*Reader Tip #1

Sent in by Nick. Thanks Nick!

Quote:

"Recently, I was out in the car with the kids and a melody and couple of
lines of lyric came into my head. Frustrated at not being able to record it
or write it down, I tried getting the kids to remember a part each. However,
my daughter came up with a much better idea..."Dad, why don't you just call
your own mobile number and sing it to your voice mail?"

Now I never worry if I'm caught without my dictaphone!

Regards,

Nick"

The verse was the chorus - The end of the verse was the title

Many songs don't go into a chorus, but sing the hookline/main meaning of the song at the end of an elongated verse. Some jazz standards and musical numbers do this - you song a long verse twice but the end of the second verse merges into a kind of middle eight, theres some jazzing around, and then the verse again, but no real chorus.

If the end of a verse seems strong, perhaps it's actually the hook. Don't beat yourself up about coming up with the 'killer chorus' that you thought you were going to write. Perhaps the song is happy as it is. Some songs like this can sound like 'all chorus' - and you can find that the hooks that you have going throughout the song are plenty hooky enough without going into 'another bit' to sing along to.

Getting out of thinking 'and now there must be a chorus' can be very liberating if you haven't done it before. Listen to some jazz standards and you realize that it's all 'chorus'.

Middle eights can also be something you think you 'should' have. In the past, the 'middle bit' was the musicians having a play around the chords to give the singer a rest before he came back in at the end. Instead of doing that, why not just write an instrumental middle eight, which reflects the mood of the song in a slightly different way to the main body of the song? And then come back to the last verse? Of course all this has been done before, but it's easy to forget when you're having difficulties.

Perhaps you don't need a chorus. Perhaps you don't need a middle eight.

If you're fighting with song structure, go listen to The Beatles. Some of their greatest songs didn't do anything that a normal 'how to write a hit song book' will teach you.

'Yesterday' and 'Norwegian Wood' - the verse was the chorus?

I like driving in my car

Driving around with the radio on seems to get my brain into songwriting mode really quickly. There seems to be just enough for my motoring mind to concentrate on to let my thoughts float off and have random ideas. I can spend quite a while trying to get into that state when I'm just sitting with a pen or guitar in my hands, but driving around for 10 minutes seems to get me there quicker.

I usually have the radio on in the car. Having the radio on makes me think one of two things - A 'This song is terrible, I can do much better than that' or B 'This song is fantastic, how inspiring' - both outcomes make me want to go and write a song. Now you could say that having the radio on and driving is too much to deal with if you actually want part of your brain to float off and get creative, but personally I find that having the radio on is another reason for my mind to wander, it seems to help. For the first 10 minutes or so I find that I'm actually listening to the songs that are playing, but after that my mind wanders off regardless of what's on.

Last night this was all happening but I had the radio down fairly low and there was quite bad reception for some reason. There was some 'stuff' playing, can't even remember what it was.

I mis-heard the lyrics to lots of songs.

My brain was trying to fill in the gaps. I came up with a great hookline, which actually I thought I'd just heard being sung on the radio. When I got home and checked, it turned out I'd entirely mis-heard whatever it was and come up with something original.

From now on I'm going to play the radio quietly in my car. Perhaps I can mis-hear some more songs.

Play a song you've never heard before

I picked up the guitar, and started singing a song. The song didn't exist. I was actually making it up, but I was kidding myself that the song was already there. All this stuff came out. Some of it I couldn't remember, so I mumbled those bits. Then I went into other bits which seemed to have something like words, or bits of words. I kept going and didn't stop, even if I was really unsure about the song or where it went next.

As soon as my brain took over and stopped my auto-pilot, the song became useless and formulaic.

So I went back and tried to remember the good bits.

I have used this kind of 'surprise yourself' technique with great success. I almost have to catch myself 'off guard' to do it, and I need to have had a few hours break from songwriting that day for it to work, or I fall back into what I was working on previously.

Like I said, as soon as you start thinking - it's all over. However, the more you practice this, the better you get at it. It becomes about sounds and shapes instead of words, and the panic of trying to keep going and do the next bit even though it doesn't exist can stop you thinking too much about it. As soon as you think to much you'll probably fall into an old chord sequence or sing an old melody.

Every now and then, just pick up an instrument and see if a song is there. Sometimes it is.

