Music

Be Bold

Posted on by IJ


Yesterday I was in the car listening to a radio show all about advertising…boring you might assume, but it was actually quite interesting. That’s because a lot of what advertising people are doing, the ones who are writing and producing commercials, is continuously trying to find new ways to say the same old things. How do you advertise a car in a way that no one has done before?

The most interesting thing I heard was an interview with a top notch ad guy in the US. He said that in the beginning, his success could be attributed to his LACK of knowledge. He didn’t know what he “couldn’t” do. Beyond that, he said, once you start to learn the rules and play by them, you start to become like everybody else. And once you become like everybody else, you stop standing out.

I found this particularly interesting because it creates quite a dichotomy when you are using the rules to try to come up with something new and fresh. How can you be new and fresh if you are simply following old patterns or methods? And when you have people like me telling you how to write a song, isn’t that the same as learning the “rules”? Maybe you should stop reading my tips right now 🙂



And, if, for instance, you are hearing from publishers or record people “We want the next ________”, meaning that they want you to be a new version of someone famous who has made them a lot of money…how does that make you new and fresh? You are going to come up against this again and again if you are trying to pitch your songs or try and make your band the next big thing. You don’t want to sound like anyone else, but a lot of people will push you in that direction.

I have always been an advocate of learning the rules, and then more or less learning how to break them. But now I wonder if rules don’t just get in the creative mind’s way, period. The mind is a pretty powerful thing. You know yourself, that if you let yourself second guess every word or every note, it ruins everything! So when you are first sitting down to write something, throw all the “rules” out the window…don’t even let yourself think about them.

Beyond that, let’s look at a couple of songs and artists that more or less break the “rules” and succeed. The first one I’ll mention comes to mind because a guitar student of mine recently asked me to figure it out for her to play. It’s a song called “Something Pretty” by Patrick Park. You can hear the whole song on his website in the media section, and it was introduced to a larger audience through the television show “The OC”. What’s really interesting about this song is that it starts out sounding pretty darn traditional country. But then you realize that his singing style isn’t really “country” , and musically the song takes some very nontraditional twists and turns, for instance, suddenly modulating to another key and back again, and having a very long instrumental section after the chorus. You’d rarely find that done in a popular contemporary country song today. Today’s country, especially country/pop, is very, very formula. And Patrick’s lyrical style is a kind of a self put-down, which is more of what you would find in rock or alternative (whatever alternative is these days!) songs. And for days after I worked it out, I had it spinning around and around in my head…it has a haunting quality that sticks with you.

Sometimes what makes a stand out, obviously, is the artist. Fiest’s “1,2,3,4” is just plain quirky. Her voice is different, the production is definitely not typical…lots of banjos and trumpets. Now when is the last time you heard that in a pop song? And someone like Amy Winehouse with her ballsy, vocal style, makes R&B sound new again, the way Norah Jones made jazz and country new and appealing to a pop audience a couple of years back. It seems these days that television commercials are breaking artists more commonly than radio. That in itself, is an interesting turn of events.

Occasionally, well-established artists go out on a limb and break their own rules. The first to famously do that in the folk/rock world was Bob Dylan. There was a huge backlash when he suddenly started playing electric guitar in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival. They called him a sell-out, a traitor, even…they yelled “get rid of that electric guitar!” He was shaken from that experience, when all he was trying to do was to re-invent himself and move in a fresh direction. Another, less negatively received re-invention was Johnny Cash with that unbelievably powerful version of a Nine Inch Nails song and video “Hurt”. Who’d a thunk it…Johnny Cash and NIN? But it was a huge hit for him. The combination of that raw, seasoned voice and those equally raw and emotional lyrics, was profound.

So is the answer to re-invent yourself? Perhaps. One thing my husband likes to say to the kids is “Be bold.” And occasionally they take the bull by the horns and do something they never thought they could. I think that’s how you have to approach your songwriting (and performing, if that’s relevant to you)…I think you have to throw something completely different into the mix, and see what you come up with. If you’re looking to do something different, then pick a style you haven’t written before (even if you hate it!), or pick up an instrument you’ve never played. Use words that are not common to you. If you record your own songs, find the strangest loop you can possibly find, and write something to it. Find a trumpet player and ask him or her to invent a part for a song that doesn’t sound like it is meant for a trumpet :-). You see what I mean?

