creative process

The 3 Phases of Creativity & How to Not Suck #songwriting

The 3 Phases of Creativity & How to Not Suck #songwriting

Do you ever get creatively frustrated in your songwriting? Do you ever feel like you get stuck and don't know how to finish? Or start writing without even fully knowing what your song is about? Do you ever feel like you just plain suck at songwriting?

You're not alone, my friend. We've all been there. But, before you throw your guitar across the room and tweet about how "adulting is hard", read this.  I want to help you.

How to keep your songs from all sounding the same.

How to keep your songs from all sounding the same.

What if you have to write several uniquely different songs in a short period of time? How do you keep them from all sounding too similar? How do you create contrast from one song to the next? Ellen Tift talks about various songwriting techniques to keep things interesting.

The Story Behind "Human" - Dedicated to Nichole Nordeman

I'm excited to tell the story behind this song because the past two months' singles had much different inceptions than this release.  Instead of writing to someone else's target given for a pitch opportunity and having to crank it out in a couple of days, this song came to be through the more artistic and organically inspired path.  I simply wrote it because I wanted to. It was something on my heart, the melody just "came to me" as the muse whispered it in my ear, and I documented what was forming in my head as I went about my days.  I'm going to break it down into the various facets and talk about the reasons and creative process.

The unorthodox story behind "Until I Have You"

As so often is the case, the path to creating anything is rarely short or straight, and this song is no exception.

As I've written in the past, one of the few remaining ways for songwriters/artists/producers to make money with music anymore is to license songs to film, TV, and advertising.  Sometimes we get an email that has come to us [and goodness knows how many others], giving the specifics of what someone is looking for.  Sometimes there's another song they've temped into their video, but it's a song that's either unavailable or too expensive and they want something that FEELS and SOUNDS like that song, but is NOT that song.  And sometimes we decide to set everything else aside and do our best to crank something out that might fit their needs, in hopes that we might land the license and pay some bills.