Going through the motions

A lot of songwriting isn't as much as finishing a song as coming up with words, phrases and sets of words that work well together. This is where the internet can really help get your mind racing off in all kinds of directions.

For some reason you may like the word 'Essential'. You've written it somewhere and looked at it. It's a nice word, it's nice to SAY and to SING, you haven't really heard it used in any song that you know of before. It could be the start of something.

This is a good time to type the word 'Essential' into Rhymezone which I have bookmarked on the left. Ryhmezone comes up with a few rhymes for 'Essential' but the one that seems to work for me alongside 'Essential' is 'Exponential'. So I write 'Exponential' down.

Then you could go to the OneLook Reverse Dictionary, which is a place where you can type in a concept and it will try and give you words based on that concept. This is good because it's not so literal as a normal dictionary. Amongst other words that caught my eye were "Neccessity', 'Essence', 'Fundamental' and 'Lifeblood'. I liked 'Lifeblood' because it's a visual word.

So then you keep on going, pushing these ideas around the page, connecting other words to them, wondering if they're going to turn into anything. More often than not, they don't. But when they have accumulated to half a dozen words and perhaps phrases you can ask yourself, what's this about? What's 'Essential'? Is it somebody you love or know, is it knowing that there's a God (or isn't one), is being miserable 'Essential'? What's it all about, this 'Essential-ness'? As you start trying to figure out what this is, writing these new ideas escalates the amount of words on the page until you have a sprawl of claptrap.

And then, from nowhere, you write down an altogether unrelated idea for a song which is much better than anything you've previously written and is nothing to do with the word 'Essential', and this new idea is so strong that you forget all about 'Essential-ness' and quite quickly finish this new song idea.

Sometimes if you want to dance with inspiration, you have to court her first.

When to drop the chord sequence

Often I'll come up with a chord sequence and write melodies and lyrics above and across it. Many people use this as their only method, but I find I have to be careful to let the melody develop independantly from the chords when the time is right, or the chords can keep bringing me back down into a place that the melody is trying to escape from.

For instance, I'll have an eight bar chord sequence which repeats. I'm singing a melody above the chords, and the tune follows the chords, and makes repeating patterns alongside the chords. Now this is all fine, but I find myself going somewhere else with the melody and the chords aren't following.

When I get to this point and I'm using a sequencer I'll mute the chords from the point that the melody felt like it should go somewhere else and mentally 'jump off the end', seeing where my melody wants to go, almost using the previous chords as a 'run up'. Then, if I manage to find an evolving melody that I'm happy with, I'll work out the chords that fit the melody, put those back in the sequencer, and continue.

When I was starting out with songwriting, I would write chord sequences and simply put words and melodies across them. This lack of freedom with melody can rob your songs of emotion. Many great songs 'evolve' at their own pace, and often leave the rigidity of strict bars and chords. Also chord sequences become much more interesting when they're trying to follow a developing melody.

Melodies can also be very simple, moving only between a few close notes. Sometimes when you have a chord sequence that is going along doing its changes this can force you to create melodies that are just too complicated. When you're writing melodies and working out the chords afterwards you find that quite often the chords are quite happy just sitting on one chord for great lengths of time, something that you would have never made up in a 'chord sequence'

Also, if you have made an elaborate chord sequence up and even gone to the trouble of adding a bass line, dropping out everything but the bass line can also help the melody take on a mind of its own.

Follow the melody and see where it goes. Try not to nail it to the ground before it's had a chance to get anywhere.

Random thoughts

Try not to write anything you wouldn’t actually say in real life

'To you I would give my love to' for instance. You would never say that in real life. Try not to fall into the trap of lazy songwriting by writing something like that just to make the line scan or rhyme with another line.

~

If a verse isn’t progressing the story or deepening the understanding of what it is you’re trying to say then you probably don’t need it (Unless the tune is so fantastic no one gives a damn)

~

Assume that the listener knows nothing. If you refer to ‘it’ when you mean ‘Love’, but haven’t let anyone know that this is a love song, they won’t connect.

~

Think of something you want to say, then try and get the idea across as well as you can in only four lines, or even three or two lines. Try and give each line as much 'meaning' as possible, and then you actually have to decribe less.

A song has lyrics, is about something, and says something.

When a scriptwriter is trying to get a film to be comissioned, they have to write a synopsis (as in, a smaller description of the film)
What is also taught is the film to have a basic one sentence tag line, which should be the central 'essence' of the film.

