the progression keeps repeating with the tonic chord. But there’s something nice about starting on that Am. It gives the progression a touch of edginess that can be useful in a verse, depending on the song’s subject matter.
There is also a strengthened sense of forward motion that comes from a non-tonic start, as you can hear in Lennon & McCartney’s “All My Loving“, or for a more recent example, “Call Me Maybe” (Carly Rae Jepsen, Josh Ramsay, Tavish Crowe) which starts on a IV-chord.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
Each eBook in “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundles shows you the fundamental principles that make great songs great. Comes with a Study Guide and a FREE copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process”
In the music industry, there’s not a lot of interest in a one-off. If sometime in the past you wrote a great song, but you haven’t been able to follow it up with something similarly excellent, industry folks will be skeptical when you metaphorically come knocking.
Have a great melody, but stuck at the “how to add chords to it” stage? “How To Harmonize a Melody” shows you, step-by-step and with sound samples, how it’s done, with suggestions for chord substitutions that might work as well. It’s part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle.
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So how do you become more consistent? How do you make sure that that one great song can be followed up by something similarly great. And then another?
Consistent excellence is hard in the creative arts because everything you do needs to be unique. So following up one great song with another great one means that you must write something entirely different but still appealing to your target audience, and do that right away. Not easy!
If you’re trying to develop your songwriting skills to the point where most of the music you write is excellent in some way, here are some tips to consider:
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.
Thousands of songwriters have been using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle to polish their songwriting skills and raise their level of excellence. Right now, get a free copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” when you buy the Bundle.Buy the Bundle ($37) or Read MoreVIEW the TABLE OF CONTENTSPosted in songwriting.
GARY EWER BLOG – Applying the Rule of Thirds to Songwriting
When you talk about thirds to a musician, you’re usually talking about the space between two notes, like C to E, or D to F, and so on. In photography, the so-called “rule of thirds” is completely different: it refers to dividing an image into thirds using two vertical lines and two horizontal lines.
If you’re ready to take your songwriting to its highest level possible, you need “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.” Get the manuals that thousands of songwriters are using.Buy the Bundle ($37) or Read MoreVIEW the TABLE OF CONTE
Buy the Bundle ($37) or Read More
The theory is that objects that are a point of focus should be centred on one of the spots where the lines intersect, like in this image from the Photography Mad website:
Obviously, there’s no relation between the rule of thirds in photography, and thirds as we usually discuss them in music. But it got me thinking that in songwriting, as well as other kinds of musical composition, we also observe a kind of rule that’s similar to the rule of thirds.
Photographers are always thinking about the point of focus in a picture when they consider a photo’s composition, and that’s where the rule of thirds becomes tremendously important. By offsetting the butterfly in the photo above, it provides a sense of creative tension that encourages the eye to move, and the viewer to consider how the point of focus interacts with other aspects of the photo.
I won’t say more about it than that, as I am not a photographer. But in music, we also deal with a song’s point of focus, and in fact, most songs are a conglomeration of several points of focus. Some examples that might appear in a song:
In most songs, one point of focus usually takes precedence over all others. Most verses, for example, will have a moment that sounds somewhat climactic, but the climactic moment that occurs in the chorus will usually supersede the verse’s moment.
And you’ll notice that, just as in photography, the climactic moment sounds better and more interesting if it’s not in the middle of the chorus, but offset, coming in more toward the beginning of the chorus, as in Lennon & McCartney’s “She Loves You”, or toward the end, as in the refrain of Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.
By avoiding perfect symmetry in musical composition, we give the impression that other interesting things have and will happen in a song, but we can’t be sure during a first listening exactly when.
n my last post, “Finding Your Best Starting Point”, I offered suggestions for how to build a songwriting process when you’ve got a small fragment of music as your starting point. One of those fragments might be a bit of lyric. For many songwriters, starting the process with lyrics can yield great results.
There are several advantages to creating as much of your lyric as possible before working out the music that will accompany it. For instance:
Lyrics create a mood because it lays out the story.Lyrics can imply melodic shape by way of the pulse of the words.Lyrics-first means you can put the magnifying glass on the words without the possible clutter from other song elements.Lyrics can imply the kinds of chords you might use because of the mood they describe.Lyrics can give you great rhythm ideas for your melody and instrumental accompaniment, patterns that come from the rhythms of the words.
