IJ's Songwriting Tips Blog

New I Like Songs Post

IJ — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:17:39 +0000

Ed Sheeran (Photo credit: Man Alive!)

There’s a new evaluation of the song “A Team” by Ed Sheeran up at the I Like Songs blog. If you’ve never heard of Ed Sheeran, there’s a video of him performing the song as well.

Here’s an excerpt:

“This is a series of five lines that rhyme; [...]

I Like Songs

IJ — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:21:35 +0000

Songwriters Circle (Photo credit: AndyRobertsPhotos)

// //

// ]]>Well, I do. I like all kinds of songs, old ones, new ones that I discover through my students…all kinds of ‘em. Which is why I started a blog just about the songs I like. You can find it here.

As a songwriter, I quite [...]

From The Mailbag April ’12

IJ — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:00:28 +0000

I recently received this email from Joel Patterson (link to his website below), who describes himself as “the enfant terrible of the recording website Gearslutz”. I’ll let you read his email and my response is below:

Hi Irene,

Great site! Glad you’re so willing to help out the neophytes out here.

[...]

New Guitar Blog Post

IJ — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:25:18 +0000

Just wanted to point you to my other Guitar Blog where you’ll find Part 1 of a series on getting out of your strumming rut. This is geared towards those of you who play guitar, of course, and Part 1 goes right back to the basics of strumming itself.

Many of you [...]

Cool Chords

IJ — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:24:36 +0000

This is geared mostly towards guitar players, but could still apply in some respects to those of you who write with a keyboard. Are your chord choices and your chord progressions getting boring? You might find yourself always turning to the same chords when you’re sitting down to write…and let’s face [...]