Songwriting Sessions: How to write Lyrics

(This post is a continuation of my last post on songwriting, "How to write a song", which you can read by clicking here.)

The question "How do I write lyrics?" is a bit vague, and can mean a few different things. It could mean, "How should I start writing lyrics (what method should I use to write)?", or it could mean, "Should I write simple or more complex lyrics? Should my lyrics rhyme or not?", and so on.. This blog post is more about the style of lyrics, and not so much how to start writing them. (I have a series of blog posts in which I start by writing the lyrics to a song first, which you can check out here).

Giving hard and fast rules for how to write lyrics is difficult, because it's a lot like asking, "What kind of poetry is best?" Some people prefer poetry that rhymes. Some don't. Some prefer a story that is very straightforward. Some prefer a more complex tale.

It's not wrong to write one way or another. It's up to you to decide how you want to write your lyrics. Let me give a few examples from some famous songs:

"Wonderful" by Everclear

I close my eyes when I get too sad
I think thoughts that I know are bad
Close my eyes and I count to ten
Hope it's over when I open them

Here we have some lyrics that rhyme (mostly, notice "ten" rhyming with "them"). The whole song is based on pretty simple rhyming. Is that good or bad?

Let's give another example:

"Karma Police" by Radiohead

Karma police
Arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio

Here we have lyrics that do not rhyme, that are not exactly straightforward. Is that good or bad?

"Who Let the Dogs Out?" by Baha Men

Who let the dogs out? [Who, who, who, who?!]
Who let the dogs out? [Who, who, who, who?!]
Who let the dogs out? [[who, who, who, who?!]
Who let the dogs out?

Here we have lyrics that do not rhyme at all, that are incredibly simple and repetitive (to be fair, the rest of the lyrics in the song are not quite that simple). Is this good or bad?

Then there are other great examples. The Beatles' "I am the Walrus" is basically nonsense, lyrically, but people love it.

All three of these songs were huge hits for these artists. So it's clearly possible to have a hit song with simple lyrics, or more complex lyrics. At the end of the day it's up to you to decide how you want to communicate with your audience.

Writing your own lyrics

Here's a sample of lyrics I've come up with on the spot:

I want to see the world when I'm young
I don't know where I might belong
Hope that I can get past this fear
I want to believe there's a purpose here

All I did was take Everclear's "Wonderful" and rewrite it. The meaning is completely different, the lyrics are completely different, but the rhythm of the words is pretty much the same. If I were to finish this song I'd probably write it in a different key, and I would definitely use a new melody and perhaps a different rhythm for the lyrics.

My goal is not to rip off their song, but rather to show you how easy it can be to write lyrics if you think creatively and practice. Use someone else's lyrics as inspiration and go from there, if you need to.

Start Writing, Don't Stop Writing

I've often been told the key to success in any writing endeavour is to keep writing. It's good advice.

Just keep writing! Your work will get better with practice. I have books of lyrics that I'd be embarrassed to show other people. But I've also got songs with lyrics that I'm really proud of. Keep writing and you'll have the same experience.

Look to others for examples

I've given some examples of hit songs above with very different lyrics. Find artists whose lyrics you like and ask yourself why you like them. The act of exploring lyrics from a successful song should help you to write your own.

And keep writing no matter what!

Friday Fun - Auld Lang Syne on Ukelele

Happy New Year! I hope 2017 is even better for you, and for all of us, than 2016, or any year prior. All the best.

Visualize

Can you play the song you're currently practicing in your mind?

Can you imagine every note sounding the way it should? 

Can you feel yourself playing the song in a relaxed and precise manner?

If the answer to any of these questions is "no", you've got some visualizing to do! Visualization, or "mental play" as it is occasionally called, is a very important skill to learn. All of the great composers like Mozart and Beethoven could and often would visualize their compositions as they were writing them. If it's good enough for Mozart and Beethoven, it's good enough for me!

Here are the two main reasons to learn to visualize:

1) It lets you practice away from your instrument

How would you like to be able to practice guitar or bass (or whatever instrument floats your boat) anywhere, at anytime? Visualization lets you do it. You will actually get better just by imagining your practice material.

No more excuses about not having time to practice, since you can practice anytime and anywhere (just promise me you won't visualize while driving or operating heavy machinery - and kids, pay attention to your schoolwork). You can even practice at night without disturbing anyone!

2) You make fewer mistakes when you are actually playing

Yes, the art of mental play or practice actually makes you more effective when you play. Otherwise, point #1 above wouldn't make much sense, since the whole point of practice is to get better at playing your instrument. But what is surprising is that it can make you much better at playing in a small amount of time. This makes sense if you consider that your playing starts in your mind, so if you can picture it clearly, chances are the connection between your brain and fingers is strong enough to allow for proper playing.