And there are probably many other ways in which starting a song with the lyrics can be beneficial. When people look back on a songwriter’s personal catalog of songs, lyrics pay a huge role in a possible legacy. Songs with powerful lyrics have much longer staying power.
There’s a lot to be said about how to do a lyrics-first songwriting process that can’t be covered in a blog post. I’ve written an eBook about it, “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” that I offer free to purchasers of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle.”
The most important thing to remember when putting your lyrics front & centre is this: great lyrics are not necessarily great poetry. The best lyrics have a casual, conversational style, using words one might use in everyday conversation.
The point of a good lyric, whether you’ve started with words, or written an entire instrumental to which you then add words, is to touch the emotional soul of the listener. Good songs are about feelings, and the words you use are one of the best ways you have to generate those feelings within the audience.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
Time to fix what’s ailing your songs. Read “Fix Your Songwriting Problems – NOW!” – It’s part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” – Or get it separately.
Gary Ewer
Published on Jan 16, 2019
See Gary Ewer’s songwriting ebooks: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/p…. And check out “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” blog at http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com
If you check out “Greatest Songs Ever” lists, you’ll almost always notice that the majority of the songs are there, at least in part, because of their excellent lyrics. In this video, we take a look at five characteristics of what makes a lyric great. You’ll learn about style of writing, emotional content, imagery, and much more. If you feel inspired to take your lyric writing to a higher level, start with the basics as described here in this video.
If you’re still struggling with the fact that all your songs sound similar, the first step in dealing with it might be not to worry: a bit of similarity is not necessarily something that needs to be avoided.
After all, if you listen to any hit group, you’re going to notice at least some similarities, and as listeners we kind of like that. The problem is excessive similarity, when every song seems to be almost a copy of the previous one.
If you struggle at the lyric-writing stage of songwriting, you need to read “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” Right now, it’s FREE with your purchase of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle”
It’s not just the melodies that start to sound the same. You notice that many aspects of your songs are too alike:
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
The perfect combination: “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” and a Study Guide! Dig into the songwriting manuals that thousands of songwriters are using to polish their technique, complete with a study guide to show you how to progress through the materials. Comes with an 11th FREE ebook: “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process”
Gary Ewer
Published on Jan 16, 2019
See Gary Ewer’s songwriting ebooks: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/p….
And check out “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” blog at http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com
If you check out “Greatest Songs Ever” lists, you’ll almost always notice that the majority of the songs are there, at least in part, because of their excellent lyrics. In this video, we take a look at five characteristics of what makes a lyric great. You’ll learn about style of writing, emotional content, imagery, and much more. If you feel inspired to take your lyric writing to a higher level, start with the basics as described here in this video.
The love of music is a natural part of being human. For many, loving music means listening to it, dancing to it, singing or playing it.
For others — many readers of this blog would fall into this category — it’s not enough to enjoy someone else’s music; they get enjoyment out of creating their own.
How do you know if you’re a songwriter? Let’s say you’ve come up with a catchy chord progression that you like, or perhaps a bit of melody with lyrics that seem to work. Does that automatically mean that you’ve got the makings of being a songwriter?
Published on Jan 16, 2019
See Gary Ewer’s songwriting ebooks: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/p…. And check out “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” blog at http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com
If you check out “Greatest Songs Ever” lists, you’ll almost always notice that the majority of the songs are there, at least in part, because of their excellent lyrics. In this video, we take a look at five characteristics of what makes a lyric great. You’ll learn about style of writing, emotional content, imagery, and much more. If you feel inspired to take your lyric writing to a higher level, start with the basics as described here in this video.
Gary EwerPublished on Mar 29, 2018
A quick description of the free Songwriter’s Checklist, written by Gary Ewer. Download a free copy of The Songwriter’s checklist here: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/s… To see and purchase Gary’s other songwriting eBooks, visit: http://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/p…
Do you ever find that when you’re talking to other musicians about music in general, there’s a list of “the things you’re most likely to say” guiding your conversations?
Everyone has their big issues in music. Their pet peeves. Their guiding principles. Their “why do people think this way!?” kind of rants.
Thanks to https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/06/14/five-songwriting-ponderables/
I Write The Music 