Jimmy Webb, that cornerstone of American Songwriting who wrote many famous songs such as “By The Time I Get To Phoenix”, “Up Up and Way”, “Wichita Lineman” and countless others of which I would redirect you do his website, also topped off his career by writing a book on songwriting back in the late 90’s [...]

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48 songs is quite a bit to dish out, so I’ll just begin with a start and add a few every day.  Reminder that these songs are not all the ultimate greatest songs of all time, and certainly I left a lot of good ones in my listening bin.  These are songs I felt I [...]

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Finally have a pruned down a first draft list of 48 songs that I think are fairly representative of pop/rock/alternative and sometimes folk influences.  It’s difficult to determine a fair criteria that would cover everyone’s needs.  For my own, these are a good representation of lyrics and hooky materials that I think can be used [...]

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Cherry picking out of my list of favorite songs continues, and now the real work begins – the mega lists – Tori Amos and Beth Waters. Weeding through these is nothing but a drug induced blur for me.  72 in Tori’s sake.  24 for Beth.  What’s particularly difficult is that they are all good, well [...]

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Song organization is occupying most of my compositional time these days, as I try to get a handle around educating myself with the craft of song writing.  After fishing and perusing the billboards for what I thought were signifiant artists – artists who’s production was balanced and who emphasizes good writing / lyrics –  I have finally [...]

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photo credit: Blu_walkingshadow
I get annoyed at reading some  of my more conservative musician friends posts recently.  Specifically how they tend to marginalize the commercial music these days – dismissing it as contrived and career-calculated – where each aspect is controlled by an imaginary hierarchy of marketing teams.  Where music has no meaning outside of a holy [...]

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photo credit: Darcy Mc Marcy
Deeply into Jimmy Web’s songwriting walkthrough book Tunesmith, which although goes off on verbal distractions of unclarity, also rings with practical experiences and is also a good review of some basic tonal techniques in musical composition, and a good basis for guiding me through my own jazz memories.  
Reading a [...]

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photo credit: MUAZ BAHAJJAJJ
One of the cool things about dealing with words and music is the workflow is so much less complicated and portable than the usual trappings of instrumental writing I have for myself.  Within that personal world, I would always be thinking about the end result – the orchestration, dynamics, voicings, different [...]

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