Songwriters on Songwriting

I hope you enjoy reading through this article – for more information please visit my Songwriting Tips website. 1. Inspiration What inspires you when writing a song? Life events, films, books, love, tragedy… boredom? If you don’t have inspiration, songwriting can be a chore. Inspiration can be observation, feelings, opinions, if you put pen to paper with a blank slate, you are making things difficult for yourself. Can’t think of a theme? Rather than focus on music and songs, focus on experiences. Try new things, reminisce of the past, dream of the future. Let the lyrics come to you. Sometimes it can be nice ... Read Full Story

Here is a new edition of Vaccai meets Trip Hop. I am now up to the 14th release in my Musing Mana song project : Musing Mana 14 – Vaccai Meets Trip Hop (Take 2) This version has more of a tribal feel and some minor key overtones. I even had to haul out my synthesizer to play the bass line and my Irish penny-whistle for the celestial background sounds. I bet Nicola Vaccai never dreamed his music would be mixed with Trip Hop. That is what the Creative Commons movement is all about though – extending and enhancing creativity through the sharing across ... Read Full Story

In my infinite desire to play around with new technology I ended up creating a MPEG4 video - The Movie – Vaccai Meets Trip Hop (Take 2) of Vaccai Meets Trip Hop (Take 2). So, now here you go. This has to be one of my shortest blog posts ever. BTW, happy Labor Day. Click here to view the embedded video. Read Full Story

There are frequently stories about someone who found a great treasure in a thrift shop or pawn shop like maybe a rare pre-war Martin D-28 or some other cool thing. Finally, I can join the ranks of the thrift shop story tellers, only my find was not a guitar or piece of jewelry, but rather the game changing treatise of professor Lawrence Lessig , “ Free Culture “! For any of you who have followed my blog posts here, you will know that Lawrence Lessig and his brain child, “ Creative Commons ” have been a huge interest and excitement for me personally. In ... Read Full Story

On Mothers Day 2008 I released Musing Mana 5, Always There for my mom. It’s one of the first songs I wrote, and arguably fairly cheesy, but hey, it was “for mom” so she had to like it. That version was, believe it or not, and I suspect that you probably will believe it, recorded on a 1980’s era Sharp Ghettoblaster boombox tape recorder out on the workbench in my garage! Since the recording is all on one track…voice and guitar mixed together, there is not a lot one can do to improve the basic performance, and compounding that I recall that the cassette ... Read Full Story