Be bold .

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Don’t Bore Us, Get To the Chorus!

Posted on by IJ


The chorus is what many songwriters and publishers and industry types consider one of the most critical parts of the song. As described in my other article on Song Structure, each part of a song has its purpose, and the chorus seems to be one that is most crucial in driving the whole song “home”. In this article I’m going to go into more detail about the functions of a chorus, using some familiar examples to give you an idea of how you might best construct your chorus when you get to that part of the song.

Well, let’s face it…probably more often than not, a song doesn’t “write itself” in any particular order. You may often find that you come up with some parts and don’t really know what their purpose is right away. In fact, you may even change your mind as to which is which at some point in your re-writing process, and that is perfectly fine. If you are at that point right now with a particular song you’re working on, there are some things to consider. First of all, the chorus is a stand out both lyrically and musically. It’s the part, or at least CONTAINS the part (often called the “hook”) that people remember. So look at what you’ve got and see if one part has that more dominant feeling. Maybe it’s not so obvious, in which case you may have to rework a part to achieve that…or you may not have a chorus yet, or even end up with one. Anything’s possible!



I’ve used this example before as a powerful chorus…Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy“. There is NO DOUBT about that chorus, even when you just read the title of the song. Not all song titles are contained in the chorus, but this is fairly common. The contrast between that chorus and the verses is very obvious. Musically, it lifts up as the melody hits the highest note on “MAKES”. The melody line is simpler in the chorus, and more powerful. The chord progression jumps to a minor chord, an “Am”, whereas the verses stick to more major chords. Lyrically, it’s a great line. “If it makes you happy”….I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole song was written around that line.

Okay, here’s another one: “I Will Always Love You”. The song was written by Dolly Parton, who also recorded a version of it, but it was made even more famous by Whitney Houston. Now, this is not my favourite song or chorus because personally, it got kind of annoying after awhile. But you have to admit, with all of those vocal acrobatics, that was one darn powerful chorus. And what’s really interesting is that this is the only phrase in the chorus…I will always love you. That was it! The rest of it was the performance.

Here’s another…Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us”. What if God was one of us? Not only is it lyrically provocative, but the melody, which is mirrored with a guitar lick, is a real stand out. And which is the the first word in that chorus that contains the highest note? You’ve got it…”God.” 🙂 Either that’s really clever or a wonderful accident!

A great country song that came out in 2000 was by Lonestar…”Amazed”. Very powerful, emotional chorus. “I don’t know how you do what you do, I’m so in love with you, it just keeps getting better.” Now the lyrics are not particulary clever, but the melody and emotional deliverance in the performance are a real stand out.

U2‘s “Beautiful Day” from the same year had a really positive message. If you have no idea what the rest of the song is about (and I didn’t until I looked it up!), “it’s a beautiful day…” is all you need! Again, the production is very powerful as is the vocal delivery, but the phrase itself and the melody that accompanies it, is emotionally very uplifting.

Okay…I’m not going to name the next one…here are the lyrics in the chorus:

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to
Keep me down

Do you recognize it? Oddly enough, here’s an example of a chorus with no sign of the title. It’s called “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba. Who thought of that title? But it sure is a stand out chorus. Can you remember the rest of the song? Unless you listened to the song a number of times, the verses probably aren’t as memorable. Now you see what I mean about the chorus being a critical aspect of the song! If it’s well-written, it goes a long way to sell the song.

And finally, a more recent entry:

Oh, it’s what you do to me, oh, it’s what you do to me
Oh, it’s what you do to me, what you do to me

Again, no title in the chorus…it’s called “Hey There Delilah”. Very strong chorus, not particularly fascinating lyrics, but melodically, it’s very powerful and emotional. It’s interesting that each of the verses begins with “Hey there, Delilah…”, so that’s another way to make the title memorable without putting it in the chorus. Probably, using “What You Do To Me”, which is repeated over and over in the chorus, was considered too over-used or boring to use as a title.

Now these songs might not be your taste, and to tell you the truth, I know some of them only by the fact that my guitar students wanted to learn them! If it weren’t for my students I wouldn’t be exposed to a lot of music. Sometimes they are not songs that I myself would choose to listen to, but it sure gives me an insight into what is popular.