I've seen students who couldn't play a passage of music, then after visualizing it once or twice, they could play it. It's almost magical to observe, but it works.

How to visualize

I don't really have any hard and fast rules for visualizing. I suppose your goal is to picture yourself playing the music perfectly - and when I say "picture yourself", I don't mean, "imagine what you look like". I mean something more like, "imagine what it feels and sounds like, and maybe what your instrument looks like to you when playing".

Try visualizing any section of music you're finding difficult. It should make it at least a little easier. I see immediate progress almost every time I or one of my students apply visualizing during our lessons.

Don't worry if it's not perfect at first. I have a really hard time visualizing, as I never really tried doing it in the first 18 or 19 years of playing. You'll probably learn to do it faster than I will! Old habits die hard, after all. But it does get easier with time and practice.

"How often should I visualize?"

Visualize anytime you have an opportunity. Bored while sitting in someone else's car, or on the bus? Visualize (just don't miss your bus stop!). Waiting to meet someone somewhere? Visualize. Can't sleep at night? What a great opportunity to visualize!

Visualizing will greatly improve your ability to play your instrument. Apply it to your practice regimen today.

Wednesday Weekly Progress Update - December 28

Whew! It's been a busy week despite Pro Music (the school where I work) being closed for ten days for the Christmas holidays. I've been to three Christmas dinners in the last four days (it would have been four had it not been for freezing rain warnings keeping us home for the third event).

Nevertheless, I've made some progress this week. Here's how things are going for me...

Here is my weekly progress update (which has become a regular Wednesday occurrence):

1) This blog - ongoing:

I've got a table of contents page (click here if you want to check it out) that should allow you to more easily find what you're looking to learn. Want to know about songwriting? Check the list of songwriting posts. New to guitar? Follow the links in order to start learning!

As with many things on this blog, it is a work in progress, but it will be updated after every post (except for these ones, because you don't really need to know my weekly progress to learn how to play your instrument)..

Progress is very good here.

Progress so far: 3.25% - table of contents is up and running

2) Songs For Ghosts (my 2nd album):

I haven't taken as many opportunities to record this week.Admittedly I probably could have spent at least another hour or three on this and didn't. But I won't make excuses and tonight I should be starting work on vocals.

I have to listen to one rhythm guitar track but the rest seem good.

Progress so far: 47% - rhythm guitar might be done!

3) Poster for my office:

Some progress here, not much. I'm trying to make some posts on here that relate to the poster.

Progress so far: 33% - still working on putting all of it in order with the proper wording

4) Other repertoire - ongoing:

Here is my repertoire and my progress with it:

Songs for Ghosts (album #2, currently recording): working on vocals now

One Day I Will Walk the City Streets Naked and Without Shame (tentative title for album #3, currently writing): of the 14 songs on the album, I think I worked on two or three of them. Lyrics have started and progress is good on that front.

Cover songs: I'm currently working on 5 songs:

Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel

Sharp-Dressed Man - Peter Gabriel

In Bloom - Nirvana

How Long Will I Love You? - About Time soundtrack (performed by Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney, Ben Coleman, but originally by Ellie Goulding)

This Flight Tonight - Nazareth (it's a Joni Mitchell song, but I'm playing more in the style of Nazareth)

I didn't practice the Nirvana or Ellie Goulding song this week, but the others all saw some good progress.

Progress so far: Album #2 is going well, Album #3 is slow but steady, cover songs are going well

Here's hoping progress is good for you! Keep at it!

Why You Should Learn Your Scales

No matter what instrument I an teaching my students - guitar, bass, ukelele, or piano - I always try to teach them how to play at least some scales. When I say try I really mean that I attempt to explain the importance of scales, then cross my fingers and hope they actually do learn them.

The fact is, most students don't understand the reasons they should learn scales, and perhaps you are one of them. In this post I'm going to list a number of reasons why it's important to know your scales. Without further ado...

Top 8 reasons to learn scales (off the top of my head)...

1) They're good for finger warm-ups at the start of practice.
(Related post: Warm Up With Scales)
Every musician needs a bit of a warm up, something to get the fingers awake and moving, and to get the blood flowing. Scales are perfect for this - they generally require all of the fingers to be used, and rarely require any serious stretch or force to play.

2) They're important for learning (or even writing) solos and melodies.
(Related post: Solos are Based on Scales)
That amazing guitar solo you just heard in your favourite song? Yeah, I can pretty much guarantee that it's based on a scale. If you know the scales, you can learn how these solos are built (and maybe even write one yourself). The same applies for the melodies to most songs.

