Workshops

Lyric Structure And Development Master Class:  How do I make my lyric stories more interesting? What song form will best serve this idea? This seminar looks at the 5 different pro techniques for creating plot lines that grab the listener from the very first line  until the very last word.

Catchy Choruses! We deconstruct the many proven ways today’s pros use to create the most memorable and powerful choruses in the contemporary world of number one hit songs. We talk about the basics of memory retention and how this applies to songwriting. Then there are chorus building tricks like using a snapshot of an emotional moment, the repeating hook, the "anti chorus" and the chorus first song. We go over post choruses, break downs, and bridges - all these devices songwriters use to write a song you just can't get out of your head... in a good way!

Creative Expansion, Building Hit Songs From Writers Block: Expand your creative possibilities and confidence with affirmations and exercises that access your wild artistic mind at any time. Writer’s block can be your best friend! Learn how to make playful mistakes that lead to deeper and more interesting songs.

Rhythm And Rhyme To The Nines: Songwriters can manipulate emotion through rhyme and rhythm. Learn such techniques as soft vowel rhyme, symmetrical and asymmetrical rhyme, syllabic contrast and unusual rhyme patterns that keep a listener's attention.

Powerful Emotional Writing From The Pop Masters: Emotional writing, used extensively in Pop and R&B and today is filtering into Country, can be much more than predictable and clichéd.  The Pop Dictionary contains only 3000 core words! So it's not necessarily the words that make a hit. It's how we put these words together! It’s all about music, rhyme and line rhythm, contrast and repetition artfully combined! Examine the great emotional songwriters and discover their secrets for engaging and meaningful emotional music and lyric without sounding preachy. Learn how to make minimalist lyric an effective tool in the songwriting process. Get techniques to replace or deal with clichés.

Music With Max Emotion: "I got this great lyric but the music just isn't getting there". Learn how to create the right music for the right emotion to best express and intensify your lyric's message without having to read or write music.

Secrets to Successful Symbolic Writing:  Exploring the colorful world of idioms, metaphors and similes; how they give us the ability to tackle controversial, or erotic topics with grace and flare. We explore fun exercises to build unique symbols, even for the symbolically challenged.

Masterful Closure!  We all get stuck on that pesky second verse or illusive bridge now and then. There are time tested techniques for expanding lyric such as reversal, splitting, tracing emotional history, changing development perspective, micro detailing which includes descriptions, actions and conversations as well as inner thoughts and symbolic writing. We will discuss proven ways to finish songs with that professional touch. Through this lecture we will be able to enhance and deepen our song lyric into engaging memorable songs from concept to closure.

Co-Writing Master Class: What ARE the "rules" of co-writing? Are there any... really? Yes, actually, there are many ways to get it right and some ways to get it very wrong! What do we do when the day heads South instead of Hits-ville? We go deep into the minds and personalities of the 4 basic types of songwriters and how they might interact... or not! We cover all the potholes and pitfalls on the hunt for the perfect co-writing experience.

Webinars

CREATIVETS LIVE STREAMING: Every Tuesday and Friday, at 11AM Central, I teach songwriting for 1 1/2 hours to Veterans, and anyone who wants to join in, at CREATIVETS.ORG. We talk about what makes a song a hit by deconstructing… wait for it… hit songs. The overarching concept we base analysis on is what I call THE ARC OF INTEREST. We know about the arc of a story in novel, play and script writing. In songwriting we have much more than words to keep our listeners totally engaged from intro to outro. We look at proven hit song Topics, elements of Form, Development components including Characters, Place, Time, emotions and attitudes. Rhythm and Rhyme, melody and chords are broken down. We look at the various techniques of symbolic writing as well as how we get on our soapboxes and make grand statements without turning off our listeners.