The title of this article comes from a well-known phrase in the music industry. When you are sitting in front of a record label exec or a publisher, this is often what is on their mind. It says a lot about what the industry thinks about. They don’t care about long intros and meandering verses…quite often, all they care about is the chorus. So the placement of your chorus is particularly important. On the other hand, if your verses really draw them in, the chorus becomes the bonus!

In a lot of songs, the chorus is the very first thing you hear. Is that a good trick? Well, it might be effective, but not every song works with that particular form…for one thing, the verses can be really effective in lyrically setting up the chorus, so in that case, you don’t want to put the chorus first and give the whole thing away! The purpose of a chorus, as I said in the beginning, is to drive the song home. It is the focal point, the summation…it explains the song. And sometimes, in the case of a chorus being the first thing you hear, the chorus is what sets everything else in the song up.

There are songs that don’t have choruses, but that isn’t as common in popular music genres such as rock and pop and country. In some cases, you have a song with a “refrain“, which might be a line or a phrase that recurrs in the same spot in a verse. For instance, “The Times They Are A Changin'” is an old Bob Dylan song that uses that refrain at the end of each verse. Folk songs, for instance, often don’t have a chorus. But if you are writing in the more popular styles, you are more likely than not going to have to write a chorus.

Studying the chorus’ of the songs you like is an excellent lesson in how they work, and more importantly, how they work successfully. Go to a Top 10 list of songs in any given year, and then listen to and read along with the lyrics of each one. Notice how the chorus is used, and decide for yourself what it is about that chorus that works for you. Where is the placement of the chorus? How many times is it repeated? How long is it? How is the melody structured? What do the lyrics say in the chorus that isn’t said in the rest of the song?

The more you study them, the more you’ll admire the power of a great chorus!

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Creating Great Songs and Apple Pies

Posted on by IJ


Apple pie with lattice upper crust
Image via Wikipedia

I recently polled some of the members of a songwriting newsgroup to see what a songwriter thinks makes a “great” song. When we listen to a song for the first time and it hits us smack in the face, what is it that gives us that “shiver down the spine”, as one member put it?



Some interesting responses that came out of this went something like this, in no particular order:

  • passionate performance
  • it’s got to do something to my head, heart or feet
  • catchy intro
  • feel
  • emotion
  • easy rhymes
  • story songs with a twist
  • good groove
  • strong hook
  • melody I can hum along with
  • I like the words to surprise me
  • good arrangement and lyric depth
  • a song has to breech my defenses with a good melody (I loved that one 🙂
  • I think my taste is a product of my own circumstances (that was good too 🙂
  • artistic integrity
  • overall sound, mostly melody driven
  • prosody (how perfectly the lyrics match the meter of the music)

Most people who are NOT songwriters would likely express the same things, with perhaps less use of the lingo that we songwriters often use. And still, there is this indefinable “wow” that we can’t really put our finger on, which might also be very different for each of us. How do you define it?

We are, each of us, capable of writing a song. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying that writing a song is really the easiest thing in the world. But writing a GREAT song is what we are always chasing and that mystery ingredient (or combination of ingredients) is often eluding us when it comes to our writing. Anyone of you out there who doesn’t want to write a great song? When we study the craft of songwriting, sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that all we really need are the perfect ingredients, and how hard can that be? Just look at the list above, and go from there!

But there are a couple of things missing from that list. I think they are things we overlook more often than not. First of all, even if you put all of the “right” ingredients into an apple pie, there’s always a cook who can bake a better one. Is it possible for someone who hasn’t baked an apple pie before to create the perfect one first time out? Well, anything is possible. But it’s more likely that the person who has been baking apple pies for a long time has a better chance of coming close to the perfect pie. So the first missing ingredient is “experience”. With enough experience, enough trial and error, I believe that just about anyone could write a really good song. The thing is that you also have to love doing it enough to put in the time to get good at it. Many would likely never take the time or have the patience to actually learn the craft. Not all of us want to study the craft of baking apple pies either 🙂

Apple pies are also individual…nobody can make one exactly the same as mom does. And that is also true about songwriting. So along with the experience factor, there is the element of uniqueness. What is it about a newer artist that makes them stand out? These days, there are a lot of cookie cutter songs out there. I recently listened to a top 10 list of songs and five of them were hip hop or rap. I have nothing against those genres, but what I noticed about each song was that they had almost exactly the same drum sound and the same BPM (beats per minute or tempo)! Rap and hip hop have been really big in the last few years. What is going to kill the genre, if anything, is that they are all going to start sound the same after awhile, and the audience’s ear will tire of that. You can’t just throw the same song out there over and over and expect people to have the same enthusiasm for it for long.

