Songwriter Advisor Blog

If you ever need songwriting help or if you doubt any aspect of your songwriting for whatever reason, there are plenty of free songwriting resources to turn to on the worlwide web. 

As much as I’d like to think of this SongwriterAdvisor.com blog and its parent website, SongwriterAdvisor.com as your “one stop shop” for songwriting resources, that would be egotistical and foolish! There is so much free songwriting help on various websites, and you just have to weed through information you believe will help your particular issue or stage of learning how to write songs. 

It pays to spread your knowledge out and learn as much as you can from all songwriting resources available.  I myself, have been a long-time fan of Muses Muse which I still consider to be one of the best complete songwriting resources, and quite a few other websites listed at the bottom of this blog.

Most songwriting webmasters launch their websites simply out of love for the craft of songwriting, and to share their usually vast experience and knowledge with fellow songwriters.  If they make a little advertising income from the process so that it at least pays for hosting, then that’s fine also.  But I can tell you this;  the time put in to maintain the average songwriting website yields less than .050 cents an hour!  This is because “songwriting” is simply not a sought after or highly clicked “niche” market, and it takes a lot of effort to map out successful techniques for songwriters.

But looking through the internet, it’s easy to see how much time and effort songwriters have put forth in making their blogs and websites beneficial to other songwriters.  I’ve always tried to keep an open mind and learn from as many resources as possible, so today, without blowing smoke, I want to sincerely thank the songwriting webmaster community for pursuing their love for songwriting, and for providing their songwriting resources so that we can all better ourselves in the process.  With that said, I would also like to remind all songwriters there is a wealth of knowledge waiting to be devoured by placing keywords such as “songwriting help” and “free songwriting tips” into your Google search box!

One of the most frequent questions I inevitably receive when I’m in a group of friends or in a family gathering is, “Hey Dude, I heard you’re into songwriting.  How’s your blog coming along?  What’s the best way to learn songwriting without spending too much?”  These questions usually come from folks who’ve been closet songwriters, dabbling a little here and there, secretly hoping they can write the next Beyonce hit without any guidance or training whatsoever. 

It’s a mistake to try to tackle songwriting without any basic songwriting knowledge.  It’s kinda’ like blindly walking into a snowstorm hoping you’ll eventually survive and come out the other end, still alive.  Well, maybe not that drastic, but you do need to know what you’re doing and facing so you can have the best chance at continually improving.  You can accomplish this by studying the basics of your songwriting craft and eventually knowing how to gauge your work as well as other songwriters’ work for your improvement. 

It’s true, in pop music, virtually anyone can pull a hit out of a hat but I guarantee you the majority of those one-hit wonders with no training had a tough time placing a second song.  I don’t know anyone in this music industry who’s wanted to be here-today-gone-tomorrow!       

For those of you who’d like to but are unsure about whether or not you can become good songwriters, believe it! Songwriting is a little part natural talent and a whole lot of craft through uncomplicated training. It’s more about getting out there and just doing it than wondering why it is that you’ll never have the talent to blow people away like John Mayer.  How do you know if you haven’t tried?

The training I’m talking about is through websites and blogs like this one or the ones listed in this blog’s footer (see Network Links below). All you have to know is what to look for. There’s plenty of information on how to write songs out there so I’m going to give you the keywords to get started.

To start quickly learning, aside from “songwriting,” “write songs,”, “how to write songs,”, and “songwriting help,” these are the terms and songwriting principles you can type into your web browser:

1. song hook
2. song verse
3. song chorus
4. guitar chords
5. piano chords
6. song bridge
7. song forms
8. rhythm
9. harmony
10. melody
11. how to write lyrics
12. Prechorus
13. rhyming

For example: I took the first entry “song hook,” typed it into the google browser and the first entry was Hook (music) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  This entry pretty much explained the whole concept of what a “song hook” is.

Take each term and read as many website entries as possible and before long you’ll have a pretty good understanding of basic songwriting principles.  Little by little, you’ll see how the pieces of the puzzle start coming together.

Remember, these keywords are merely a starting point and should definitely get you going in the right direction.

Learning the craft of songwriting is very much about gathering information bits at a time, applying it immediately whether you sing or play an instrument, and figuring out where and how you can progressively make improvements. It is conceivable for a newbie songwriter to be creating pretty darn good songs within a year of songwriting training.  As far as writings for Beyonce, I don’t know, maybe that’s a longshot (not impossible).  Hey, does anyone have connections with Beyonce out there?!!!!