3) They make it easier to improvise when playing.
(Related post: "Improvise Using Scales")
If you know your scales, you will have a much easier time improvising. Most of the stuff that will sound good while you're playing will be based on one (or more) scale(s).

4) They make it easier to understand how to tune your instrument.
(Related post: Tuning the Guitar, Step 2: Tuning Without a Tuner)
Learning scales often leads to knowing what the different note names are for your fretboard. Knowing this can occasionally save you some hassles while tuning.

5) They are useful in understanding how to build chords.
(Related posts: Chords are Based on Scales, Each Scale Contains Multiple Chords)
Virtually all chords are based on scales. Learn the scales, understand the chords.

6) They make songwriting much easier.
Guess what? Basically every song you've ever liked is based on a scale! So if you're into writing songs, chances are you want to write something you like, which means whatever you end up writing is going to be based on a scale. Can you write songs without knowing scales? Absolutely. Is it easier than just learning the scales? No way! Learn those scales, and then maybe you'll become the next great songwriter.

7) They make learning songs by ear much easier to do.
As I said, songs are typically based on scales. Know the scales and you can begin to learn songs by ear more easily.

8) They make your fingers smarter.
You will learn songs more easily because, as I mentioned above, songs are often based on scales, which means a lot of parts to songs use the same fingering as a scale. If you know your scales, you learn songs faster. Sweet deal! This tends to make sight reading easier as well.

Here are a few sample scales.

Some samples scales

C scale pattern form III (guitar): Here is a C scale pattern for guitar. It is one of the easier ones to learn. the fingering follows the frets, so use your first finger for fret 1, finger 2 for fret 2, and finger 3 for fret 3.

C scale (piano, various other instruments): The first scale most pianists learn. As good a place to start as any!

If you play ukelele, bass, or guitar, and you're looking to get started on scales, check out my post on warming up with scales here.

The moral of the story is: Learn your scales!

Table of Contents

Hello!

This is my table of contents page for my website. Whether you're learning guitar, bass, ukelele, or songwriting, this page will be updated on a regular basis to make your stay at my site as useful and easy-to-navigate as possible.

Just find the appropriate page containing the information you're looking for below. As I said, I'll keep updating this page as I add new pages.

LAST UPDATED: February 10, 2017

GUITAR

Buying a Guitar
Buying Your First Guitar, Part 1: Electric Guitars
Buying Your First Guitar, Part 2: Acoustic Guitars
Buying Your First Guitar, Part 3: Buying a Good Quality Guitar

Starting Out

The Basics of Playing Guitar
What's the hardest style of music to learn on guitar and/or bass?
Notes on the Guitar Fretboard
Why You Should Learn Your Scales
Practice: Develop "non-zero" practice habits (coming soon)
Visualize
Care and maintenance of your instrument (coming soon)

Tuning Your Guitar
How to Tune Your Guitar, Step 1: Using a Tuner
How to Tune Your Guitar, Step 2: Tuning the Guitar to Itself
How to Tune Your Guitar Step 3: Alternate Tunings
Overtones (coming soon?)


BASS

Starting Out
What's the hardest style of music to learn on guitar and/or bass?
Why You Should Learn Your Scales
Practice: Develop "non-zero" practice habits (coming soon)
Visualize
Care and maintenance of your instrument (coming soon)

SONGWRITING
What makes a song "good"?
What's the number one rule for songwriting?
How to write a Song
How to write lyrics
Writing the music before the lyrics

UKELELE
The Basics of Playing Ukelele

Songwriting Sessions: How to write a song

So you're interested in songwriting, but you have no idea how to write a song. You've come to the right place! In this post I'll be giving you some ideas for how you can write you very song. I'll go over some popular methods, and by the end you should have an idea for how to get started.

The first and most important element of songwriting is actually remembering what you wrote (I wrote a short post about that here). Find a way to remember what you wrote!

How to write a song

There are different ways you can go about writing a song. I heard once that David Bowie used to write sentences (or was it just one word?) on  small pieces of paper, put them in a hat, and then pick them out of that hat at random and attempt to rearrange them into a song. Strange!

I don't think there is one strictly superior method of writing a song, so I'll give a short list of ways you can write music below:

Method 1: Write the lyrics first 

(This method obviously doesn't apply if you're writing an instrumental song.)

If you're stuck on writing the next big pop or rock song, why not start with the lyrics? If you write the words to the song first, it might give you an idea of what kind of tune you're really looking to make, and maybe the chord progression will be more obvious.

I have used this method before many times - back when I didn't really get how to make a decent chord progress, I used to write a lot of lyrics. In fact, most of my old lyrics never actually found a home (I never wrote the music for them)!

