Category: Songwriting

The worksheet I included this week is maybe little music nerdy, but I hope it’s clear and useful. (If you have questions about anything in it, as always let me know so I can improve it!)

One of the things lots of songwriters who compose use the guitar can struggle with is creating melodies which are independent of the chords they are playing. Starting with a melody, it can be hard to know what chords you can play over it, and vice versa. One of the points of this sheet (and the one I put together two weeks ago) is to give songwriting guitarists and entry point into writing melodies independent of chords. 

That’s where I’m aiming on taking this at least.  

The Prompt:

The Musical Idea:

Community has always been one of the most important legs on the stool I rest my songwriting on. It should be a no brainer. The more people that join in, the better music gets. But community also to be one of the first things I forget. I was reminded about the importance of community again in an email this morning.  

My friend wrote briefly about how timed writes we’ve done togetherhave helped her. I met Allison this spring over Zoom when we were getting together every Saturday at 1:00PM because how else were we going to ride out Covid-19 and social distancing? I stopped hosting those Zooms because I returned to work, and my time got tight. (That’s also when these emails started). 

We have a nice little community of folks getting these emails right now. One way we could strengthen the community would be simply to post the song on the Fearless Forum after you’ve written, and check in with what other people have done over the weekend.  Another way, would be be to set up a time to write together (at a distance) with a friend or someone in the community, and check in on that.  (Here’s a place to do that on the forum). I’ve taken part in some great video work groups over the past few months where people will check-in at the start and then just dive in and write for a set amount of time while.