So there are three levels of looking at it, the script, the synopsis, and tagline. Funnly enough, it is the tagline that gives us the real meaning behind the film, even though it's the shortest description! If the film can't be broken down to this one strong fundamental idea, then the film is probably a mess.

I think the same holds true for many great songs.

As an example, Apocalypse Now (I've made this up to give you the general idea)

Whole thing: Apocalypse Now - the script
Synopsis: A Vietnam vet is asked to go back to the war to oust an officer who has gone mad in the jungle and etc....
Tagline: Good and evil are relative.

The thing here is, lots of films have that same tagline, but they have been told in a different way.

There are lots of war films. But there's only one Apocalypse Now. It said 'Good and evil are relative' in a fantastic way - it also brought in many other elements, but because its basic idea was so strong and never forgotten they only helped to enhance the film, everything about the film says 'Good and evil are relative' and at the end it says it louder and clearer.

Many bad films 'other elements' become the film itself, and the film is never quite as satisfying - you know, bad films you watch that 'lose their way' somehow, or 'lose their direction' or 'vision'. Films that DON'T hold your attention, or are confusing, or trying to say too much.

Films with a strong 'truth' behind them such as Apocalypse Now are believable. Without this fundamental truth there is less suspension of disbelief, and a flimsy emotional connection with the viewer.

Songwriting usually deals with far simpler structures - but therein lies its power. How could you possibly write a song in only eight lines that sums up and says the amount that is in a film like Apocalypse Now?

Find another way of saying 'Good and evil are relative', and do it in a style that you are comfortable with. That's how. The song could be about a prostitute, a thief, a drug baron, school bullies, revenge, childhood trauma....lots of things.

I try and look at all my songs and see what their tagline would be. Songs tend to have simpler taglines than films. Hate, love, loss, hope, struggle against hardship, etc Some famous songs ARE the tagline, and some would argue that that's what the song title should be and what you're singing in the chorus!

As a literal example 'You can't always get what you want' comes to mind. However, there are a thousand songs you could write about that topic.

When I'm having trouble with a song that 'doesn't know what it is yet' I ask myself these kinds of questions, what is the idea behind this song - and often, thinking like that forces a NEW idea on some words that until that point meant something very vague.

A song has lyrics, is about something, and says something.

Types of expression

Sometimes I need to remind myself just how many ways there are to connect. It easy to get locked into one way of describing something and a little reminder to oneself is always useful.

HEARING - Sound of silence
SEEING - Sunshine on a rainy day
SMELLING - Smells like teen spirit
TOUCHING - Invisible touch
FEELING - The way you make me feel
MOVING - Let's groove tonight
etc etc (and yes there are FAR better examples than the ones I have just given but you get the idea)

By describing HOW you are connecting with the subject changes the listeners perspective. It forces a reaction from the listener.

This is plainly obvious but easy to forget. However it can force a 'state' on the listener, and as it can be a form of story telling I think it's important not to forget that like a magician, the audience will look where you tell them to, except you're using words not gestures. Great novels manipulate us into feeling certain ways and songs can do that too.

Using only rhythm to inspire some melody or lyrics

Make up an interesting rhythm, sing a more expansive tune across it using longer notes and less words

Make up a very simple rhythm, sing a more melodic and intricate line across it

Make up a rhythmic hook with gaps, stops and starts. Sing in the gaps.

Record just a rhythm into your sequencer on any old sound with one finger. Loop it. Sing over it.

Make another one and put it after the first one. Loop them both. Sing over that, see what comes.

Try putting these different rhthms alongside each other, you may hear something in their new clashing rhthms which is almost the beginnings of a tune.

Loops - get some insane and not so insane drum loops and put them together without getting into the technicalities of what is going on, only as an aid to inspire melody and songwriting, not just creating more loops. Listen to the way the loops interact, sometimes badly, DON'T tidy them up and start programming...listen carefully to the way the loops interact, and more often than not there will be a random melody playing as the different loops interact. Perhaps this little melody will inspire you...who knows..

Wordsounds -Vowelsounds - Endoflinesounds

A lot of people write poetry and then wonder why it doesn't work as a song. That's probably because they haven't tried to sing it themselves.

Each human voice has it own range, and the human voice in itself has limitations.