If you've never written lyrics before, don't over think it. Just write about whatever seems important at the time. Don't worry if they seem bad (some songs have simple lyrics, some songs don't - more about that in my post on writing lyrics here), they're probably fine (and even if you don't like them you'll get better with practice).

Method 2: Write the music first

Grab your guitar, sit down at your piano, or pull out your ukelele (or whatever it is you play), and just start playing! Put together a chord progression, start improvising a melody, find something that sounds nice. Then find something else that sounds nice that connects to that. Repeat until you have enough of a song to start writing the lyrics (assuming you have one)

If you don't know how to come up with a chord progression and want to write one using your guitar, piano, or ukelele, here are some examples (I'll be discussing this in depth over the next while, so you'll be learning plenty about this soon)

C G Am F

G F C G

Am G F E

Bm G D A

Method 3: Combine methods 1 and 2 (write the lyrics and music together)

Grab your instrument of choice, and start playing and singing! Sometimes the music will lend itself to certain words or phrases, and before you know it you've got a song on your hands!

Any spots where you don't have words can be replace by humming or singing something like "la la la" or "doo doo" (or whatever noise suits you best).

Method 3-and-a-half: Mix and match methods 1 and 2

Sometimes I'll start writing lyrics and get stuck, so I'll grab my guitar and start trying to find a chord progression and melody. Then I'll do that until I feel the need to get some more lyrics, and I'll stop and go back to my pen and paper.

I like to think of this as "mixing and matching" methods 1 and 2 - you start with one method, then go to the other when you get stuck, then keep bouncing back as you get stuck on one particular method. It's just one more way to keep yourself from making excuses and believing that you can't finish a song!

Method 4: Steal from someone else's song

Okay, I'm mostly joking, but here's a method that can provide interesting results. Listen to a song you really like, and as you're listening, come up with your own part - a small melody to complement the original, for example. Then, once you've got something that sounds good, try singing it (or playing it) away from the song. Try to come up with your own progression (probably in the same key), and you've now got the start of your own song!

There are other ways to take inspiration from someone else's song, like:

- coming up with a new melody using the same rhythm (as the song's melody)
- using a similar theme but different lyrics and melody
- writing a song with the same chord progression, but with completely different rhythm and tempo (so your song might be slower and with a different rhythm to the strumming)
- many other methods (use your imagination!)

I'm sure you can come up with creative ways to find inspiration from another's song - just be sure to make your song very different than the song that inspired you! (The last thing you want is a lawsuit)

Many other methods...

I'm sure there are other methods you can use to write a song, with a little imagination... feel free to let me know of any other ways you use to write songs - I'd love to hear about them!

If you get stuck...

Remember the following: restriction breeds creativity

If you're stuck writing a song, try to come up with restrictions to your song, like:
- write a song that has only 4 chords
- write a song with only piano and vocals
- write a song in the key of A
- write a song in dorian mode
etc.

Placing restrictions on your song tends to make it easier to write (and you can always get rid of any restriction you have later, if it seems appropriate). I use this method all the time to great success. I've even got a "song bucket list" going, where my goal is to one day write a song using one of the restrictions on my list - you can check it out here.

Keep writing!

No matter what, just keep writing. Write in the good times and the bad. Write when you think you're hot stuff and when you think your writing is garbage. Just keep writing! It will keep getting better...

Friday Fun - Silent Night on Ukelele

Merry Christmas and God bless.

What is the hardest style of music to learn on guitar and/or bass?

I was thinking today about which style of music is actually hardest to learn, on either guitar or bass.
My gut reaction was to make the following two lists. They're ordered from hardest to easiest.

In time I plan to write a short intro to each style of music so you can get an idea of what's needed to learn these styles of music. (Links will be added to the list as I make the posts.)

Guitar:
EASIEST TO LEARN
Blues
Pop
Funk
Folk
R&B
Rock
Metal
Jazz
Classical
HARDEST TO LEARN

Bass:
EASIEST TO LEARN
Pop
Blues
Rock
Metal
R&B
Jazz

Funk

HARDEST TO LEARN

First thing I wanted to mention: You'll notice the order isn't the same. Funk is usually much harder to learn on bass than guitar, because it often involves slapping, popping, which are some of  the more advanced techniques for bass. By contrast, a lot of guitar work in funk tends to involve strumming the same chord (or very similar sounding chords).

I also didn't list classical for bass, since you don't often hear bassists playing classical music, whereas classical guitar is a genre and art form in and of itself, one very different than the other styles of playing.

If you disagree with my list, that's understandable. I'm not 100% sure about the order - I think an argument can be made that the hardest heavy metal songs are more difficult to learn than the hardest jazz songs, for example (but I think you need to know more theory -  a lot more - to play jazz than you do metal). I tried to answer by thinking, "In general, which genre requires more practice, more knowledge, and greater technique?"