SO…having a unique sound or perspective (or even production for that matter!) may take you a long way in this business of songwriting. And writing enough songs to develop a track record and get some experience will do the same.

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How Much Money Does A Songwriter Make?

Posted on by IJ

[This post was originally written in 2006.  Seven years later, it is much, much more difficult for songwriters to make an income from their songs because record labels are going under in, well, record numbers!]


I’m writing this article because I am truly surprised at how many people find my website using exactly those key words “how much does a songwriter make?” Why am I surprised? We are a society hell bent on making money. So why wouldn’t a person who likes writing songs think, at one time or another, that they might actually make money from it?

First words of advice: If you start writing with the idea of making money, it won’t work! Why not? Because you won’t last long enough. The average songwriter in Nashville, for example, has to work at it HARD for an average of seven years before even seeing anything. Most give up before then, especially the ones who ask “How much money does a songwriter make?” 🙂 You have to love it, that’s the only thing that will help you hang in long enough to see anything come of it.

Okay, you probably didn’t come here for a lecture, you want the cold, hard facts. Here are some facts:

1. Songwriters make some of their income from mechanical royalties. In the US, the royalty used to be 8.5 cents per song per unit (CD) sold. On January 1st, 2006 it became 9.10 cents. An album that sells 500,000 copies in 2006, would give the songwriter $45,500 per song. Sounds like a lot, eh? 🙂 But…

2. Less than 1% of ALL ALBUM RELEASES (I mean, ALL of them) sell more than 1,000 copies. Less than 1%. That means more than 99% of the albums released in 2006 will sell less than 1000 copies. And, because fewer people are purchasing CD’s, that number might be expected to go even lower.

3. Let’s put this together: It will likely take you at least 7 years to get a cut on an album, which has a 99% chance of selling less than 1000 copies. If it sells 1000 copies, you make $91.



Here are some more statistics:

48,000 = number of writers and artists in Nashville trying to “make it.”

1,350 = number of songs recorded in a year on major labels.

85% = percentage of songs recorded going to “insider” writers, publishers, producers, etc.

75 = number of songwriters getting 1 or more cuts per year in Nashville.

Why am I using Nashville as an example? Because that’s where a lot of the business has been in the last 20 years! And where would you go other than the place where it’s all happening?

The above stats can be attributed to a very interesting thread that happened on my old message board…a kind of blog written by BobbyJoe, someone who just moved to Nashville a short while ago and who has been dealing with the business of songwriting one day at a time.

$91…THAT’S how much songwriters make. To begin with. If that doesn’t take the wind out of your sails, then I refer you to a couple of other articles on this website. The first is a brief Beginner’s Guide to Publishing . This gives you an idea of how song publishing works and what you can expect. Another article covers the steps you should consider taking, everything from performing to getting critiques, creating demos of your songs, books and songwriting organizations. It’s called Your Songwriting Career.

If you found this article because you Googled “how much does a songwriter make”, and you’ve made it this far through the article, you just might have half a chance. Good luck 🙂

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Phrasing – What Is It?

Posted on by IJ


Beethoven in 1815
Image via Wikipedia

There are two types of phrasing in songs – lyrical and musical. Phrasing is defined in the dictionary as “a sequence of words intended to have meaning”. Its definition in relation to music is “a short passage or segment, often consisting of four measures or forming part of a larger unit.” In this article we’re going to focus MAINLY on musical phrasing.

Let’s look at an old Beatles song “Let It Be” to better define what musical phrases are. If you know the song, great…if you don’t, try to find it and have a listen.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

If you look at this verse the way I’ve written it out above, you’ll see four separate lines. The first line of the lyric (when I find myself in times of trouble) looks like a phrase, but it isn’t a complete thought. The second line completes the phrase and the thought. Musically, the first line isn’t complete either. If you remember how the melody goes, that will help you hear that the first two lines together become a complete musical phrase.