1. Humans find it very hard to read tounge-twisters
2. Humans must breathe occasionally to talk or sing
3. Humans can't sing long notes which end on a consonant without sounding very strange

One thing that writing poetry doesn't take into consideration is the greatly stretched out words that work so well when sung.

'Somewhere over the rainbow' doesn't look like great poetry, but sing it and it's a different story. No wonder the word 'Somewhere' has been so used in modern songwriting.

There is a rhythm to open and closed sounds in many great songs, either in lines or in the entire rhythm of a verse/chorus.

This is going to look very silly but:

doo beeee do be de doooby
dooooo beeeee doooo
doo beeee do be de doooby
doo bee di doo me flooo

has something going on as a shape even though its all nonsense.

Ok, I know you've usually got to rhyme every other line and all that, but what I'm talking about here is the KIND of rhyme and the TYPE of word which is best to use AND THE NICEST TO SING.

Even if you're not a singer, try and at least imagine how it's going to be for someone else to sing the song.

This would be difficult as a shape:

gugga goo ba bribble fiz
duddle burra gorga brap
fiddle pipple diddle brine
baddle biggie grope ***

- not forgetting that in this song, the words 'brap' and 'grope' are both very long sung words which hang around over two bars. Yes, I thought I'd really give the singer something to get his/her teeth into, so I left them singing 'apppppp' and 'ope.....' very high in their range and as you can tell they didn't thank me for it.

The problem with not thinking these things ahead or being aware of them is that you may end up writing some beautiful prose which you are very happy with, but as a song it's unworkable. And then you waste time trying to bash it into shape when its too late and you've started recording the song but realized at the last minute that it really is unperformable in its present state.

Keep checking the singability of your lyrics and make sure that more often than not you are ending rhyming lines or critical words on an open vowel sound or something close...


*** Of course, I had a huge hit in Lithuania with this song, so obviously your mileage may vary depending on your nationality!

Songwriting bubble

I'm sure we all know what it's like when we're in the 'mood' to write a song, even if being in the right mood has been a decision and not an accident. I find it's good to take this mood outside of the songwriting environment with me - I guess you could call it a 'reflective' mood where what you are experiencing is heightened, a different sense of awareness. Watching TV in this state gives me entirely different ideas as I find I am more 'cynical' and on the lookout for catchphrases and interesting commentary, going for a walk and just looking at other people can take on a whole new meaning. It is definitely an altered state and everyone must go there at some point to do anything creative.

However, make sure you always have a pen and paper or a recording device on you at all times, you never know when this inspired state may strike! The amount of times I've had apparently great ideas and forgotten them before I've got home as the bubble has burst and everything's got out of context.

Sometimes I'll absent-mindedly flick through the papers or a trashy novel just to see if something triggers off something. Listening to a talk radio program can do it, so of course can surfing around the net looking at all kinds of stuff.

If you're not inspired it's because you're in 'normal' state in my opinion, and you have to do as much as you can to get yourself into this heightened state. Sometimes those long walks, car journeys and even gym workouts can let your mind float off and find some new horizon - don't waste those thoughts, write them down - I don't go along with the old idea that 'If you can't remember it then it wasn't any good' - sometimes the old idea wasn't a great lyrical idea, but was a great idea just in itself, a place you can return to.

I always have a 'book' that I write in. There's always a 'current book' as the others get filled up. I go and choose a really nice different looking book each time I buy one, one that looks important and as if something interesting should be written in there. This helps me psychologically and helps me enter the bubble a bit easier. Each time I start a new book, I go through the last book and write down any lines or bits that I really like in the front of the new book, as well as any other ideas I've had.

The good thing about having a book is that you can follow your train of thought - I find this useful as sometimes the idea for the song is better than the way it's panning out - and if I have a strong idea for a song I can at least re-write it from scratch until I've found a way of writing it. Having song ideas on bits of paper makes it difficult to see how you felt at a particular time, a book serves also as a kind of diary of how your brain has been ticking over. Of course, there's ALWAYS times when you end up srcibbling lyrics on a post it note or a napkin in a restaurant, but when that happens I always try and stick or staple these spurious notes into my book at a relevant page.

Often I'll come up with an idea for a song but no lyric - and I write these down anyway so I can come back to them. Often these 'scenes' are locked in my head but I would never remember them without a written cue. 'Woman in car fed up with urban life wants to leave her husband but hasn't got the courage to leave so keeps going for drives to fictional friends houses before she comes back just to leave the house and pretend she's free' for instance. Sounds long? Yes, well, at least as soon as I read it I can go straight back to where I last was in my head and the way I felt about it, especially if there are some other thoughts and ideas scattered on the same page as I wrote those words.