As I said, I'm not totally sure about this. But if you were learning guitar and wanted the easiest way to get started, the blues might be your ticket. I don't often teach blues first, but that's based on student preference more than what's easiest to learn.

Wednesday Weekly Progress Update - December 21

Here is my weekly progress update (which has become a regular Wednesday occurrence):

1) This blog - ongoing:

I made a blog post about my poster that's going to go up in my office where I teach guitar (the link to the blog post is here, but there's not much to see... yet!)

I've gotten into a pretty good rhythm as to what I should be doing on any particular day. Tuesdays are when I post about theory, Wednesdays I update my progress, Thursdays tend to be more philosophical ("What makes a good song?", etc.), Fridays are just something fun, and Saturdays are about songwriting. Sundays and Mondays are a bit of a wild card (and sometimes I take Sundays off).

Progress is good.

Progress so far: 2.75% - a good sense of direction and lots of updates behind the scenes

2) Songs For Ghosts (my 2nd album):

I think the rhythm guitar tracks are all done except for one. I've had LOTS of retakes - I'm a perfectionist and want my tracks to sound as good as possible - but progress is being made.

In theory, rhythm guitar should be all recorded tomorrow night and I should be starting on the vocals or lead guitar on Friday.

Progress so far: 45% - almost done rhythm guitar, about to start recording vocals

3) Poster for my office:

Mentioned above, see point #1.

Progress so far: 32% - working on putting all of it in order with the proper wording

4) Other repertoire - ongoing:

Here is my repertoire and my progress with it:

Songs for Ghosts (album #2, currently recording): I can play all nine songs (track 1 on the album is an acapella piece), though not without the occasional error. They are generally fit for performance and almost all ready for recording.

One Day I Will Walk the City Streets Naked and Without Shame (tentative title for album #3, currently writing): of the 14 songs currently projected for this album (and things can and do change at any time, so songs could be added, replaced, etc.), most are still being written. Several are being written on piano, one on ukelele, one on bass(!), ,and the rest on either electric or acoustic guitar. I'm very excited about these songs as I expect this album is going to have drums, bass, piano, guitars, ukelele, keyboards, and more.

Cover songs: I'm currently working on 5 songs:

Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel

Sharp-Dressed Man - Peter Gabriel

In Bloom - Nirvana

How Long Will I Love You? - About Time soundtrack (performed by Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney, Ben Coleman, but originally by Ellie Goulding)

This Flight Tonight - Nazareth (it's a Joni Mitchell song, but I'm playing more in the style of Nazareth)

I'm learning these cover songs for personal reasons the likes of which I won't go into right now (mostly as a thank you to various members of my family). Progress is good on all songs - I'm 

attempting them all on acoustic guitar which has led to some interesting results so far.

Progress so far: Album #2 is going well, Album #3 is slow but steady, cover songs are about halfway there...

Here's hoping your own repertoire is progressing!

What is a Minor Chord?

Minor chords are perhaps the second most popular chord in music, second only to major chords (as I suggested in my post on major chords here). Today's post is about how to make a minor chord.

As with major chords, there are a few good ways to describe minor chords:

1) Minor chords are sad sounding chords.
2) Major chords are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a minor scale.
3) A minor chord is composed of three notes: the first and second form a minor third interval, and the second and third form a major third interval.

If you're seeing a lot of similarities to my post on major chords (if you haven't read it, you should - just click here), you're a perceptive musician. The first description is often true, but not always (I think a Dm in the key of C doesn't always sound sad... but we'll take more about keys later).The third description requires some knowledge of intervals which you may not yet have (we'll talk about this later, too). So, again, for those of you who don't know intervals, I'm going to use the second description - the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a minor scale - to teach you about minor chords.

Let's use an Am (read: "A minor") scale - A B C D E F G A - the easiest major scale. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of an Am scale are A, C, and E, respectively. So if you play A, C, and E together, you're playing an A minor (Am) chord!

Unlike with "major" chords, we never leave out the "minor" part when describing the chord

Well, that's not totally true. Sometimes musicians will simply say "A" instead of "A minor", but I consider it poor form. Why? Because it's not always clear when you say "A chord" (instead of "A minor chord") whether you'd want an A major chord or an A minor chord (I would assume A major). So always be clear when you want it to be a minor chord!

More than one of the same note is allowed

Just like with major chords, you can have the same note in different octaves. Your Am chord can have as many As, Cs, and Es as you want, just make sure to have at least one of each.

