Many musicians struggle with composing their own material.
Listen to the interview below to gain strategies for starting, and finishing, more of your own musical compositions.
In the first of a two-part interview, I sat down with my former colleague at Berklee College of Music, Mark Simos, to discuss the strategies featured in his book Songwriting Strategies: A 360-Degree Approach.
Our conversation includes:
- The 360-degree approach
- “Song Seeds” – how to capture a short idea and grow it into a complete composition
- Translating song seeds across variations in lyric, melody, rhythm, and harmony
- Using different forms of restraint to enhance your creativity
- These strategies apply to writing tunes and songs in all genres and can also help improvisers.
Learn more about the 360-degree songwriting approach at Mark’s website www.360songwriting.com.
Here are several clips of presentations that Mark has given on songwriting:
- Rowe Conference Center Workshop
- Songwriting of Hazel Dickens Part 1
- Songwriting of Hazel Dickens Part 2
Clips in this episode
- “Nahatlatch” – by Mark Simos with Jenna Moynihan and Mairi Chaimbeul
- Bach Partita No.3 in E major – performed by Itzhak Perlman
“Postlude” – by Christian Howes, from his 2016 release on Resonance Records, “American Spirit“
