Songwriting Archives - Page 5 of 5

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy

One of the things I have always had a hard time with is memorizing lyrics. I see this in people around me as well; finding it difficult to memorize chords and chord progressions. So based on my experience and some research I’ve done I give you some tips to overcome this obstacle.

But why do we need to memorize and remember lyrics and chord progressions? What’s the use of that?

Well, let’s say one of these days you’ll have to perform in front of an audience somewhere, somehow.
Maybe with a band or on your own…

or a friend asks you to perform a few songs at his wedding or birthday party…
or you would like to accompany a singer…
or you want to play some nice songs to entertain a few people on a holiday in the south of France while drinking a cold beer…
or just to try out a guitar in the guitar shop in town.

photo from Istockphoto waveform
A while ago the bass player of my band called me on the phone. He told me he wasn’t quite satisfied with the repertoire for the upcoming festival. He thought it still needed one ass-kicking rock song. I totally agreed. It was not a surprise, since it was part of the discussion for the last two weeks.

The only problem was that we didn’t have enough time to write and rehearse a new song. But I also couldn’t live with it, not having that extra rock song. It just didn’t feel good to leave it at this.

So I said to our bass player “I’m gonna write us a song today, record the demo with drums, guitars and vocals and send it to each of you by tomorrow morning”. By that way we could rehearsal it the same evening and play it at the gig in the same week.

O gosh, did i regret my promise after a few hours. I wrote like my life depended on it. It certainly felt that way. My stress level was enormous, but I learned a great deal out of it. The thing is….because you are limited in your time, you need to make decisions quickly. You are not going to sit around thinking a hundred times over a melody or that one word, “Is it deep enough?”, “Can’t I put it some other way?”, “Doesn’t this riff sound to familiar?”, “Don’t I have to make it more complicated, sophisticated?”. Nope: you don’t have the time!

Instead what you get is a great honest rock song to the bone.
Continue Reading

How to Memorize Lyrics, Chords and Chord Progressions

Writing a Song When the Pressure Is On!