As an example, the first Am chord most people learn on guitar has the following notes, from fifth string (A) to first string (high E): A E A C E. If you accidentally (or purposely) play the low E string as well, then you're just adding another E to get E A E A C E.

The lowest note (in terms of pitch) of the chord is often the "root" of the chord (but not always!)

Much like a major chord, we often make the lowest note of the chord the root (so for an A minor, the lowest note would be an A). Sometimes we want a different note as our "bass note", but usually it's the root.

Let's sum up what we've learned about minor chords:

1) Minor chords are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note of a minor scale. 
2) You can include the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the same minor scale in a different octave (if you want to play more than 3 notes in your chord).
3) No other notes allowed! (so don't try to sneak an F# into your Am unless you want a completely different sounding chord!)

You now should know how to make a minor chord (and a major chord, if you read the post on major chords), so congrats! You're now well on your way to understanding how chords work, since a lot of chords are in fact based on either minor or major chords.

Mastery Poster

This is the post I'm making about a poster I'm putting up in my classroom. It's basically a list of things you need to know or understand to be a master at your instrument (whether it's guitar, bass, or ukelele).

This post will be continuously updated as I work on making this poster a reality. For now, try to imagine what the deeper meaning might be of some of the advice given below.

Last updated: May 30, 2017

Most of the listings aren't numbered because I'm re-ordering them. Look for this list to be solid and in order once all of the posts are done!

1. Practice!
2. Tune your instrument
3. Start with the basics
4. Warm up!
5. Prevent injury
6. Visualize
7. Understand the permanence of practice
8. Play through your mistakes.
9. Work in two dimensions
10. Listen to the song

11. Develop your sense of rhythm!
Learn to read the music
Memorize!
Learn proper guitar care
Learn HS practice (the 150 rule)
Know the difference between practicing and playing
That which is worst should be practiced best
Temet Nosce ("Know thyself")
Don't compare yourself to others
Technique before gear (know thy technique for your instrument, whether bass/uke/guit...)

Watch your hands (some of the time); related - Watch for proper hand position
Learn when to play slowly
Be grateful
Be sure your teacher is grateful
When in doubt, double-check the music (double-check anyway)
Guess when necessary
Know thy tempo
Measure your progress objectively
Test your limits and your beliefs
Learn to start playing the song from any note

Explore the unknown
Understand the metronome
Check each part of the machine
Take breaks when necessary
Get motivated, stay motivated
Ask better questions
Learn theory

Songwriting Sessions: What's the number one rule for songwriting?

What is the most important rule of songwriting? Some might argue that the most important rule is something like, "Make sure the song is good", "Write every day", or "Write the lyrics first". I wouldn't say that you have to write lyrics first (but if that's of interest to you, it is a great way to write songs, and I've written about it here), but to some songwriters it's important. And while, overall, these three rules might be important to some or even most songwriters, I can think of a rule even more important than all of them:

REMEMBER WHAT YOU WROTE!

Honestly! I can't tell you the number of times I've forgotten parts to songs I've begun to write.

Find a way to keep track of your work. Paper and pen. Better yet, it's the modern age, and if you're reading this you either have a phone or a computer, or both. Use one to record your work in progress.

If you're new to songwriting, trust me when I say to keep track of your work somehow. You will forget things and regret it later.

Find a way to remember what you've written! Then you can consider any other ideas about songwriting that seem important to you.

And be sure to keep writing!

Friday Fun - Slappy Christmas?

Here's a great little version of a Christmas classic, "Sleigh Bells". Enjoy!

How Good Do I Need To Be At Guitar?

(Replace "guitar" with "ukelele", "bass", etc., as necessary)

I guess my answer to that question would be another question: How good do you want to be? Followed by another question: How long are you willing to work for it? Or, "Are you willing to work for as long as it takes?" (I wrote a post about figuring out who you are as a musician that's relevant to these questions, which you can read here).

Some guitarists just want to learn to play the blues. And you can have a lot of fun doing something like that, if that's your thing. Learn a few blues scales, learn some simple fretboard theory, jam with some backing tracks. How good you want to be will be up to you, but it shouldn't take long before you start to sound musical - weeks, months perhaps.

Other guitarists want to be the next Eddie Van Halen, or so they claim. The truth is that most guitarists who claim to want to play that well tend not to put the time and effort into actually making it happen. But, if you will (and you want to be that good), you may be in for some long days of practice. I wouldn't expect you to sound anywhere near as good as Eddie Van Halen for years (assuming you put the time in, and with the right methods).

Me? I love writing music. As long as what I'm writing means something to me - and is something that others enjoy - I'm pretty happy. On the skill/technical front, I try to make sure I'm getting better at all of my instruments - guitar (acoustic and electric), ukelele, bass, piano, and vocals - as I progress with my songs. If I see progress, I'm happy.