When I'm in this bubble I'm not exactly great company.

Analogy and visual description

A lot of great songs IMMEDIATELY set a scene by VISUAL description, then use that as a backdrop for something barely related, or a metaphor for it. Some do it all at the same time. They become like mosaics sticking descriptions of visual ideas alongside emotions to create something larger than both. ('You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky' - what the hell are you on about Sting?....but, you gotta agree, it conjures up something 'new' because its semi-abstract: how can the sun think, and how can the sky be jealous?)

Is your love like a field of barley or a shag behind the bike shed?

If you're feeling something 'beautiful' then have a go at writing something that is also beautiful alongside it.

When you have feelings, try and think of other things that could relate...

Hate = anvil, hammer, black, dull, rough, thick, heavy clouds etc
Love = Summers day, sun, happy children, babies smile etc
Loss = Falling leaves, distant winds, etc
Peace = calm seas, distant shores etc

...and then write those things INSTEAD, missing out any explanation entirely, and let the listener fill in the gaps - with their own visuals and emotions - give them a landscape to feel what you're saying, don't write them into a corner - and they will connect with what you're saying because they have had to join in to make the song whole - you've let them fill in the gaps

Story songs (as in songs with a name title) are usually fables/parables which of course are analogies of real life. Otherwise I'd write a song about my mums trip to the shops, where she comes back at the end...and makes a sandwich - not much to learn in that story unless you want to uncover the delights of the local precinct or the intricacies of a cheese and tomato sandwich.

Of course, the songs we write are analogous to ourselves, as we can never BE the song. We can only DESCRIBE how we feel. Lists of feelings don't often make a good song, mainly because when someone else hears the lyrics, they have lost their emotional connection to the writer in the translation. The music can help bring the meaning back to the words, as can the use of clever lyrics.

Young bands can get very excited thinking they've written a great song and be upset when no one else 'gets it'. Unfortunately, people aren't mind-readers and need quite a lot of information to know where you're coming from with your songs. If people don't connect with your songs it's YOUR FAULT, you were the one who wanted to write a song in the first place. No point sulking or calling other people stupid.

To be truthful I found it hard to pull away from 'literal' songwriting and it was awkward at first as everything I wrote felt overly descriptive when I tried this approach. Until I realized there was no such thing. It just meant I had to write less words.

Things to try out when you're stuck

You’re telling someone this
You’re telling yourself this
You’re commenting on how it is
You are someone else
State things, don’t explain
Be more descriptive
Be only descriptive
Try never writing the word ‘I’
Try only writing the word ‘I’
Only talk about emotions
Only talk about practicalities
Use more simile
Use more metaphor
Use ONLY simile
Use ONLY metaphor
Try to avoid clichés
Try to use ONLY clichés

Who is the song for?

If a song doesn't seem to want to be what you are forcing upon it, perhaps it would be happier coming from another angle.

Statements - Life sucks, love can be painful, sunshine is nice etc
Personal feelings from the writer to another - I really love you, I promise you this, One day you'll know etc
Personal feelings from someone else apart from the writer either real or imaginary to another - I really love you, I promise you this, One day you'll know etc
Things you tell yourself - I'll be ok, things will get better, I can get through this etc

Listen to some songs you really like and have a think about who is telling who, what? Are they telling you, the listener? Or are you hearing the words of someone talking to themselves? Are you overhearing someone else's conversation, or listening to someone preaching to anyone who will listen?

All songs have this dynamic, they are coming and going, the listeners perspective changes depending on how the song was written. Many times songs are written with a twist or 'dual reality' - for example you think that the song is about 'lusting after a woman' and the last verse of the song makes you realize that the song is about a mans love for heroin. Sometimes dual reality songs let you make your own mind up as they are written in an open enough way to allude to several meanings or outcomes, and can mean many things to different people.

I was recently writing a song about missing someone who you knew would never come back. As I was writing it I realized that it was much more powerful if it was actually coming from the person you were missing, from THEIR take on it... this change of perspective helped me write a stronger chorus than I had imagined and let me keep the song slightly more ambiguous.

