I spent the entire time searching and reviewing songs created over the past year or so. I’ll play a selection of them this morning at our zoom meeting. Continue reading →

You wondering why I’ve written yet another song called “Tantrum”?

Okay, I’ll tell you what happened.

I wanted an example of a good song that had been made before I understood what I know now about how Suno works, how to work the style sheet and the lyric sheet effects (call and response, etc.) and how to get specific results from it, so I could show how to re-work a good song into a better one. Continue reading →

The old three r’s were “reading, writing and ‘rithmatic, clearly taking advantage of the general ignorance that accepted those as “the three r’s”.

“Now you’re right on the spine of it,” I said to myself this morning. Hey. This is a very strong line of thought, and it’s older than literacy itself. My “new three R’s” — rhythm, rhyme and repetition — are not just poetic tools. They are memory technologies.

And in the hundreds of thousands of years before writing, accurately retelling a story was the whole of civilization, period.

Thinking shamanically is exactly the right move here. I’ll explain: Continue reading →

Constructing a Style Sheet

This is exactly the right way to come at Suno. Remember, you’re not “making songs,” you’re building demonstration vehicles for your unique lyrics, lyrics  that YOU wrote! Continue reading →

I wrote this blog in 2017. I’m posting it again with some minor updates, because it clearly needs repeating.

I have no voice. It doesn’t bother me, but it’s quite noticeable. Never negotiate with illusions. Continue reading →

SONG: “6-7 State of Mind”

Verse 1 / Refrain
I’m not just okay, I’m not feeling fine
I’m just in a six–seven state of mind
Not falling apart, not crossing lines
Just standing here in the in-between time Continue reading →

I had an idea for a song that centered around “affordability”, a term that’s being wagged all over town. something ironic, like i can’t afford an extra pickle cause the government took every nickel, maybe the hook is “affordability”, even though there are very few rhyme choices there, maybe I’ll just let it roll out whatever way it does: Continue reading →

Chapter 20 — Ten Song Seeds to Get You Started

Prompts, Beat Patterns, Hooks, Titles, Situations

Here’s the thing… people always say they want to write songs, but then they sit down, stare at a blank page, and suddenly decide this is the perfect moment to reorganize their sock drawer or research the history of the banjo, or build that perfect moustrap they’ve been thinking about for years. Continue reading →

Chapter 19 — From Idea to Finished Song

The Whole Journey, Start to Finish, Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Lunch)

This is the chapter where the rubber hits the road, the muse hits the fan, and I suddenly remember that I  had promised our Zoom group that I’d have a clear set of instructions on how to get from A to B and back again, and moreover that I’d have it ready today, and here it is, today, already. So here goes:

Songwriting is a process.
But it’s not a straight line.
It’s a wandering goat on a hillside, eating whatever looks safe and tasty. Continue reading →

Chapter 18

Collaboration: How to Work With Musicians, Bands, and AI

Most writers think collaboration is some mystical ritual involving incense, candlelight, and artists behaving like delicate orchids. Not so.

Collaboration is actually simple, once you understand the production work-flow. There’s a natural direction to the work: lyricist → arranger → band. If you master that series of steps, you can work with pretty much anyone — from a real live human drummer to a virtual AI orchestra that never sleeps and never asks for pizza money.

Let’s break it down, to see how this really works: Continue reading →