This article is being published jointly on Soundfly and Sonicbids in celebration of #SongwritingWeek! My pursuit to become a songwriter started shortly after learning to read words and music twenty-something years ago. Throughout my quest to become better at what I love doing, I’ve studied a wide range of writing styles — both musical and linguistic. Here are five lessons…
If you have a story to tell, then you have something to say with your songwriting, and guitar is your backup instrument. In other words, use your guitar to support your singing. Write your story down and keep your lyric ideas in a folder or binder just for songs. Save them to a folder on…
By Alan Semerdjian There’s this idea out in the world that unless we’re working as songwriters and doing music full-time — music solely — we’ve somehow failed or compromised our integrity as artists. I’ve come to understand this notion as flawed thinking. Let me explain. I have been writing, releasing, and performing music since the drummer in…
I remember the first time I tried writing a song — it was a mess. I had no idea where to start, no idea how to come up with melodies (let alone match them with lyrics), and no idea what to write about. Songwriting can be an extremely daunting mountain to tackle if you’ve never written…
Need a boost of inspiration? Try any of these fool-proof chord progressions to jumpstart your writing process.
This article originally appeared on TakeLessons’ blog. As a singer, you probably know how important it is to take care of your voice — it is your instrument, after all! If you’re already staying hydrated and doing your daily warm-ups, take it a step further by trying these strange (but effective) strategies in this guest…
If you’ve seen Easy A, you probably remember the scene where Emma Stone receives a card that plays Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” and how Stone’s character hates the song — at first. Flash forward to a few days later, and she can’t stop singing it. There are songs that we can’t stand, yet can’t get out…
Often times when we practice and rehearse, we just do so instinctively — we show up, play through our songs, maybe talk about them a bit, and then do it again. While any sort of practice and rehearsal is probably a good thing, no matter how you go about it, there is some interesting research…
Licensing your music for film or television is one of the few sure-fire ways to make money as a musician. But how do you get started?
Summertime is upon us, and so is the glory of festival and touring season. If you are lucky enough to travel around to perform music at venues all over the country or world, chances are you’ll spend at least a little bit of time airborne en route to your next exotic destination. Many of us…
