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How to Record a Song at Home

February 21, 2021 By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

Have you always wanted to record you own songs? Do you want to record a cover song from your favorite artist? Well this might be the time for you to take your song from the guitar onto the recording tracks and bring it to life so you can share your creativity with the world.

Recording songs is a beautiful and inspiring part of being a musician. There is so much to learn from it and it’s such an enjoyable and fulfilling process. You are now able to sit in the producer’s chair and share your music with just one click away. How great is that?

Do you first need help writing a song check out Why and How to Write Songs on Guitar – Complete Guide!

Prepare

Before you start recording your song make sure you can play (and sing) your song from start to finish. Practice your song as much as you can, so you are ready when you hit that record button.

It’s not necessary to have every detail of the song figured out yet, but the more prepared you are, the easier the recording process will be.

You can also practice your song with a metronome beforehand so when it’s time to record you are used to the feel of a click track (more on that later). A good practice of the song also makes the edit process much easier.

Equipment

To record your song you need to have a couple of things:

A fast computer/laptop
Audio interface
DAW
Microphone
Popfilter
Studio monitors

Microphones can range from $100 dollars to thousands of dollars, but with today’s budget microphones you can get really good high quality recordings.

Why and How to Write Songs on Guitar – Complete Guide!

January 27, 2021 By Klaus Crow 10 Comments

Why would you want to write a song?

Songwriting is both an art and a craft where you can express your musical creativity, your heart and soul into the ultimate form of a song.

It’s a great learning process for guitar players and all musicians. You’ll discover music on so many new levels and learn to think differently on how to approach your instrument. When you write your own songs you will also learn to transcribe songs faster, and understand and play music in a more proficient way.

I’ve got a lot of guitar students who started writing their own songs and many of them were surprised with how much they enjoyed it and found they could actually write a song. Try it and you might find yourself on a new path you never expected. There is only something to win here.

How to write a song

There are many ways to approach songwriting. You can write a personal story and sing about the struggles and challenges you go through in life. The side effect is highly therapeutic. Many artists do this.

You can also write in a narrative style and bring your own concepts and characters to life through your lyrics. Think about the message you want to get across.

To learn a certain style of songwriting study the professionals. Listen and read the lyrics of your favorite artists, learn how they approach their song writing and convey their stories. Watch interviews on Youtube on their songwriting process. The same goes for the use of chords, chord progressions, melody, rhythm playing, and other musical arrangements. Study, analyze, hear and feel them.

Song Structure

For writing a song you can use different components like an intro, verse, chorus, bridge, instrumental solo and outro. These components or sections are then repeated in some way. The most common forms are:

ABAB : Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus
AABA: Verse – Verse – Chorus – Verse
ABABCB: Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus

Around these sections you can create an intro, a guitar solo or an outro.

Tip: Listen to your favorite song writers and figure out what song structure they use and which ones you prefer.

New Music and Guitar Goals for 2021

January 9, 2021 By Klaus Crow 12 Comments

I wish everybody an awesome new year from the bottom of my heart. A new year means a new start with new opportunities, new goals, new challenges, new ways to be creative and new chances to really improve and upgrade your guitar game!

I personally love the beginning of a new year. For me it’s a moment to think about who I want to be, what I want to accomplish and how I want to redesign and improve the quality of my life.

I know, not everybody does new years resolutions, but I see it more as a way to set positive and true intentions for 2021, creating a new start that makes you feel good about yourself, to challenge yourself and to set your dream goals in motion and have something to look forward to. Yes, you can do that anytime of the year, so why not right now?

I always start with writing down my goals. Some goals have been on my list for years, they are continuous goals, but I have certainly achieved some of my new goals as well. I’ve got goals for music, body, mind, work and family. You could also create categories like happiness, fun or whatever you come up with, but for me these are already integrated into the other categories.

I like to have some continuous goals, some end goals, new exciting goals to challenge myself, goals to have fun with it, and goals to feel alive.

Think about the person you would like to be at the end of this year. What would you like to have accomplished? What would make you feel good? What skills would you like to develop, improve and acquire?

Top 35 Wonderful Christmas Guitar Songs

December 17, 2020 By Klaus Crow 6 Comments

In this crazy time we need Christmas more than ever. A feeling of joy, warmth and nostalgia is what we all heavily long for. Playing Christmas songs is a good start and will get you in the right mood. It works wonders.

In this Top 35 Wonderful Christmas Guitar Songs list we got some great Christmas classics, but also a few oldies and new ones you might not have heard before, just to spice things up a bit.

If you just want the Christmas classics and learn the songs we’re all familiar with check out Top 35 Easy Christmas Guitar Songs, but if you already got those under your belt and you want to expand your Christmas repertoire then be my guest and read on.

Now first pour yourself a nice warm mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows, turn on those Christmas lights, grab your favorite guitar (don’t forget to put on a new set of good sounding strings for some extra feel good) and then pick your favorites from the list and indulge yourself into the Christmas spirit.

I’ve put a Youtube link on each song title and two chord links next to it. The “Chords” link will take you to the chords & lyrics for the song and the “More Chords” link will show you chord and tablature song books from Amazon if you want to learn more songs of the artist concerned.

Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Enjoy the songs and happy holidays everyone! Look out for each other and give people a smile. They need it.

1 – The Christmas song – Nat King Cole – Chords – More Chords

2 – Please Come Home For Christmas – The Eagles – C hords – More Chords

3 – Merry Christmas baby – Bruce Springsteen – Chords – More Chords

4 – Do you hear what I hear – Bing Crosby – Chords – More Chords

5 – Run Rudolph Run – Chuck Berry – Chords – More Chords

6 – Christmas lights – Coldplay – Chords – More Chords

7 – Pretty paper – Roy Orbison – Chords – More Chords

8 – If it doesn’t snow on Christmas – Gene Autry – Chords – More Chords

9 – A Marshmallow World – Dean Martin – Chords

10 – Santa baby – Eartha Kitt – Chords