ARCHIVE: Song Writing

May 23, 2008

Rifflet: Home for Unfinished Songs and Audio Clips

Someone had me in mind when starting this blog/soundbank site...  Rifflet claims to be the home for unfinished songs.  Basically, anyone can upload a riff or soundclip, and anyone else can listen to and download that clip, add to it,... Read More

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August 26, 2007

Cricket Chirps and Audio Recording Don't Mix Well

I made some progress with song #2 this weekend, "Avalanche" (previously named "Take A Stand") after re-writing the chorus lyrics, and re-formating the verse melodies to give them a little more swing...something new for me.  (The cello parts are still... Read More

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May 10, 2007

American Idol Songwriting Contest Songs Submitted

Say that 10x fast.This is bad...it's the 2nd time American Idol has appeared on GarageSpin in less than a month.  But this time, it's about the American Idol Songwriting Contest; I felt compelled to after seeing the oh-so-cute Hugh in... Read More

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May 03, 2007

Buy a Custom Song to Wear Pants To

My photographer and perpetual traveller friend Taylor told me to check out Andrew, a songwriter taking song requests at SongsToWearPantsTo.com.  You can make either a "free request" or a "paid request".  Andrew reads all free requests and writes 1:11 songs... Read More

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April 21, 2007

An Interview With Jonathan Coulton On Songwriting

Remember Jonathan Coulton, the Song-A-Week machine?  There's a really good interview with him at CecilVortex about songwriting, its challenges, and how Jonathan dealt with them.  I last posted about inspiration for new songs.  Here's an interesting, related exchange from the... Read More

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April 19, 2007

Wee Hour Inspiration

Inspiration seems to hit me hardest between the hours of 11:00 PM and 2:00 AM.  There's something about the stillness of all surroundings coupled with the cacoon of conciousness that forms around a lone, awake mind.It makes the following work... Read More

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March 12, 2007

Kompoz, a New Collaboration Workspace for Musicians

Interesting.  Kompoz released a beta version of an online workspace for musicians to collaborate in the creation of new recordings.  Think Apple's GarageBand audio recording software meets MySpace Band pages, where the social network revolves around song projects.Basically, anyone can... Read More

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February 09, 2007

Songwriters vs. Shredders, Musicianship vs. Music Critics

Office Overlord tipped me on a great discussion going on over at pop culture site A.V. Club -- the music editors discuss whether musicianship is required to critique, and how/if musicianship benefits songs, etc.  If you've ever encountered an elitest... Read More

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January 14, 2007

Updates to GarageSpin.com

This weekend may have been one of the most active and surprisingly productive in a while for me: Worked on my next song, "Take a Stand", and now have the chord progression for a pre-chorus and chorus.  Chorus lyrics are... Read More

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December 07, 2006

Pandora's Music Theory Podcast

Pandora recently launched a podcast, with it's first episode, "The Basics of Vocal Harmony," a few weeks ago.  Tim (Pandora founder) explains:We're planning to do a whole bunch of these. The idea behind them is to provide some interesting, and... Read More

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December 06, 2006

Six Songwriters Collaborate 3000 Miles Apart

Gert is a band made of of six songwriting-musicians that lived a continent apart, but decided to make like Voltron and join forces online.This account of artistic collaboration includes audio clips and email blurbs that track the progress of their... Read More

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November 22, 2006

The New "I Live Music" Blog Network

There's a new (or old?) blog network that looks to create a Weblogs-ish approach to the world of niche blogging in the industry of music creation.  The network includes I Live Music, Blogging Muses, Nashville Hype, and Recordster, with a... Read More

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August 09, 2006

PSP Rhythm Song Contest

If you've got a Sony PSP, and you've downloaded the free drum machine software PSP Rhythm 6.0 for it, you can enter the new PSP Rhythm Song Contest.  Throw in effects, a bass line, and use the "Extended" mode to... Read More

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July 12, 2006

Songwriters Duke It Out on SongFight

If you haven't checked out SongFight yet, you should.  It's basically an online, weekly songwriting competition where bands submit brand new songs written and recorded in response to song titles proposed by the site's administrators.  It's an absolute blast to see what people come... Read More

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February 07, 2006

New Book, Real World Digital Audio, Rocks

Create Digital Music's Peter Kirn's new book, Real World Digital Audio, recently hit the shelves, and I managed to score a copy.  It's quite a whopper, covering everything from the basics of audio and digital audio physics, software, hardware, etc,... Read More

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December 30, 2005

Submit Music For Australian Motorsport DVD

Since we're on the subject of submitting music for soundtracks, here's another opportunity:Smooth Motion Films from Western Australia is inviting all bands to submit music for consideration in their motorsport DVD, Motorvation 2006.  Selected bands get credits, website links, a free... Read More

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Submit Music For Soundtrack in Collaborative Film

B.Sting Entertainment is inviting unsigned musicians to submit music for consideration in the soundtrack for the feature film The People's Moviea.What's interesting about this film's production, is that many crucial decisions will be made by fans of the movie at www.thepeoplesmovie.com, including... Read More

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November 23, 2005

Hit Song Science Offers Free Song Reports

Hit Song Science is giving away free song reports with referrals through December 20th. If you haven't heard of the service, great, let me "refer" you it so I can get a free report. :) Basically, Hit Song Science technology... Read More

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May 13, 2005

Musicians Uniting in Song to Support File Sharing

Artist Halsey Burgund, of Aesthetic Evidence, is asking musicians to submit recordings of themselves expressing support for filesharing. He plans to incorporate these recordings in a remix track released under a Creative Commons license, focusing on the subject of filesharing.... Read More

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May 12, 2005

Songwriting and Remix Competitions

There are hundreds of songwriting and remix competitions taking place accross the US. Here are two of them, with approaching deadlines: THE "RUNNING 2005" REMIX COMPETITION Submission Deadline: May 16th, 2005 Task: Take loops provided to you by Rebel Region... Read More

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