IJ’s Song Blog

Archive for the ‘Creative Exercises’ Category

132, originally uploaded by Misho Baranovic.

Ok folks. As promised, I am presenting you with a photograph and some random words, a couple of verbs, a noun and an adjective. You can use any or all of the words in… Continue reading

In another article called Songwriting Topics I went through a myriad of things you can do to inspire yourself in terms of what to write about (what? … Continue reading | 1 Comment

© I.Woloshen

Here’s an email I received:

Dear Irene, I play guitar (lefty), just started, and i find it sometimes abit hard to get

© I.Woloshen

Have you ever had a song breakthrough? Do you know what I mean by that? I’m talking about a song that somehow stands apart from your usual fare…something that doesn’t seem at all your “normal” style of writing. How does it happen, and when it does, do you fight it or do you welcome it?

First of all, the “rut” we all get ourselves into once… Continue reading

© I.Woloshen

There was a question in the RMMS newsgroup recently about whether or not there are “too many” love songs out there. This lead me to thinking about the topics we choose to write about and how we choose them. Are there “too many” love songs?

When you think about the topic of love, there are at least a zillion ways of approaching it…okay, so a zillion… Continue reading

The main purpose of a rhyme in a lyric is simple…it gives the lyric a certain predictability that makes it memorable. In the oldest form of songwriting, folk, the idea was to relay a story that would be passed on from person to person. If I was to take a wild guess, it would be that someone came up with the idea of rhyming in order to remember the lines. Or, it could have been one of those “happy accidents” that make the whole process so much fun