Brent is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ray Stevens, and more.  He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.

Commercially-speaking, positive songs are in higher demand than negative songs.  (That’s not a surprise if you listen to the radio.)  But what if most of the titles you come up with are sad/negative?  I humbly suggest that most titles that sounds negative can be used for a positive song if you’re creative enough.

For example, “You Broke My Heart” could mean “You broke my heart out of it’s chains.”  I had an old idea called, “Minutes From A Memory” about a guy that knew his girl was about to leave him.  Thankfully, my cowriter (Jason Cox) saw it as a guy knowing he and his girl are about to make a great memory.  That’s so much more commercial!

I confess to being a negative-first kind songwriter.  Maybe pain just just more interesting.  Who knows?  But I’ve really worked on not settling for a negative idea just because it’s my first impression of a title.  Not only are those negative-title-positive-songs more commercial because they’re positive, they’re also more interesting because you have to dig deeper into your idea.  Win-win!

God Bless,

Brent

YOU VS…

Brent is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ray Stevens, and more.  He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.

It’s frustrating to finally get some solo songwriting time, then to feel like it just wasn’t as productive as you hoped it would be.  Today, I want to give you six tips to make the most of your solo songwriting time.

1. Schedule it.

If you schedule your solo writing, you’re more likely to actually HAVE solo writing time.  Also, if you know it’s coming up on Tuesday at 10am, you’ll start thinking about it as the time approaches.  You’ll start thinking about what you can write about and you’ll start getting in the “songwriter state of mind” before you even sit down to write.

2. Build a transition ritual.

An athlete doesn’t just step on the field and start competing without warming up. In the same way, you might pull a brain-muscle if you go directly from board meeting or baby-changing to trying to write a hit chorus.  Transition rituals can help you make the switch to your creative mind.  They might include taking a walk, driving around the block, listening to some great music, freewriting, or sitting quietly for a few minutes.  Just make sure your transition ritual doesn’t become procrastination.

3. Go to your creative space.

I think it helps to have a place you go where your brain knows “this is where I write.”  Your tools are there (guitar, capo, notebook, etc.) and it’s comfortable (though not nap-inducing).  It could be a quiet corner of your home, or it could be the corner coffee shop where there’s just enough distraction to be white-noise.

4. Eliminate distractions.

Turn off your phone, email, internet, TV, radio, etc.  It’s easy to click over and check email when you’re stuck on a rhyme, but it’s a major time killer.  Focus, focus, focus.

5. Allow enough time.

Each of us takes a certain amount of time to get into a groove, and nothing’s more frustrating than having to quit when you’re just hitting it.  So learn yourself and schedule enough time for you to hit that groove and stay in it for a while.  It might be that one 4-hour block is twice as productive as four 1-hour blocks.

6. Get enough sleep.

It’s hard to be sharp when you’re groggy or foggy from lack of sleep.  We need our brains working well, and they work best when they get enough sleep.

Hope that helps!

God Bless,

Brent

YOU VS…

Remember, if you write to get cuts, your songs aren’t about you.  Your songs are about the artist and the listener.  You might write a song inspired by a true story from your life, but don’t be so determined to keep all the facts accurate that it makes your song confusing, complicated, or boring to the outside listener.

What matters is the emotional truth- the feeling you want the listener to feel.  The listener doesn’t care about you (heck, they probably think the artist wrote the song anyway).  The listener cares about connecting to the song.

If you want to write the song (or an alternate version of the song) for yourself, that’s great.  It’s a worthy thing to do.  But if you want cuts, it’s to your advantage to give the truth a higher priority than the facts.  It’s about communicating emotional truth, not facts.

Brent

YOU VS…

Brent is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ray Stevens, and more.  He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.

If your goals are like mine- getting cuts, hits, etc., then your best bet is by writing well-crafted COMMERCIAL songs.  Here are six simple (though not always easy) ways to make your songs more commercial.

1. Write uptempo.

Learn to write tempo!  If you don’t believe how important this is, count the ballads on the radio for an hour.  Or listen to a few of the current top albums and count the ballads.  Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Math.  Math, who?  Math says they cut a lot more uptempo and midtempo than ballads.

2. Write positive.

If you’re like me, your natural inclination is to write sad/negative.  When I come up with a hook, my first instinct is something sad.  Maybe for some reason pain is just more interesting than happiness.  But not for radio.  Radio likes happy. Knock, knock…

3. Write from the me-to-you point of view.

“I love you” is just more emotionally powerful than “he loves her.”  The artist wants to connect with the audience, and “I” to “you” is a good way to do that.

4. Write about love.

Love is a deep need.  It’s often our greatest joy and our sharpest pain.  Nothing is more universal.

5. Write in-the-moment.

The present tense- right now- has more power than the past or the future.  “You ARE killing me in that sundress” usually beats “you WERE killing me in that sundress.”  There’s power in the present.

6. Write with imagery.

Don’t tell me how you feel- show me.  After all, there are only so many emotions.  But there are endless ways to put those emotions into pictures.

There are obviously many hits that weren’t written in the way I’ve described.  But, from both my experience and observations, writing songs with these six qualities as your default setting will increase the commercial appeal of your songs.

God Bless,

Brent

YOU VS…