Vocab songs how to#

If I was back in the writing game, this is what I’d be doing every day, studying a piece of songwriting that I admire. You just never, ever, ever hear songwriters talking about expanding their own vocabulary and thus their available knowledge of chord progressions, melody, production studies, lyrical analyzation, and the overall possibilities that are immediately available to them to expand their own vocabulary. Expanding That Vocabulary!īut here’s my thing. Like what makes that chorus tick, what are the secrets behind writing a great verse, etc. you can learn songwriting techniques in the exact same way. When it comes to music, you need to learn from all the greats that have come before you, most specifically, all their famous guitar solos, voicings, compositions, and then memorize them by heart, transpose them into different keys, study the hell out of them, and then once you’ve digested them … then … surprise, surprise … they start showing up in your own “guitar” vocabulary. It’s a simple answer but a lifelong pursuit. How do you get better if you want to be the best jazz guitar player out there? All the jazz musicians out there, instantly know the answer to this. Let me put this one other way, and really start putting this into practical terms as far as how it relates to the best songwriters and musicians in the world.

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Vocab songs how to#

Insider Secrets to Hit SongwritingĪnd before we get in depth here on how to be one of the best hit makers, I’d love to share with you a Teachable course I created! The course is a culmination of my 25 + years of music publishing experience … signing and working with over 100 hit makers. They won’t be able to know the broad spectrum of possibilities and they’ll just converse and have ideas on a 2nd-grade level. This isn’t just how they speak and their choice of words but also their life experiences and their overall schema.

If that 10-year-old just hangs out with 10-year-olds for the rest of their life and interacts with 10-year-old based material.they will only have a limited 10-year-old vocabulary as far as what is accessible in their vocabulary. You see, they’re continually feeding their passion and expertise for writing by expanding their vocabulary. In other words … they know their tradition … they’ve read Shakespeare, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, etc. They’ve read and studied the classics, either on their own (like Bukowski notoriously and practically “living” in public Los Angeles libraries), or being schooled through upper levels of university. The best book writers and authors in the world are also usually the most well-read. In this case, your “song vocabulary.” Let me put this into a metaphor. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what level of songwriter you are, a novice or the Grammy-winning songwriter of the year, it’s supremely vital to keep learning and keep expanding your musicality. It’s just so hugely important and yet equally baffling that I don’t see more people incorporating the following into their music and songwriting process.Īnd it’s simply this - increasing your songwriting vocabulary. This post is both one that’s near and dear to my heart and a topic I just never hear anyone talking about.