I have no serious desire to play as well as Eddie. He's awesome. But I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing - writing music, and teaching guitar, bass, piano, and ukelele.

How good do you want to be? And, perhaps more importantly, how much are you willing to work to become that good?

Wednesday Weekly Progress Update - December 14

Here is my weekly progress update and how I've been doing with my various musical projects.

1) This blog - ongoing:

I've started on my post about my poster - I'm working on a guitar/bass/ukelele mastery poster that covers all of the fundamental steps necessary to achieve mastery in these instruments.

I've been posting almost everyday, and progress is good, so no complaints here.

Progress so far: 2.25%? (Slightly more than last week)

2) Songs For Ghosts (my 2nd album):

I think I've got all but 2 of the main rhythm guitar tracks finished for the album. One of the challenges for recording has been that I don't have the ideal studio set up, so I can't always be sure of the quality of the tracks on first inspection. It'll get fixed at some point, for now I'll just suffer through it.

I haven't started vocals yet, but I will soon - I've been prioritizing the rhythm guitar tracks first.

Progress so far: 40% - need to finish guitar and start on the vocals

3) Poster for my office:

As I said above, I've begun my blog post on my poster. It will eventually be a highly-linked post, where every item on the list will link to its own article/blog post on the subject. I've begun ordering the topics based on importance, and things are looking good.

Progress so far: 22% - I have most of the ideas but am far from actual conception of the poster.

4) Other repertoire - ongoing:

Most of my practice has been for album recording and songs for my 3rd album, and has been productive. I have yet to find a really solid rhythm for practicing all of my repertoire - call it a casualty of perhaps being spread too thin... but I'll get there eventually.

Here's hoping your projects and songs are going well!

What is a Major Chord?

Major chords are the most popular chords in music (I would say minor chords are a close second). But just what makes a chord a "major" chord, anyway? That's what this post is going to teach you.

There are several different ways to describe major chords:

1) Major chords are happy sounding chords.
2) Major chords are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a major scale.
3) A major chord is composed of three notes: the 1st and 2nd note form a major third interval, and the 2nd and 3rd note form a minor third interval.

The first description is easiest to understand but gives the least amount of information, and some might disagree with it. While it's fair to say that major chords generally sound happy, they don't always sound happy in the context of a song (as an example, listen to the first couple of chords in  Radiohead's song "Just").

The third description is useful but requires a knowledge of intervals in general and major and minor third intervals in particular, which is at least one or two lessons in and of itself. If you already know about intervals, then chances are you already understand what is required to play a major chord.

I will be using the second description - the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a major scale - to teach you about major chords.

Let's use a C scale - C D E F G A B C - the easiest major scale. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a C scale are C, E, and G, respectively (count yourself if you don't believe me). So if you play C, E, and G together, you're playing a C major chord!

We often leave out the "major" part when describing the chord

For example, it's not uncommon for people to say, "play a C chord" rather than "play a C major chord" (but either is acceptable).

More than one of the same note is allowed

You're allowed to play more than one C, E, or G when playing a C chord. Most guitarists' first C chord has the following notes from lowest to highest: CEGCE (the C notes are an octave apart, as are the E notes). It doesn't matter how many you have of each note, just be sure that no other notes sneak into your chord (that would change the chord that you're playing).

The lowest note (in terms of pitch) of the chord is often the "root" of the chord (but not always!)

In other words, for a C major chord, the lowest note is usually C (the root, or 1st note of a C scale), but some songs sound better if the E or the G are lowest (these chords are often called an "inversion", but we'll talk about that in another post). It is sometimes difficult to make a major chord sound correct if the lowest note isn't the root, but with enough time and study you can start to understand when those chords will sound like the right choice.

There is more that can be said about major chords, but let's sum up what we've learned here:

1) Major chords are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note of a major scale. 
2) You can include the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the same major scale in a different octave (if you want to play more than 3 notes in your chord).
3) No other notes allowed! (That changes the name of the chord that you're playing)

Most instruments like piano, guitar, and ukelele teach you how to play chords before you actually understand what those chords mean. But if you've ever wondered why some of those chords are called major chords, now you've got your answer!

Songwriting Sessions: What makes a song good?

What makes for a good song?

I'm not sure there's a perfect answer to that question, but I think it is the quest to answer it that allows us to develop as songwriters. I think there are a lot of elements that are common to many (though not all) successful songs, but I think at the heart of it, songwriting is all about effective communication. 

In other words, is anyone listening to what you have to say?

As I share my experiences (both successes and failures) as a songwriter, I think I can provide some insight, but before I try to do that, you should really ask yourself: What do I want to say, and how will I make sure that others will hear it?

