Graham English
Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Blogging Musician
Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Blogging Musician
I was taught to organize rhythms into increments of two measures at a time. Some beats/pulses get a natural emphasis in relation to their placement in the measure. I put together this illustration of the most natural points of relative emphasis in a 2-measure unit of rhythm.
Place Your Song Title At Key Points In The Chorus
Your song title is more likely to be remembered if it is placed in the first or last line of the chorus.
Place Emphasis On Your Song Title In The Chorus
Support your song title by giving it a rhythm, melody, and harmony that sounds natural and intuitive. [...]
Topics covered: Chord progressions, I-IV-V, The blues, classical music, mashups, melody, modal progressions, music software, rhythm…
If you need more compositional choices or your music needs more depth, you might want to play with the textural qualities of music. This won’t be difficult because I’ve prepared a textural dictionary for you.
Polyphonic, while literally meaning “many-voiced,” refers to multivoiced texture of considerable interlinear independence, often imitative; it is understood to have qualitative [...]
Topics covered: Top 10 Lyric Writing Insights, line length, contrasting ideas, melody, metaphor, prosody, rhyme schemes, rhythm, song forms, spotlights…
Give me 5 minutes and I’ll show you how to instantly find unique and interesting details to put into your lyrics.
The technique is called Object Writing and it’s so ridiculously easy that you’ll be pissed you didn’t know about it sooner. I learned it from Pat Pattison.
Here’s how it works:
First, gather your materials. You’ll need [...]
I’ve noticed a lot of resistance to “songwriting rules”. Most of the criticism falls in the Craft vs. Inspiration camp. And my defense is always that it isn’t an either-or argument.
From Don’t forget square one…:
Horse trainer Linda Parelli says that, and her take on amateurs-vs.-experts is that the amateurs forget the fundamentals. Her husband Pat, [...]
Mind Hacks posted how choice is demotivating when there are too many options.
“Offer students a choice of 6 essays, rather than 30 essays, for extra-credit and more will take up the opportunity if there is less choice of essay titles – and, what is more, they write better essays.”
And if you have 45 song ideas [...]
Here’s a handful of my top techniques that I use to develop new and interesting chord changes.
1. Stick with I-IV-V
I know, it’s not new, but I-IV-V doesn’t have to be uninteresting. There’s a reason why these chords are so fundamental to our harmony. So master them. Use their constraints to challenge your songwriting ability.
2. Copy [...]
*Before I continue, and I’ll say this many times, I operate under the assumption that the opposite of everything I say is equally true. Including the opposite of what I just said.
Here’s my top 10 lyric writing insights:
1. The rhythm of your melody and the rhythm of your lyrics should match.
Rhythm has *strong [...]
about grahamI'm a songwriter and recording artist who sings, plays keyboards, and explores the vast world of sound hoping to find some magical moments along the way. I'm also a Mac geek.
Why Americans Don't Like Jazz http://dyske.com/paper/778 8 hrs ago
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