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. Taking a look at the C major scale, you can see that … [Read more...]
Songwriting Challenges – Where Do I Begin?
One of the most common challenges I hear about songwriting is not knowing where to begin. With the lyrics? With the music? Or something completely different? It's a rather simple challenge to find a solution to, really. Start with a single note or … [Read more...]
NaSoAlMo: National Solo Album Month
NaSoAlMo is a free yearly competition where musicians write and record an entire album during the month of November. The idea came from NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where writers attempt a 50,000 word novel during the same month. It's … [Read more...]
4 Things That Will Make Or Break Your Song
Learn these 4 tricks to help you write the best songs of your life. It will take you just 10 minutes to learn, too. The First 10 Seconds Imagine being inside the mind of a busy A&R guy or in-demand producer. It's running over important … [Read more...]
The Rules and Principles of Counterpoint
These rules of counterpoint are simple and easy to memorize. Use them during the arranging phase of your music producing. Counterpoint: a composition which is written strictly according to technical rules. In earlier times, instead of our modern … [Read more...]
If Leonardo da Vinci Were a Songwriter
Adapted from the book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci was a brilliant musician. If he were alive today... He would have an insatiably curious approach to songwriting and an unrelenting quest for continuous … [Read more...]
List of Opensource Music Software
Please don't let your financial situation stop you from writing and recording great music. Here's a list of opensource music software for capturing and recording audio. I've used Audacity for a couple of projects and it works great. There's even free … [Read more...]
Songwriting For Busy People
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 … [Read more...]