“Speaking words of wisdom, let it be”…this is another phrase, different from the first one. When we get to the next part of the verse:

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Now, you see the musical phrases begin to repeat. The first two lines in this part of of the verse are almost the same musical phrasing as in the beginning of the verse, and the second two lines are exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the lyrical content in the first two lines, and a slight difference in melody and meter between “when I find myself” and “and in my hour”. So let’s map this out visually.



First, I’m going to show by bold and italic text, where the musical phrases are:

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

The two bold sections are the same musical phrases, as are the two italic sections. Phrasing is a really important aspect of songwriting. Repeat your musical phrases too often, and a song becomes dull…not repeating enough can lose a listener. In classical music, there are often long sections of music where the phrases don’t repeat.

Returning to “Let It Be”, we can also map the musical phrasing this way:

Phrase 1
Phrase 2
Phrase 1
Phrase 2

This is simple musical phrasing. In popular music, you’ll find shorter musical phrases and more repeats than any other kind of music. The repeats are intentional…they are there to help you remember the song! If you’ve ever been around young children, you’ll recognize their desire for repeated behaviour or sounds. If it entertains them, they’ll always ask you to do it again…make the funny face again, or make the silly sound again. This desire for repetition carries on into their musical listening preferences. Why do you think pop music appeals predominantly to the young listener?

Our listening preferences change as we get older. We still love the “old songs” that we heard when we were kids, but the “new” songs we like to listen to don’t necessarily have the same forms and phrasing that we used to like so much. I personally believe that the music you are exposed to as a child often helps to determine what you are capable of “hearing” as you get older. This is more or less a theory of mine and not backed up by any hard evidence as far as I know 🙂 Our brains are also wired to hear things differently from others, which is why there is such a wide variety of music out there that appeals to different listeners.

But I’ve ventured off the path here…let’s get back to phrasing. As an exercise, I want you to take a look and listen to one of your most recent songs, and break it down into musical phrases by using the method I used above…phrase 1 and phrase 2, etc. Even though you may not have consciously thought about phrases when you were writing it, you have likely, by osmosis, learned this concept. There are two problems that typically come up for a songwriter in this area. First is the tendency to repeat musical phrases too often. When you get into a rut like this, you don’t always recognize it, but something just feels inane and dull in your song. The opposite of this is, of course, not repeating the musical phrases enough! Long, meandering and incomplete musical phrases leave a listener completely lost. Remember this: listeners will NEVER remember your whole song in one listen. Very few people in the universe can do this (although Beethoven apparently could!) So what does this mean? It means you have to repeat your musical phrases often enough for a listener to remember, and not so much so that you bore them! This can be a very fine line to draw.

Let’s talk about the idea of a “complete” musical phrase. How can you tell when one is finished and the other is beginning? This can be a little tricky. You can probably find a song where a whole verse goes by and a phrase never repeats, but it will likely happen more often than that. Sometimes, the end of a musical phrase can be recognized by the chord changes underneath. For instance, in the song Let It Be, the chords work this way:

………..C…………….G
When I find myself in times of trouble

Am…………..F
Mother Mary comes to me

C…………………..G
Speaking words of wisdom

………F……..C
Let it be

The first chord is a “C” which happens to be the key that this song is in. Very often, returning to the root chord (in this case, C) helps us to define where a musical phrase has ended. In this song, the first line has a C and a G, the next line an Am and an F. Then you’ll notice the third line beginning with a C chord again. It just so happens that the musical phrases follow the same route, the first ending at the F in the second line, and the next one beginning at the C in the third line. This does not happen in every case, but it’s a good example of where you might find the beginning and end of musical phrases.

Do your lyrical and musical phrases have to begin and end at the same time? Well, no, there are no “rules”. But, practically speaking, a listener often unconsciously identifies them as being together. Take a look at your song again…do your lyrical thoughts finish at the same time as the musical phrases? Then take a look at some other popular songs you know. How do their musical and lyrical phrases work together? When you’re writing, experiment…push your lyrical and musical phrasings to where you haven’t been before, and see what happens!

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