This site is for a new generation of songwriters that write the hit songs of the future. Here are my 5 guidelines to creating any of my programs that set me apart from everyone else:
1. The Most In-Depth Trainings You’ve Ever Seen
Have you ever been frustrated with shallow explanations of complex subjects (such as groove, form or hook-writing)? My #1 guideline in teaching at Holistic Songwriting is to provide you with the most in-depth trainings you’ve ever seen. We answer the questions you really want to know, like…
- How do I program a MIDI-HiHat so it sounds like a human being played it, so it grooves like hell (btw, here’s how)?
- How do I hook and guide the listener through my songs so they simply can’t resist and have to keep listening? (hint: it has nothing to do with hooks)
- How can I speed up my workflow?
2. Relevant And Up-To-Date
You wouldn’t believe how many songwriting books have been written about music from the 60s. That means almost all information you can find on songwriting is 2 generations old! We here at HS follow the charts to see what’s new and only teach you what’s relevant.
While most conservatories and music schools focus on techniques like counterpoint, 4-part harmony and upper structures, we only focus on what matters today. The three components that we talk about most are (and I’ll betcha $50 you’ve heard someone say “You can’t teach that” about at least two of these):
- Groove – How do I make my audience move to my music?
- Hooks – How do I write a line that will stick with my listeners forever?
- Lyric-Less Storytelling – How do I grab my audience’s attention and keep it until the very end of the song?
3. Modern & Commercial
My guess is that 95% of what you’ve learned from other songwriting sources hasn’t taught you anything you didn’t already know, am I right? Why is that?
Most of the time the problem is that songwriting books try to be for everyone, country and heavy metal writers alike. This leads to impractical generalizations like “all you need to know about form is verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus”.
Because Holistic Songwriting focuses on Modern, Commercial music, we can go much, much deeper with our material and actually give you an action plan that will help you.
Don’t believe me? Check out 3 Major Ways In Which Songwriting Is Different Than 30 Years Ago.
4. No BS
So much of what a serious student of songwriting wants to learn is encased by a thick layer of bullshit. While most of it is “interesting”, you will never use it. Remember that history bit on the beginnings of songwriting? That one interview with that one songwriter? Me neither.
“Interesting” is not good enough. Let’s go for “I can’t wait to try this out”.
5. Complete
On top of diving into subjects very deeply, I also want to show you all there is to songwriting, most importantly the three areas Technique, Inner Game and Business. This way, we look at songwriting holistically and we’re not leaving anything out.
As you will gather from my programs, I’m also very interested in how things connect with each other. Where do the circles of groove and hook overlap? How can you lyric-less storytell a groove? It’s extremely important to understand that one element is never isolated in a song. It’s more like they’re all organs in a body – take one out and the whole thing will stop working.
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