Not everyone would agree that popularity is a good metric. While some would say that a hit song must be, by definition, a good song (because it is popular), others would say the exact opposite. Who is right?

I will attempt to guide you on the path to answering these kinds of questions yourself. I believe that a song's popularity does say something about it - if it's good, people generally will want to hear it - and although I don't think that's all of the story, you will often see me reference hit songs (especially if more than one follows the same pattern for success, e.g. the guitar solo is based on a pentatonic scale). At any rate, I am only a guide. You will be the final arbiter when deciding what is good and what isn't.

I will end this post with links to three very distinct but popular songs. Perhaps listening to them will aid you in your journey to discover yourself as a songwriter.

Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons

Friday Fun - Drifting

Back before YouTube was a hub for every recording artist, the only official music (I don't remember when unofficial fan and "lyric" videos started) you'd typically find was from lesser known artists.

One such artist was Andy McKee, who is a phenomenal guitar talent. The song posted below, "Drifting", was one of the biggest videos of YouTube at the time (I've posted the version from Andy Mckee's Vevo page, because I'm guessing it's more to his benefit than linking to the original, which you can find here).

At any rate, this song is a great example of thinking outside the box when it comes to playing guitar. (And the benefit of practice!)

Enjoy!

Is it okay to "fix it in the mix'?

I've been doing a lot of recording lately, and one of the questions I keep asking myself is, "Just how perfect does this recording have to be?". Then other related questions spring to mind:
"If I make a mistake, can I fix it in the mix? Or should I even bother?"

Maybe the recording would sound even cooler if there were a few lively mistakes (not large ones, of course)! Maybe not... to be honest, I'm not really sure what the correct answers are to these questions.

As an example, some would argue that a song is less perfect if the "preamble" is left in (by "preamble" I mean the stuff that happens before the musician actually starts playing). But sometimes it just sounds cool - a number of tracks on Oasis' "The Masterplan", a collection of B-sides have some of this extra audio left in, and  I think I like those songs better because of the extra stuff at the beginning.

I've also done it in my own song before, although it was at the end of the song, not the beginning.One of the songs from my first album, "Don Quixote", has a bunch of talking at the end that was supposed to be deleted, but once I heard it in the mix, I had to keep it. (I'll be putting up a link to it soon - I haven't forgotten!)

Should I edit my mistakes? Is it okay for me to "punch in" and start recording the guitar again at the chorus, and mix the two together? Isn't it worth it if the song sounds better?

I think for now I'll err on the side of re-recording until my gut tells me that what I've done sounds good. I expect that means more takes, more recording, and a lot more time and effort, but I'm okay with that. I'm sure the occasional quirk will find its way onto some of the tracks and I'm fine with that, too, if it sounds cool.

In conclusion: no "fixing it in the mix", but leave in any cool quirky stuff that comes up while recording.

Wednesday Weekly Progress Update - December 7

Here is my weekly progress update and how I've been doing with my various musical projects.

1) This blog - ongoing:

I've finished part 2 in my series on tuning (How to Tune Your Guitar, Step 2: Tuning the Guitar to Itself), and I've started on step 3 (alternate tunings). I've tidied up a few old posts, and started a few other posts, and I've got a clearer picture of what I'm going to be doing on a weekly basis. Good progress was made this week - still pretty slow, but steady nonetheless.

Progress so far: 2%? (Slightly more than last week)

2) Songs For Ghosts (my next album):

Upon closer inspection of my guitar recordings, some of them aren't up to snuff. The plan at this point is to re-record the guitar for 5 of the songs. The other 4 guitar songs are good to go, so I'll be recording vocals soon.

I've come up with a few ideas for other guitar parts and vocals, so I'm excited to see how things shape up.

Progress so far: 35% - need to finish guitar and start on the vocals

3) Poster for my office:

I've got most of the poster mapped out and I'm starting to work on cleaning up the wording for it. This is still a very low-priority for me, so I'm still only doing a little bit each week.

Progress so far: 18% - I have most of the ideas but am far from actual conception of the poster.

4) Other repertoire - ongoing:

Not much progress here. Hurting my hand last week slowed me down here, but I expect to see more practice here next week.

Keep practicing and working away at your goals!

Weekly Progress - December 3

I feel a bit silly writing about my progress this week. I've been having hand problems (pain), which seem to be the result of having an improper sized standing desk for my computer. I'm on the mend, but I need to fix my desk!

This shouldn't affect future progress, and even with injury there's no real excuse not to get some things done. For example, I can continue to progress using "mental play", i.e. visualization, which wouldn't aggravate my injuries (but would help me with learning my repertoire).

I'll give a new update next week!