Songwriting Workflow: What A Month Of Daily Releases Taught Me

Guest post by Martin Fowler. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

Every year, the shortest month comes around, and at the forefront of my mind is the plethora of songwriting challenges which permeate the internet at large. Some of my favorite artists have famously committed their time in this dreary month (at least here in New York) to hunker down and dedicate serious hours to composing new material.

Every year I think of how outlandish an undertaking that month must be for each of these artists, taking tens or hundreds of hours to build a whole new world, and create the kind of consistency in their day-to-day life, even in the shortest month of the year, to get it done. And every year I’m shocked at how many actually come out the other side with a whole new body of work!

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How Imagine Dragons Writes Memorable Melodies

What gets us to remember a tune?

Have you ever remembered a song well enough to sing along to it the next time you heard it? Maybe you didn’t know the words, but you could at least hum along. Or have you ever played “name that tune”? What made you win some rounds so easily and yet lose others? One answer lies in how, precisely, the melody is set up.

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Discover How To Write A Song From The Best In The Biz

1. WHERE TO START WRITING YOUR SONG 

Beginning is regularly the hardest piece of the songwriting procedure. Building up your tune’s fundamental song or focal ensemble is considered by some to be the best place to start composing your next track. Once you have your snare or key harmony movement, you can manufacture whatever remains of your melody around it. In any case, don’t stress in case you’re attempting to locate the ideal tune straight away, this technique isn’t for everybody.

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On The Future Of Remote Music Collaboration

One of the primary functions of technology is democratization. The democratization of knowledge through higher access to information and more affordable and sophisticated products and services.

Musicians have benefitted immensely from these technological advancements where olfactory gatekeepers are becoming increasingly redundant and traditional barriers are broken down literally by the year. 

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Song Generation: Where Does Inspiration For New Music Come From?

New music has been a major influence on people in society basically since the beginning of time. Nothing is changing much in that sense, either. New music approaches, however, change dramatically all of the time. Sources of inspiration change on a frequent basis as well. Musical acts get ideas in all sorts of intriguing ways.

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The Nashville Number System: What Is It?

Guest post by Soundfly Mentor Andre Madatian. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

If you ask almost any Broadway Street musician in downtown Nashville, they will tell you that the Nashville number system has gotten them through at least a song or two, if not an entire set, on a honky tonk stage at some point in their career. Some don’t even leave the house without their iPad filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of Nashville-style notated charts before heading to work or a weekend run of shows out of town. But there is something quite definitive and unique about the way Nashville creates their charts — almost like a universal language amongst all of the musicians in the local community.

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Music Theory: Does It Still Matter?

Guest post by Ian Temple. This article originally appearedon Soundfly’s Flypaper

Last year, Rihanna’s hit single “Work” started an argument here at Soundfly. We come from an array of different musical backgrounds, styles, training, and instruments, and the question that kicked us off was:

What key is “Work” actually in?

It’s got that super repetitive synth bass line that returns to C# every time, giving the impression we’re in C# Dorian mode, but the key signature is B major, or G# natural minor. The melody floats around a C# note a lot, but it still sounds unresolved, except in a few moments where it lands on G#. There are even a couple moments that sound a little more major and could lead one to hear the B as an unplayed tonic (or “home base”).

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7 Laws For Smart Songwriting

Music surrounds us every day – we hear it while driving the car, shopping in the mall, or eating in a restaurant. It has become a part of our everyday routine, and some of us can’t imagine an hour of our lifetime without a favorite song.

Music is something we aspire to. It’s something that communicates emotions rather than words. It motivates us to work, rest, cook, exercise. There’s a song for everything we do. It awakes right emotions, so that we can get more motivated.

And if you belong to that type of people, who like to sing about their emotions, you’re probably a potential songwriter. It may seem that if you have an ear for music and a poetic talent, it would be super easy for you to right a hit song.

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How To Write A Hit: 5 Psychological Tricks

When you’re sitting down at the piano or the guitar and getting ready to write a new song, it’s often difficult to know where to start. If you watch interviews with well-known songwriters, you start to notice that half of them have no idea how they do it. They just sit down at their instrument and see what happens.

It’s true that there’s an art to songwriting, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no room for science. In fact, people are constantly carrying out research to try to identify what makes a song successful, with the idea being that if they can identify what works and what doesn’t, they can do more of the former and less of the latter.

With that in mind, we’ve put in the research for you and compiled five of the most effective psychological tricks to help you to write a crazy hit song. Let’s go.

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Essential Questions To Answer Before You Finish A Songwriting Collaboration

In a music-theatre context, there are a number of questions that must be answered before any song can be completed. Often when lyricists and composers collaborate on songs for a new show, these questions may be answered unconsciously or internally by each collaborator or not at all. If one person were writing a show all by herself, that might be just fine. But in a collaboration with one or two other artists, it’s critical that everyone on the team articulate these questions together, discuss them and come to agreement on each answer. If this is done before starting work on a given song, it can save everyone a lot of extra work, frustration and other unpleasant feelings. Take the time to be just a little bit pedantic when it comes to songs you’re co-writing for a new musical and you’ll be much happier with the results.

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Songwriters Beware Of The Music Modernization Act (H.r. 4706)

The stage is set for a brutal tug-of-war over tens of millions of dollars between individual songwriters and their publishers. H.R. 4706, also known as the Music Modernization Act, provides many benefits and updates to the arcane royalty structure of US copyright law. However, there are some provisions concerning unclaimed and unmatched monies which, as currently drafted, could lead to a myriad of problems for creators.

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Hit Songs Deconstructed Releases Its Q3-2017 Hit Songwriting Trend Brief

Hit Songs Deconstructed (www.HitSongsDeconstructed.com) released its Q3-2017 Trend Brief. This 100+ page report details the compositional and industry trends for the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10.

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The Downsides To Using Fiverr For Music Production

With limited human resources (nearby to help to produce the song), I opted to produce an entire song— from start-to-finish— using a popular online marketplace, Fiverr.com. It was called an experiment— I had no idea whether it would work or not. Within a week timeframe, the entire song idea became a song distributed across the web.

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5 Bad Habits That Songwriters With Home Studios Need To Quit

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a songwriter, musician or producer with a home studio. But let me guess, you don’t seem to have enough hours in the day to get everything done and, as a result, your songwriting has suffered. Right?

Being aware of our bad habits can bring about change and get us back on track.

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