If you're stuck, try altering your mental relationship with the song - is this song something you'd find in the attic of a manic depressive, or a letter you may have found in a drawer written from your mother to your father? Perhaps the letter was never read - perhaps it was sent by email by accident to the wrong person....etc Try and look at your song in progress as if it were something entirely different to that which you had in mind. Create a broader story for the song itself. It may help.

When the words won't come hit the music

Recently I've become better at realizing when the words aren't going to come. This doesn't mean that I don't want to write a song or get into the process of some kind of song writing, it just means that my head isn't in word-land at a particular moment.

To still make use of this time, I got myself into the habit of sitting down and trying to come up with as many bits of music as possible within a given time. I boot up my sequencer or grab my guitar and tape machine and throw down as many little ideas as possible without being too picky about what comes up. More often than not, either drab, silly or downright weird things come out, but I record the whole lot regardless of their musical merit. As soon as I get bored with one I start another. One may come from a drum loop which I played a terrible hammond part over, one may be a bass line I threw into a sequencer and then riffed over on the guitar - I think the key word here is FREEDOM. No thinking involved, no style, just anything goes stream of consciousness kind of stuff. Positively NO 'this isn't good enough' thinking allowed whatsoever, and I also don't allow myself to think I've suddenly become a wordsmith again - no matter what lyrical ideas I come up with I keep hammering away at writing these silly little bits of music (of course, writing down the odd lyric on occasion should they come!)

By the end of throwing down about a half dozen ideas, one of them will most definitely be your favorite. Instead of wasting your time looking into space waiting for lyrical inspiration to strike, you may have come up with the germ of a new song, which in turn may well get the lyrics flowing.

On the whole, I find that 'getting stuck' means your brain has closed ranks and become unable to look further than the end of your last sentence - having a mindless 'jam' with yourself without boundaries can bring the fresh air back in and let you see all the other places your song may go.

Of course, if you're a lyricist but not a musician this may prove a little tricky.

How long is a song?

I struggle with song length. If you've said everything you want to say in six lines, should you even bother writing any more?

Of course there is this '3 minute pop song' idea, and 'radio play'. Well, all that 'radio friendly' thing aside - if you've said what you'd like to say, shouldn't you just duck out, 3 minutes or not?

OK, you may have to repeat yourself just so that the first time listener gets a chance to get your drift - but should you agonize trying to come up with something as good as your perfect six lines that you know you're never going to better? If you've 'said it all' perhaps a middle eight wouldn't so much as 'sum it all up' but prolong the misery of telling it again, but not as well?

Some songs were born short, and therein lies their beauty. Knowing when to stop is important. I've agonized over third versus and middle section for months before I've realized that the song was already finished - it was just shorter in lyrical length than my initial expectations.

First post

It occured to me that instead of 'trying to write a book' on songwriting, or leaving various text files and word documents scattered on my hard drive where I would NEVER get around to dealing with them, it would be better for me to actually post my thoughts as I go on a Blogg. That way, I can always look back at my ramblings when I get a bit stuck, and also help other people in the process.

Some post will be long and rambling as I lay my ideas out, some will be short and sweet should I have a 3am moment of inspiration. Whenever I have an idea it will be put up on these pages, so sometimes they will be sporadic, and I am sure that sometimes I may go back to posts written in the past and have no idea where my head was at.

This Blogg will not have ANY songs of my own posted up, only my ideas and mental excercises for 'lateral thinking' my way out of songwriters block. My first posts will obviously be my current thoughts on songwriting and how I go about tackling the different 'states' one has to enter to get the job done, but hopefully as I go things will develop and I will teach myself as I go along and change the way I work for the better.

Over time I hope this Blog will contain advice and tips on songwriting by myself and others, a discussion of the various problems associated with songwriting, publishing and the business side of being a songwriter and more links on how to get your songs published and performed by others. There are a lot of songwriting rescources on the internet but they tend to be more about 'How to make money by becoming a songwriter' and 'You too can become a songwriter' instead of focusing on the art and craft of songwriting for it's own sake.

Songwriting can be extremely rewarding and I hope that other songwriters will find these pages useful.

As I'm sure you are aware, this entire introduction post is to ensure I get some hits on this website! There's a lot of sites out there and it's hard to be heard! So please forgive me that I have said the words song, composing, lyrics and songwriting so much. It's so any songwriters out there get to find out about my web page on Google.

Enjoy!