Category: My writing
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Top 5 Exercises for Coming Up With Great Song Lyric Ideas—#1: Sense Writing.
In this series, I’ll go through my all-time Top 5 Exercises for generating lyric ideas, whether I’ve got a song idea going already or not. These exercises don’t require inspiration. They mostly require 10 minutes and a pen. Just like anything in life, you can get better at writing great lyrics with practice. I hope…
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Starting with loops is one of the most enjoyable and effective ways to spark new ideas and breathe life into your songwriting process. In this video, we write a whole song from scratch using loops as inspiration – featuring the sample-based instrument ‘Chromatic’ from LANDR. Save 30% now with this coupon: GETLANDRWRITESONGS30OFF LANDR Studio includes…
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Examples of Sense Writing
The first exercise I run in any lyric writing class is called ‘Sense Writing,’ which is essentially the same as Pat Pattison’s Object Writing (which you can find out more about here). I’ve written before about Sense Writing, and recently put out a YouTube video that explains it, which you can watch here: It’s one…
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Hubris and Humility in Writing Pop Songs
I am totally tickled to have co-written a song, ‘Fruit’, that has just been released by Australian pop artist, Sayah. Working with Sayah was alchemy – seeing an idea come to life is a special kind of magic. The song was produced and co-written by Taka Perry, who is a wizard space genius. Seeing him…
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Sonnet – Zen and the Pizza Delivery Guy
I teach a poetry class for Berklee Online. The course culminates in the writing of a sonnet. I’ve always loved the sonnet form. That tight little couplet at the end is like a bow on a birthday present. In the week before the end of the class, just as lockdown was easing in Sydney around…