Contributed by: Cliff Goldmacher (www.EducatedSongwriter.com) Introduction Knowing when a song is finished is an entire article in and of itself so I’m going to predicate these comments on the understanding that your song is, indeed, done. While having a finished song is its own victory, there’s more work to do if you’re hoping to keep [...]

Written by: Cliff Goldmacher (www.EducatedSongwriter.com) The Right Kind of Love In order to suffer the slings and arrows which are an inevitable part of trying to generate income from your songs, it’s a good idea to love them first. I’m talking about a very specific kind of love here. What I’m not talking about is [...]

Written by: Cliff Goldmacher (www.EducatedSongwriter.com) I thought I would take a moment to tell you (and myself while I’m at it) a few of the things we have to be thankful for as songwriters. Songwriting is the kind of pursuit that often takes place in a vacuum with little or no encouragement and is, by [...]

Contributed by: Cliff Goldmacher (www.EducatedSongwriter.com) Having had the good fortune of song placements in both films and television shows, I can safely say there is no magic bullet when it comes to how to make this happen. That being said, there are certainly things that you, as a songwriter, can do to improve your odds. [...]

Contributed by: Cliff Goldmacher (www.EducatedSongwriter.com) As a new songwriter, you may be overwhelmed by all there is to do when it comes to moving forward in your career. I’d compare the approach of this article to eating the elephant one tiny bite at a time. In other words, by being patient, organized and methodical in your daily work [...]

Contributed by: Cliff Goldmacher of EducatedSongwriter.com Making your way through the maze of a musical career is a complicated endeavor to say the least. It’s doubly so given that you’ll have to make not only the musical decisions but also the critical business decisions along the way. I heard an expression a few years ago [...]

I can safely say that nothing ever moved as quickly as I thought it would and, yet, I’m constantly surprised at the ways that my long-forgotten efforts have come around to generate royalty income.

Looking back over twenty years to my first songwriting efforts, I remember my creative process as so personal and fragile that I was dead certain I would never open it up to another songwriter. This would have seemed like co-painting or more like co-dating…just not going to happen. However, two things DID happen. One, I [...]

The professional demo recording process is a necessary part of the equation for songwriters aspiring to get their material heard by music industry decision-makers and, hopefully, cut by successful recording artists. Despite the fact that hundreds of demos are recorded every week in places like Nashville, New York and Los Angeles, new songwriters often find [...]

Contributed by: Cliff Goldmacher from Educated Songwriter Sometimes songs come easy. You sit down and the whole thing pours out of you almost as if you’re simply transcribing it as it’s handed down to you from the heavens. Those are great but I’ve learned you can’t always count on it working that way. The other [...]