Aaron Watson learned about the power of music at a young age. His father, a Vietnam War veteran, sought comfort in music, and Aaron grew up listening to his dad’s records, gaining an early appreciation for songcraft and strong melodies. He started penning his own songs at a young age,… Read more...
At my BMI Nashville Songwriters’ Workshops, I screen and critique songs from each attendee. When I find songs that I believe are competitive with those being written by today’s top hitmakers, I forward them to ten music publishers who have agreed to listen. After the last BMI Workshop, I forwarded… Read more...
There isn’t any aspect of writing music that John Murphy hasn’t experienced. From scoring films like 28 Days Later and Kick-Ass, to capturing prospective movie-goers with trailers to Captain America and Avatar, to writing music in ad campaigns for Nike, Google and Apple, he’s been a one-stop shop for directors.… Read more...
Hailing from New York City, up-and-coming singer/songwriter Celia Babini is a name to watch. A student at the renowned Fiorella H. LaGuardia High School, Babini had been recording original songs and posting them on Soundcloud, eventually releasing her first EP, Lola, in 2017. Currently a contestant on NBC’s The Voice,… Read more...
Nowadays even the most basic software package offers home users virtually infinite tracking space, making the temptation to over-record stronger than ever. Bear in mind, however, that some of the most compelling productions through the years have been those that favored space and dynamics, rather than uber-overdubbing. To that end,… Read more...
“Show—Don’t Tell” is one of the basic tenets taught in almost every songwriting class. Writing cinematic lyrics—lyrics that incorporate visual imagery that listeners can envision like a movie in their minds—is often thought of as one of the most effective ways to connect with audiences. Cinematic lyrics do not spell… Read more...
What constitutes a hook? Any element of a song that grabs a listener’s attention and “hooks” them in. With there being so much competition for our listeners’ attention, including multiple hooks throughout our songs has become more important than ever. According to an article in The Atlantic magazine, “A short-attention-span… Read more...
It’s a debate that has raged since the advent of multitracking: should a studio be seen as a workshop to craft new material on the spot, or, by contrast, do you wait until you have an inventory of fully fleshed-out song ideas? Actually, there are merits to both, and in… Read more...
Their name more an allusion to their classic influences than their personal geographic roots, The London Souls are a New York City band who harvest the essence of hallowed rock masters like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and distill it through an explosive contemporary filter. The end results have earned… Read more...
“It’s like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles had a baby, and it was raised by wolves.” That’s how Charlie Sheen described Irontom to Rolling Stone (Sheen had a cameo as a masked man in their 2014 video debut, “The Minista”). The band, made up of vocalist Harry Hayes, guitarist Zach… Read more...
