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Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies For Your iPhone

July 23, 2007 By Graham English

In an attempt to hack their creativity and artistic output, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt created a deck of cards they called the Oblique Strategies. Whenever they came up against a creative dilemma--and especially while under a moment of pressure or … [Read more...]

Filed Under: LifeHacks, Music Education, Prose Tagged With: composing strategies, creative process, creativity, CreativityHacks, flow, GTD, hacks, inspiration, iPhone, music hacks, MusicHacks, oblique strategies, peak performance, PerformanceHacks, problem solving, productivity, SongwritingHacks, strategies

Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-22-06

August 22, 2006 By Graham English

Topics covered: Chord progressions, I-IV-V, The blues, classical music, mashups, melody, modal progressions, music software, rhythm... Download: Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-22-06 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audio, Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast, Music Education Tagged With: blues, chord changes, chord progressions, classical music, Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast, mashups, melody, modal, modes, music software, podcasts, rhythm, Songwriting, SongwritingHacks

Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-09-06

August 9, 2006 By Graham English

Topics covered: Top 10 Lyric Writing Insights, line length, contrasting ideas, melody, metaphor, prosody, rhyme schemes, rhythm, song forms, spotlights... Download: Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-09-06 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Audio, Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast, Music Education Tagged With: contrast, contrasting ideas, development, hit songwriting tips, Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast, line length, lyric writing, lyrics, melody, metaphor, perspective, podcasts, point of view, prosody, rhyme, rhyme schemes, rhythm, setting, song forms, Songwriting, songwriting tips, SongwritingHacks, spotlights, stress, verb tense

Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

March 21, 2006 By Graham English

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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: abstract, chorus, creativity, CreativityHacks, details, don't tell, emotions, heart, lyric writing, meaning, Object Writing, Pat Pattison, perspective, rhyme, rhythm, senses, show, Songwriting, SongwritingHacks, verses, writing, writing lyrics

New MusicHacks Series

February 21, 2006 By Graham English

I got excited about my previous creativity hacks and busted out a number of ideas for a hacks series. So stay tuned for songwriting hacks and ear training hacks and stay connected to my MusicHacks del.icio.us bookmarks. Because you're going to help … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: CreativityHacks, Ear Training, EarTrainingHacks, MusicHacks, Songwriting, SongwritingHacks, tag clouds, tags

How Do You Develop New And Interesting Chord Changes?

February 8, 2006 By Graham English

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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: blues, chord changes, chord progressions, classical music, contrast, mashups, melody, modal, modes, music software, rhythm, Songwriting, songwriting techniques, SongwritingHacks

Top 10 Lyric Writing Insights

February 6, 2006 By Graham English

*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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: consonance, contrast, contrasting ideas, details, development, don't tell, line length, lyric writing, lyrics, melody, metaphor, perspective, point of view, prosody, rhyme, rhyme schemes, rhythm, rules, setting, show, song forms, Songwriting, SongwritingHacks, spotlights, stress, verb tense, writing lyrics

The Astonishing Hit-Making Magic of Song Titles

January 25, 2006 By Graham English

Why almost everyone is completely wrong about what makes a good song title... and why this is a tremendous advantage for anyone who knows the secrets. Most people - and shamefully, most so-called experts in songwriting - wouldn't know a good song … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: curiosity, direct response, don't tell, show, song titles, Songwriting, songwriting techniques, SongwritingHacks

MasterWriter Review

December 9, 2005 By Graham English

Here is my review of MasterWriter, a collection of writing tools for songwriters. First of all, I give MasterWriter two big thumbs up. It has been an invaluable songwriting tool for me since the day I bought just over a year ago. MasterWriter … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: alliteration, creative process, dictionary, lyrics, pop culture, rhyme, songwriters, Songwriting, songwriting tools, SongwritingHacks, thesaurus

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Graham is a singer/songwriter and jazz-trained keyboard player, music producer and studio musician, best-selling author of Logic Pro X For Dummies, and serial entrepreneur.

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