The Unexpected Gift
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
5d ago
There have been periods in my life, long periods, when I wrote two or three dozen songs a year. In those same periods I’d frequently wake up with a fragment of music and/or lyrics, sometimes a whole section of a song, in my head, out of some kind of dream. Trained (by myself) to get out of bed, more asleep than not, I’d get the idea down. Otherwise I’d certainly forget it. I can evaluate the quality of the idea later and develop it if it’s any good. The main thing is to pounce when it comes. In the last few years my songwriting pace has slowed down to probably one or two songs a month… maybe ..read more
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Are Your Lyric Themes Obsessive or Just Habitual?
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
2w ago
In our lyrics, most of us tend to write about the same things over and over. We all have our themes: love, romantic love, romance, sexual love, sex, loss, commitment, betrayal, optimism, skepticism, joy, anger, inspiration, heartbreak, mortality, even obsession itself… among many others. Our obsessions seem to embed themselves in our songs no matter how we try to guide them otherwise. This can be part of having an identity as a songwriter, a ‘style’, a ‘voice’.  If the songs are products of my obsessions – themes that haunt me, taunt me, and insist on being written about until they’r ..read more
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How Do You Get Out Of A Songwriting Rut?
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
1M ago
When I hear a song I like that’s either new, new to me, or that I haven’t heard in a while, I sometimes think, ‘That’s great! Why haven’t I written a song like that?’ This can be an excellent jumping off point for a new song – writing something based on what I love but haven’t done before. Because we all have our comfort zones. Some of us always write with an 8th note feel and never write shuffles (triplet feel); some writers are the opposite, and always write in a shuffle or swing feel. We all have tempo comfort zones. I have a few areas (my versions of slow, medium, fast) that I immediately ..read more
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How To Keep Your Melody Alive
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
1M ago
A good melody tells a story. It doesn’t just help tell the story of the words; it has its own story. (Sometimes the melody’s story is very different from the story in the words – it can function as subtext to the lyric). Any good melody has drama. It starts somewhere, takes a journey, developments happen, tensions develop and are (usually) resolved. But the main thing is that the melody stay in motion, that it doesn’t feel finished until it is finished. Like a shark, it has to move or die. In any dramatic form – film, theater – you don’t resolve your story until the end. Because the resolution ..read more
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Let The Words Change The Melody
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
2M ago
We songwriters spend a lot of time contending with what I call the ‘crossword puzzle’ aspect of songwriting – that is, fitting the words as elegantly and precisely as possible to the melody we’ve got. And it’s easy to think that once the melody is set… that it’s set in stone. When writing I often find myself with an apt lyric… but it just doesn’t fit the melody. What I used to do was keep chiseling away at the lyric until I got to the best solution I could find, leaving the melody alone. Often that’s still what I do. But sometimes now, if I like the line of lyric, I think, ‘Rather than carving ..read more
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Bring The Pain – To Your Songs
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
3M ago
It’s common for songwriters to anxiously think something like, “when people hear my songs, then they’ll really know how messed up I am (and who needs that?)”.  To feel shame about what comes up in writing is common… but the reticence that comes from that shame is also something that needs to be gotten used to and, as much as possible, overcome. Most great artists, great songwriters, Bring The Pain. They’re either not afraid of it or – more likely – they are, but push through anyway. This goes for lyrics and music. The things that scare me most are the things that compel me, moth-to-a-fla ..read more
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Take The Great Leap In Your Songwriting
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
4M ago
Melodies are a songwriter’s secret weapon. More than any other part of a song, a melody is what’s likely to make a song stick, make it last. Rhythm hits your body, lyrics go to your head… melody goes straight to the heart. And nothing goes straighter to the heart than a strong leap, a jump in the melody, usually of more than 4 scale tones (a 4th or more). Think about these leaps up: * Empire State Of Mind (jumps up a 5th – ‘inspire you” – in the Chorus) * Alfie (up a 6th on the repeat of ‘What’s it all about’) * Somewhere (from West Side Story) memorably jumps up a flatted 7th in its first l ..read more
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Make The Great Leap In Your Songwriting
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
4M ago
Melodies are a songwriter’s secret weapon. More than any other part of a song, a melody is what’s likely to make a song stick, make it last. Rhythm hits your body, lyrics go to your head… melody goes straight to the heart. And nothing goes straighter to the heart than a strong leap, a jump in the melody, usually of more than 4 scale tones (a 4th or more). Think about these leaps up: * Empire State Of Mind (jumps up a 5th – ‘inspire you” – in the Chorus) * Alfie (up a 6th on the repeat of ‘What’s it all about’) * Somewhere (from West Side Story) memorably jumps up a flatted 7th in its first l ..read more
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How To Finish Your Songs
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
5M ago
When asked which came first, the music or the lyrics, the great lyricist Sammy Cahn famously replied, “The phone call.” When asked about inspiration, Duke Ellington said he didn’t need it: “All I need is a piano and a deadline.” There’s nothing like a deadline to spur creativity and get a writer moving forward… and internal deadlines (“I will have this done by Wednesday!”) are usually not as effective as external ones. I’ve found that one of the main reasons people come to my songwriting workshops is simply this – most of us write more (and in a more focused way) knowing that someone’s waiting ..read more
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How Thinking Backwards Helps You Finish Your Song
Tony Conniff
by TonyConniff
5M ago
When writing a lyric, we songwriters often have trouble answering a very mundane question: What should I say? Now, I wouldn’t have even begun writing lyrics if I didn’t feel strongly that I had ‘something to say’. But ‘having something to say’ is a very general idea or feeling. Writing a lyric for a particular song is not general at all – it’s incredibly specific. If it’s good, a lyric will fit its song – and no other. Every job is custom. Say I’m writing a song… I have a Title, maybe a Chorus, maybe some idea for a story or situation, a part of a Verse that kind of makes s ..read more
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