Nowadays there are a lot of people who don’t play an instrument but instead become producers and learn how to write songs using computers. This post is for you. By programming instruments you can write full songs without ever touching an instrument, and can later…

A lot of songwriters play instruments like piano and guitar. You might be sitting down on one of these instruments and while playing around stumble upon an idea for a song. Following this thread of inspiration you might come up with Intros, Verses, Choruses, Bridges,…

Being a huge prog head, I do love me a good instrumental song. Some of my favorite artists/ bands/musicians that make instrumental music include a lot of Jazz fusion guys (Bill Bruford, Alan Holdsworth, Jean Luc Ponty come to mind right away). I also listen…

I would say one of the most unspoken skills of a great songwriter is learning how to be objective about your own songs. This can be hard because when you are creating any piece of work it can feel like it’s your baby.  You can…

So following up on my last post about what chord extensions are (read it here if you need a refresher What are Chord Extensions?). I wanted to expand more on how to use them practically in songwriting.  In general, chord extensions can be used to…

Developing your songwriting style is really a lifelong process of experimentation and tweaking.  It’s likely going to change in some degree with every album because as a songwriter you probably don’t want to get stuck with all your music sounding the exact same all the…

I think it’s interesting how similar all creative fields are. From painting, to sculpting, to writing, the medium changes, but the intention to create and express ourselves is always there, and often follows many of the same general principles.  Among the wide array of creative…

While it’s really useful to use common chord progressions and song structure templates to edit songs, it can become a bit limiting and rigid when trying to come up with new song ideas.  For this reason, improvisation can breathe new life to your songwriting and…

Many artists write a ton of songs and eventually pick out the best ones and put them all on an album in a way that they flow well. This is totally fine. However, there are other formats for an album besides this.  One of these…

Where to begin? Sometimes that’s a tough question to answer because songwriting can get overwhelming quickly and give you paralysis by analysis.  The answer is often the same every time, just start simple, don’t overthink it.  Sometimes you won’t even think of an intro until…