First, a bit of shameless self promotion: my singer Bob played out one of my songs, on his own, with his own collaborator: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOIV00zGJGM&w=500] Now, you can compare his version to the original version from my solo album (you … Continue reading
When I’m writing, arranging or recording, the question of gesture comes to my mind often. What is a gesture in a song? My Mac’s dictionary define gesture as “an action performed to convey one’s feelings or intentions.” So a gesture … Continue reading
I used to think that if I wrote good songs, everyone will love it. So whenever I write a new song, I’ll go grab one of my friends, have him/her listen, and eagerly look for enthusiastic response. And I could … Continue reading
Diligence is emerging as my key theme of 2011. I’ve been able to make amazing progress on many aspects of my life by simply instituting regular routines and diligently sticking to it. Below I’d like to share with you why … Continue reading
In a previous post on uniqueness, I defined being a unique songwriter as writing songs that reflect the inherent uniqueness you possess. If that sounds abstract and lofty, here’s a much more concrete way of thinking about it: write a … Continue reading
Do you ever hesitate to show your songs to people, because you’re afraid it’s no good? Do other people’s criticism or lack of enthusiasm sting you so badly, that you’d rather keep your songs a secret? You aren’t alone. I … Continue reading
Writing music is an art. A subjective art. Not everybody agrees on what is good. OK, so I state the obvious here. We all know this. Yet, many of us also rely on feedback from others to determine if our … Continue reading
This is more a rant than anything else, but bear with me. It’s central to the reason why I start a site like “impactful songwriter.” Music has power. It has tremendous power. It’s existed since the dawn of humanity. Every … Continue reading
I don’t know what makes a song impactful. Really, some songs seem to do all the wrong things, and still end up affecting me in a powerful way. What I’ve gathered is that it’s not a set of rules and … Continue reading
Does your music spoonfeed audience? For example, do you have some instruments in the background that’s just playing chords? Like some static string patch? Get rid of that. The reason is because spoonfeeding gets tiring fast. When the music doesn’t … Continue reading