Archive for September, 2006

Songwriters: A song a week. Could you do it?

By Don • Sep 20th, 2006 • Category: Inspiration, Songwriting Advice, Songwriting Articles, Songwriting News, Songwriting Tips

This is quite an inspirational piece for me as a songwriter.
So … there’s this guy, Jonathan Coulton, that decided to write a song a week for 1 year. He would post a new song every Friday that he recorded in his very modest home studio. He dubbed the project “Thing-A-Week”.
He started out not really knowing [...]



Sending some link love to other songwriting blogs

By Don • Sep 20th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting Advice, Songwriting Resources, Songwriting Tips, Songwriting Tools

I was poking around Google’s Blog Search tool and found some pretty cool songwriting blogs. There are some that have great promise. I would love to see more frequent updates - so head on over and let them know what you think. Leave a comment to let em know you were there:

Ultimate Songwriting BlogAt the [...]



Do music blogs REALLY help independent songwriters?

By Don • Sep 19th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting News

Last week I mentioned the launch of Idolator, another music blog. Since the blogging craze began a few years ago, music blogs have been heralded as “the great equalizer ” that would make boneheaded music execs and clueless product-oriented labels a thing of the past.
As a disclaimer, Blogging Muses doesn’t really qualify as a music [...]



Songwriters Ask: Should I rewrite?

By Don • Sep 18th, 2006 • Category: Inspiration, Songwriting Advice, Songwriting Articles, Songwriting Tips

Readers Ask: I have a fairly decent song I wrote in one sitting. Lyrics and music. I was amazed at how well it came to me. Should I leave it alone or should I try and rewrite?
Great question.
From a professional songwriting perspective, the answer is almost always a resounding “yes”. Professional songwriters are constantly looking [...]



Pop Songwriting Competition

By Don • Sep 16th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting Contests

Kevin Federline wannabes take note - Broadjam is hosting a Pop Song Contest.
According to the site:
By “popular” demand, Broadjam wants to hear your best “Pop” song on Broadjam .com. Whether it’s slow heartfelt ballad or a fast paced dance track, your Pop song has a chance of landing $250.00 popular dollars! Plus win popularity [...]



SOCAN Announces Songwriting Contest Nominees

By Don • Sep 16th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting Contests, Songwriting News

SOCAN (the Canadian Performance Rights Organization -ed.) announced today the Canadian songs nominated for the inaugural ECHO Songwriting Prize. The 5 nominated songs, as selected by an independent panel of eight (8) music community tastemakers, are:
“Destroyer” Olivier Corbeil, Timothy Fletcher, David Hamelin, Liam O’Neil
“This Lamb Sells Condos” Owen Pallett
“You Are a Runner and I Am [...]



U.S. Military Songwriters

By Don • Sep 15th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting Contests

Happy News lets us in on a cool little songwriting contest for the U.S. military and interviews some of the winners:
Army Sgt. J.R. Schultz was one of about 150 servicemembers who submitted original songs for the Dallas Songwriters Associations’ “Songs From the Soul of Service” amateur songwriting contest. He had two first-place songs, and a [...]



Songwriting Tip: Constrained writing

By Don • Sep 15th, 2006 • Category: Inspiration, Songwriting Advice, Songwriting Articles, Songwriting Tips

Gadsby is a novel written in 1939 by Ernest Vincent Wright. The unique feature of this novel was how he wrote it. He actually tied down the E-key of the typewriter so he was not allowed to use that letter in the entire novel!
While some might see this as unimaginable and a task of almost [...]



Songwriting News For The Weekend

By Don • Sep 15th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting News

Blog Critics review Stone Sour’s new album:
Stone Sour’s sophomore release is a wonderfully executed hard rock album, the likes of which are rarely heard. Their debut album from 2002 demonstrated their collective ability, and Come What(ever) May continues to put their impressive songwriting on display. (Link)
Country artist Keith Anderson talks to the Valencia County News [...]



New Music Site Launches

By Don • Sep 14th, 2006 • Category: Songwriting News

It’s not one of our sites, but it is one we’ll be checking in on often.
Gawker Media, the geniuses behind Lifehacker, Gawker and so forth, have launched Idolator.
According to the site:
We’re as obsessed with the music world as we are with the machinations behind it, and we’ll cover the people who are manufacturing the [...]



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