Graham English

Archive for April, 2007

Emin 120bpm 04-28-07

I started this just over a week ago but have been too busy to spend much time writing or recording. Lame.

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-27-07

Topics covered: Learning absolute pitch, your motives, absolute pitch disinformation, motivation to learn absolute pitch, and more.

IM Status: Update Your Skype, iChat, Or Adium Status With Quicksilver

I got really tired of updating my online status on Skype and iChat every time I had to step away from my computer. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if I could update all my instant message apps at once with a few keystrokes using Quicksilver?

What’s The Difference Between The Free And Paid Samurai Songwriting Membership?

Free membership to Samurai Songwriting comes with many benefits. This site has a wealth of songwriting information available to you. As a free member, you will have access to some of our most treasured Samurai Songwriting principles and practices.
To become a free member, subscribe to the Samurai Songwriting Code and subscribe to the Samurai Songwriting [...]

How To Use Tension And Release In Your Melodies

Music, much like life, is fundamentally a swinging pendulum between tension and release. Fortunately, with music, this is easy to represent objectively and to utilize in your music composition.

GTD: What Are You Doing Right Now Redux

My previous attempt at a time-tracking script worked well for a while. But I wanted something that was self-contained so I could share it with my friends and coworkers. I also wanted to cut down on key strokes.

Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 04-17-07

Topics covered: The definition of a song, what a song is not, the purpose of a song, the way of the Samurai Songwriter.

John Lennon Hit Songwriting Teleseminar

At this moment, you’re just a $20 click away from discovering the Hit Songwriting Secrets of John Lennon… even if you’re starting from scratch.

Samurai Songwriting Issue 1 Is Now Available

It’s time to dig into the first issue of Samurai Songwriting. If you’re not a subscriber, join now. If you want to purchase just this issue, you can do that here:

1. Select your country
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Here’s what we cover in this issue:

The inner game of songwriting. [...]

How To Think Like An eBay PowerSeller

eBay PowerSellers are recognizable by the ‘PowerSeller’ badge next to their name. Maybe you’ve seen these sellers around — and to succeed on eBay, you want to think like they do.
How do people get the right to call themselves PowerSellers?

Information = Energy

Information takes energy to create. It takes energy to consume. And it takes energy to manage. Information is energy. I see great opportunity and challenge in this.
The challenge on a personal level is that you need a sustainable source of personal energy. No, I don’t mean a refrigerator stocked with Red Bull. But because information [...]

A Copywriting Legend Left Us This Week

I won’t say much because I didn’t know him. But I knew his legend. His good friend and world-class copywriter, John Carlton, says it best.

C#min 110bpm 04-10-07

A whole bunch of funky blips and bleeps in C#min at 110bpm. I’ve got a hook to go with this but have yet to record it.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 04-09-07

Topics covered: Singing what you hear, the body/mind connection in music, exercises to improve your musicianship, and more.

A Guide To Hit Song Forms – Tips, Techniques and Tools for Writing Hit Songs

Another bonus you get when you join Samurai Songwriting is A Guide To Hit Song Forms. Inside this valuable songwriting guide, you’ll learn…

How to begin writing songs with superior structure and the techniques you need to master the craft of songwriting.
The basic song sections with advice on how they relate to each other and tips [...]

GTD: Automator Wants To Know What You Are Doing Right Now

I’m into systems. I love figuring out how to get from point A to point B and then optimizing the process as efficiently as possible. Better yet, I love being able to turn a system on and not have to think about it again.
This is one of those systems. I’m an entrepreneur. I don’t have [...]

iQuickTwitter – My Quicksilver + Twitter + iChat + Growl Hack

When I read that you could use Quicksilver with Twitter, I felt as excited as Jack Bauer in an interrogation room full of terror suspects. It all started with Twitter Fan Wiki. And then I lost myself in hours of troubleshooting as I tried to force hack after hack to work the way I wanted them to. As these things are, it wasn’t nearly as hard in the end as all the work that led up to the final result.

Don’t Sign With A Label – Dick Dale

“The minute you sign your name, you lose all the rights to your music and you’ll never see a dime.” -Dick Dale

Top 10 Twitter DOs and DON’Ts

You’ve got a blog. You’ve got email, SMS, and IM. These are great tools for communication. Email and text messaging are two-way conversations. Blogging is mostly a one-to-many conversation. But what about something in-between? Twitter is part micro-blog, part instant message, and can fill the need for short public and personal broadcasts.
If you’ve been thinking [...]

Chorus Cheat Sheet – 7 Types Of Choruses And How To Write Them

Joining Samurai Songwriting has lots of perks. One of them is the Chorus Cheat Sheet. Inside this guide to writing great choruses, you’ll learn…

Why it’s called a “chorus” and what this means to you as a songwriter.
The seven basic chorus forms — with dozens of hit song examples to show you how it all works [...]