Tag: songwriting

I was fortunate enough to be a special guest on Song Talk Radio, a streaming program where songwriters talk to other songwriters about the craft of songwriting. OK, I'm also a co-host of the show, so perhaps it's not so surprising that I got to be a guest, too. I spoke with Phil, Bruce, and [...]

Michael Gee is a musical chum I met at the Songwriter's Cafe meetup group. He had an idea for a parody of Walking in a Winter Wonderland, entitled Working With a Wookie on a Plan.  He brought along a karaoke track where the only singing present was the part starting "Later on, we'll conspire..." which, [...]

There's nothing like devastating emotions to spur on a new song. After going through some recent hard times, the lyrics for the bridge came to me several days after the incident, and certainly they reflect the exact state of my inner experience at the time. From there, the title came to me, and then the [...]

As part of our "hosts as guests" series on Song Talk Radio, I had my turn to present one of my own songs and get some feedback from my co-hosts Phil and Bruce.  I presented Telepathic Androids, and we talked about odd time signatures (9/4 in this case), changing up your rhyme scheme, and how [...]

Having been in the middle of moving in December, most of my studio was packed away, including my microphones, my keyboard and my drum pad controller. All I had to play with was my software. So I thought, "What kind of song could I do without any musical instruments?" I dug into Sonar's provided loop [...]

This song began with the cool piano sound and the electronic backbeat. I challenged myself by writing it in 9/4 time, which of course, made it difficult to add other parts or even write a B part that worked in harmony and still felt different enough. Suffice to say, I sat on this one for [...]

For this piece, I had started with the guitar part (played on my keyboard), and wrote pretty much the entire music bed with the one sound.  Then I added other musical parts, wrote lyrics and melody, and presented it at a songwriter's circle.  Many group members were impressed that I could tackle an interesting topic [...]

This is my latest song, about a guy and a girl, and another guy, with rather colourful names.  I wrote this song in one evening, music, melody and lyrics.  That hasn't happened in a very long time.  Enjoy! Download the full album for free. Burn yellow train inside Look blind and hide Orange say [...]

I had a strong reaction to the 2012 gang rape case in India, which made international headlines in December. Revolted as I was from the crime, equally unsettling was the call from the Indian public for violent retribution upon the accused (not yet tried or convicted) men. I read several articles from different sources, and found [...]