Dictionaries: A key tool for songwriters
Being unique and original can be hard work. Give your songs an extra edge by making sure you are using words with depth and meaning. These online dictionaries and thesauruses are a great way to search for the perfect word. They are also a great way to help fill the well - getting you a larger vocabulary to work with to express yourself through
- Dictionary.com: With more than 70 million monthly users worldwide, Dictionary.com is the world's leading and most definitive online dictionary.
- Urban Dictionary: A user curated collection of slang words and phrases
- Visuwords: Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.
- Merriam-Webster: For more than 150 years, Merriam-Webster has been one of America's leading and most-trusted provider of language information. Dictionary, Thesaurus and other tools.
Tune up Your Guitar Skills!
Three chords and the truth may be more than enough for some, but as songwriters improving your skills on your instruments will give you more tools and depth to take your songs to new places. Here are a collection of sites
I Needed Inspiration!
Great documentaries and lectures
Leonard Bernstein - The Unanswered Question:
The Unanswered Question is the title of a lecture series given by Leonard Bernstein in the fall of 1973. This series of six lectures was a component of Bernstein’s duties as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for the 1972-73 academic year at Harvard University, and is therefore often referred to as the Norton Lectures. The lectures were both recorded on video and printed as a book, titled The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard.- Musical Phonolgy http://youtu.be/MB7ZOdp__gQ
- Musical Syntax http://youtu.be/r_fxB6yrDVo
- Musical Semantics http://youtu.be/8IxJbc_aMTg
- The Delights & Dangers of Ambiguity http://youtu.be/hwXO3I8ASSg
- The XXth Century Crisis http://youtu.be/kPGstQUbpHQ
- The Poetry of Earth http://youtu.be/OWeQXTnv_xU
There is a Perfect Melody Out There Somewhere
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, melōidía, "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include successions of other musical elements such as tonal color. It may be considered the foreground to the background accompaniment.
Songwriting Lesson for Beginners to Advanced
Andrea Stolpe is a Songwriting instruction for melodic, lyric, and harmonic ideas from Berkleemusic.com instructor and writer of "Popular Lyric Writing: 10 steps to Effective Storytelling"Songwriting Gurus
These coaches and educators are committed to the craft of songwriting. Feeling stuck? Not sure how to take you songs to the next level
Coursera Course
and Resources Songwriting course: conducted by Pat Pattison. View it here. Course Notes: Compact but comprehensive notes of the course View it here. Mind Map: Stefan Olsson made a mindmap of the entire Pat Pattison Coursera course. May not make sense to you if