Songwriting Craft & Inspiration Learn How To Write a Song

Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting: Revised and Updated

The new edition of Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting is finally a reality. All the Shortcuts from the first edition are expanded and updated with the latest hit song examples, plus new Shortcuts covering today’s must-have songwriting tools.

There’s so much information, I needed three e-books to cover all 178 song crafting techniques. Read a book from beginning to end or bounce around looking for just the tool you need to turn your new chorus into a hit. You can put every Shortcut to use the minute you start working on a song. Check out all three books on Amazon where you can see the complete Table of Contents and download a free sample.

At just $9.99 each, pick one up right now and get started. If you don’t have an eReader, no problem! Download the free Kindle app and read across all your devices. Print books are in the works for spring, 2020.

Songwriting: Faster & Better

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could write songs faster, start new songs that you always finish, and still express yourself in the way you want to? You’d have more songs to pitch, you could reach more listeners, and songwriting would be more exciting and fun to do. You bet it would.

We all want to be more creative, have more songs in our catalog, and feel satisfied that we’re getting things accomplished. It’s just that reality doesn’t always work out that way. More often than not, we run into problems.

We don’t have any good ideas for new songs.
We’re not sure what kinds of songs we should be writing and for what market.
We get stuck working on one song that’s in trouble.
We’re scared our songs aren’t good enough so we don’t finish them.

We all know that the quality has to be there, but I bet you could write more songs and keep the quality at the level you want or even improve it. Here’s a whole bunch of ideas for writing FASTER and BETTER.

Hit Songwriting: “All On Me” – Devin Dawson

“All On Me” is the breakthrough debut single for Country artist Devin Dawson. It zoomed up to #2 on the Nielsen Radio charts, topping 19 million views on YouTube and 95 million listens on Spotify (and still climbing). A remarkable achievement for a single by a brand new artist.

I love digging into songs that propel a brand new artist up the charts. Those artists don’t have a billion fans breathlessly waiting for their next release, guaranteeing it shoots like a rocket straight into the Top Ten. Nope. Their releases have to make it on the strength of the song and performance. It takes an exceptional song with a lot of appeal to make that happen and that’s what makes these songs so much fun to pull apart.

SONG GUIDE

“All On Me” – Devin Dawson

Writers: Devin Dawson, Jacob Robert Durrett, Austin Taylor Smith

TECHNIQUES TO HEAR AND TRY:

Use a lyric “measuring stick” to express emotion.
Fresh rhymes are happening in all mainstream genres.
Create a contemporary melody using phrase patterns.
Make your hook stand out with a rhythmic melody line.

Hit Songwriting: “The Other” by Lauv

Songwriter and music artist Lauv.

Although I usually feature songs at the top of the mainstream music charts in this section, today I want to look at “The Other” by Lauv, an artist who took a different path to success and whose work and career provide plenty of inspiration for independent artists and songwriters.

Before huge hits like “I Like Me Better”—which has had over a billion and a half listens on Spotify—Lauv quietly released his self-produced single “The Other.” With one small break it launched his career.

Co-written with Michael Matosic, “The Other” debuted on a friend’s music blog and was picked up by other bloggers, spreading virally through blog aggregator Hype Machine. It just goes to prove that listeners WILL spread the word when they find good music.

Hit Songwriting: “Hello” by Adele

Hit songwriting with Adele: Hello.

I often suggest in my songwriting posts that you learn to sing and play (or just sing ) successful songs. But why is that so important? Because you miss so much when you don’t. It’s like the difference between zooming down a highway at 80 mph versus rolling slowly along with your head stuck out the window.

When you slow down, you notice things… road signs, blue sky. You feel every bump in the road and the smells on the breeze. At 80 miles-per-hour you can feel the emotional rush; when you slow down, you can learn what the rush is made of.

I thought it might be fun for you and I to slow down and go through the process of learning to play and sing a hit song together. I chose “Hello” by Adele because, as I listen to it, the 80 mile-per-hour experience is pretty good, and something tells me that if I slow down and take a closer look, there might be some good songwriting tips I could use to create that experience in songs of my own. So, let’s take it for a drive.