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 [...]

The first few lines of your song may determine whether your listener sticks around for more, or bails out. While you want your whole song to be engaging, you really want to draw them in with an interesting opening. Techniques like the use of metaphor, and engaging the listener’s senses will greatly help in bringing [...]

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. [...]

One of the single most important elements in a great-sounding, professional recording is the performance of the session musicians. There is a reason that the job of the session musician exists.

We are adapting this theory to the Musical realm in a practical way so that we (the artists) can more effectively write music and in turn have the audience recognize, understand, and appreciate our music much more.

Like a beauty ritual before bed, some people have a few things they need to have in place before they sit down to write a song. What are yours? Here’s mine: I like to do a little meditation before I start – even if it is only for five minutes. Usually my songwriting is based [...]

To do your songs justice when playing in front of a new audience, you owe it to yourself to work on some of your stage mannerisms. Even a great song can end up sounding rather mediocre if the groundwork isn’t laid for the audience to be receptive to your songs. Here are a few tips [...]

Writer’s block is the nemesis of songwriters – and even non songwriters. There are tons of suggestions and songwriting tips out there for what might work, and various suggestions on overcoming. These are the top 5 that consistently work for me. Mash random words togetherMany songwriters say that once they have a good song title [...]

Kenny Rogers recently came through town and spoke with our local newspaper. He had some interesting observations about what makes a good song, his thoughts on country radio (“they don’t owe me anything”), and the young performers coming up today. For the Blogging Muses readers looking for commercial songwriting advice, it doesn’t get any better [...]

Working as a producer for the last ten years, I’ve recorded with all kinds of artists from “fresh off the boat” newbies to artists whose experience in the world of music doubles or even triples my own. In every case, my role as a producer stays essentially the same.