Counter Assertion

Are you a beginning songwriter who strives towards writing songs that become hits? Do you need to know how you can improve your songwriting skill?

It’s not too complicated. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. As far as I’m concerned the best way to improve your songwriting is to study what hit songwriters do. Forget about the mediocre stuff and learn from the leaders in the songwriting and music industry. Study what works.

As a songwriter who has written quite a few number one songs in my country, one thing that has helped me and continues to help me is the radio. I listen to the radio all the time so I know what type of song is happening. I know what people like, what they want to hear, and what is current. This gives me a good idea of what kind of song I should write to target a particular market.

When you listen to the radio, take notes on what hit songs have in common. Study the structure of these songs. What tempo seems to work? Are the chord progressions complicated or are the songs based mainly on riffs? What kind of chords are used? That way you can write songs that appeal to today’s audience. No matter how good your song is, if it sounds like something that would be better suited to ten or twenty years ago, you can forget it.

It is a shame how some songwriters treat the songwriting craft. I’m sorry, but if you do not spend time at developing your craft you are bound to fail. I don’t care if it’s baseball or dancing, those people who come out and top are the very same ones who practice everyday. Those who spend years at perfecting their craft. So learn form those who were there before you. Study and write songs everyday. Lay hold of songwriting books, get songwriting software, do anything to take you to the next level.

To improve, a songwriter needs to become more knowledgeable everyday. The more things you know about, and the more you can relate to different aspects of everyday life, the better for you. I never heard of a novelist who didn’t read constantly. The same applies to songwriting and great songwriters. You must put in a lot of work if you want to excel.

Nothing comes easy in life. Work, work, and work some more. Pattern your writing after what has been proven to work, but never copy. Do it everyday and reap the rewards.

Mantius Cazaubon offers lots of valuable songwriting tips, techniques, suggestions and advice on his site http://www.ultimatesongwriting.com Visit Ultimate Songwriting for the ultimate truth about lyric writing and songwriting.

Parents are often disappointed in the length of time their children spend at the piano practicing. Most parents think their children should be practicing longer, and they’re probably right. What parents don’t usually get, however, is that for young beginners it takes practice to learn to how practice! To overcome this learning gap parents initially need to focus on process and content rather than product.

Since everything is new to young children, it’s a mistake for parents to assume too much. For example, you may think it would be obvious to your child in piano lessons that they need to play their pieces more than one time, but this just isn’t the case with children. Most children assume that because they played a song once at home they have indeed practiced! What the young student doesn’t understand is the piano learning process. Help your student by outlining a process that will result in improvement. To do this students need two things.

1. A goal;

2. Specific practice habits that will support that goal.

Example for Beginners:

Goal: Assignment - Play Song on Page 8 in C Position 7 times each day

Good Habit 1 - Keep Your Eyes on the Music (Don’t Look at Your Hands)

Good Habit 2 - Sing the Note Names as You Play Them

Beginning songs for children take approximately 1 minute to play. Multiply by 7 and you have 7 minutes of practice. Not a long time, but with good habits this can be very affective initially and achieves the goal over a week of practice. If your child has two pieces of music assigned, that’s 14 minutes of practice. If your child does this for a few days, however, they will know their pieces so well that they won’t need to play them 7 times. Three times would then be enough. That makes the practice session shorter, not longer. Starting with 10 minutes a day of practice for a young beginner is reasonable.

As students learn more skills, their assigned music pieces become longer and more complex, and thus the practice time as it naturally makes sense to do so. The practice session can gradually extend to 15 minutes, then 20, then 25 until the student knows how to apply themselve at the piano for 30 minutes.

The focus at the beginning should not be solely on length of practice, but on daily practice strategies that are effective. In this way young students gradually gain the musical foundation of skills they need to play more complex music that will require more time to learn. By focusing on weekly goals and specific habits that apply strategy to learning students acquire a repertoire of practice habits that develop skills they can rely on to learn more difficult music and practice longer.

For great home piano activities parents can use to help children ages 5 to 11 develop their musical talent, visit Piano Adventure Bears Music Education Resources You’ll find a treasure box filled with piano resources to create an exciting musical adventure for your child - right in your own home! Visit their website and subscribe to their f’ree internet newsletter so you can download f’ree piano sheet music and mp3s of original piano compositions.

These exciting stories, games, piano lessons, and inspirational gifts feature the Piano Adventure Bears, Mrs. Treble Beary and her new piano student, Albeart Littlebud. Young students follow along with Albeart to learn what piano lessons are all about in a fun way that kids readily understand appreciate. Click here to visit PianoAdventureBears.com For a wealth of information about piano lessons, visit tallypiano.com