The deadline to enter this year’s USA Songwriting Competition is this Friday, May 30.
You can enter the competition online HERE …
Entrants have a chance to win a top prize of $50,000 in cash and merchandise from sponsors such as Gibson Guitars, Epiphone, Sony, D’Addario Strings, PreSonus, Audio-Technica, and many more.
Original songs can be entered in 15 different categories: Pop, Rock/Alternative, Country, R&B, Gospel/Inspirational, Folk, Latin, Instrumental, Jazz, Hip-Hop/Rap, Children, World, Dance/Electronica, Novelty/Comedy, and Lyrics Only.
Winners will be selected by a committee of music industry judges, including music publishers, producers, A&R execs from Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI and Sony Music, and other distinguished music professionals.
The USA Songwriting Competition has been honoring songwriters from all over the world since 1995. Past winners have come from Australia, Japan, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil and South Africa, as well as from the USA.
The winner of the 2013 USA Songwriting Competition—’Believer’ by US rock band American Authors (pictured)—went on to achieve Platinum sales. It topped the Billboard Adult Pop Song Charts and reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. The song—which was written by Zac Barnett, Dave Rublin, Matt Sanchez, James Adam Shelley, Aaron Accetta and Shep Goodman—was also featured in the hit movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Here’s a video of the 2013 winner, ‘Believer’, by American Authors …
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![“HOW [NOT] TO WRITE A HIT SONG! - 101 COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID IF YOU WANT SONGWRITING SUCCESS” is available from Amazon as a paperback and also as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes Store, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=100&h=150)
“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Earlier this year, British soul singer-songwriter Sam Smith urged songwriters to be “a voice for lonely people“.
He pointed to what he sees as a gap in the music market for songs about “unrequited love”, instead of more common themes for love songs such as falling in love or breaking up.
Now Sam has released a video for a beautiful new song titled ‘Leave Your Lover’ which, he says, reflects the emotion of unrequited love in its rawest form.
“I don’t think unrequited love is spoken about enough in music,” says Sam. “I’ve been through unrequited love myself. I’ve been in love with someone who didn’t love me back and I found it hard to find songs that were about that.”
‘Leave Your Lover’ is from Sam Smith’s debut album In The Lonely Hour, released in the UK on May 26 and in the United States on June 17.
The album feature collaborations with Fraser T Smith, Two Inch Punch, Eg White, Disclosure, Zane Lowe, Tourist, and Sam’s long-time writing partner Jimmy Napes.
Here’s the official video for ‘Leave Your Lover’ …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé recently explained her approach to writing hit songs during a special coaching session at BBC Radio 1’s Academy in Glasgow.
In a video extract from the session (see below), 27-year-old Emeli opens up about her songwriting process and shares tips on how to write a great song. She also explains how she wrote songs like ‘River,’ ‘Next to Me’ and ‘Clown’ from her debut album, Our Version of Events.
Emeli wrote her first fully-structured song when she was only seven years old, and has so far received 18 awards—including three Brit awards and four MOBO Awards. She won the coveted Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically in 2013 with her song ‘Next to Me’. The same song also picked up the PRS for Music award for Most Performed Work in 2013.
Emeli Sandé may have received huge acclaim in recent years, but she certainly knows how it feels to be a young songwriter struggling for recognition. She once commented: “I was an underdog. Nobody wanted to sign me. When people don’t believe in you, you want to prove them wrong.
“I want to encourage any underdog to achieve their dreams.”
In another pointed remark, she once said: “My song ‘Clown’ was written when I couldn’t find anyone who believed in me as an artist. Maybe those labels will think twice next time a young songwriter comes along.”
Emeli’s advice to all aspiring songwriters is to “keep going” and focus on honing your craft. “Stay brave, I think that’s a big thing,” she says. “Always be ready to go, and don’t always think about the negative. It could go amazing … Don’t give up.”
Here is Emeli’s inspiring video from the coaching session at BBC Radio 1’s Academy in Glasgow …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (North America) and HERE (UK and Europe).
If you feel your efforts during a writing session are exhausted—or if you’ve got songwriting block and good ideas just aren’t coming—don’t try to force-feed your songwriting process. Try going out for a long walk instead (ideally with no distractions from texts or ‘phone calls!). Or have a workout on a treadmill.
That’s the advice offered by a new study from Stanford University titled: Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking (published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in April 2014).
The study involved four separate experiments which showed that the flow of creative ideas can be substantially improved by walking on your own with no fixed route (or even walking indoors on a treadmill). The study found that most of the participants benefited from walking compared with sitting, and the average increase in creative output was around 60%.
“Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity,” said the report’s authors Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz of Stanford University. “Walking has a strong effect on creative production whether indoors or out.”
TRY WALKING BEFORE A WRITING SESSION
The study’s findings also suggest that taking a walk immediately before a songwriting session might help you to generate more ideas.
“Walking exhibited a residual effect on creativity,” said the report’s authors. “After people walked, their subsequent seated creativity was much higher than those who had not walked.”
Geoff Nicholson, author of the book The Lost Art of Walking, is not surprised by the study’s findings: “There is something about the pace of walking and the pace of thinking that goes together. Walking requires a certain amount of attention but it leaves great parts of the time open to thinking.
“I do believe once you get the blood flowing through the brain it does start working more creatively,” said Nicholson. “Your senses are sharpened.”
Some of the most creative writers of all time—William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens among them—all walked regularly for inspiration (it is said that Dickens could easily rack up 20 miles at a time, often at night).
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche also noted the special connection between walking and thinking in 1889 when he wrote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”
Maybe the same could apply to all truly great songs …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“I think it’s important not to be placed in a genre. I’ve always been a jumble of all my favourite artists which just happen to be a really wide range—from Dean Martin to Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple and The Beatles. I’m a Beatles nerd and studied them as songwriters … So I never really tick a box.”
—Christina Perri
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), and HERE (UK).
According to award-winning US singer-songwriter Kelis, being pregnant can enhance female songwriters’ creativity and help them to make better music.
Kelis, 34, believes her last album, 2010’s Flesh Tone, was one of her best pieces of work because she was pregnant with her first child at the time.
”For me, my last album was the brightest, just because I was pregnant when I recorded it and that’s a really powerful time for a woman artist,” she told fuse.tv. “If I think about female artists in the past 15 to 20 years that I love, I look at their body of work and I’m like, ‘Oh, she was pregnant then!’ It makes so much sense, and Flesh Tone definitely signifies that. It’s about life. It’s a very robust record.”
Kelis believes that becoming a mother has changed the way she approaches her music. Her new songwriting technique, she says, is reflected in her latest album Food which was released in April 2014.
Food, her sixth studio album, has already become her second-highest peaking album since 2003’s Tasty which spawned huge hits such as ‘Milkshake’ and ‘Trick Me’.
Kelis feels motherhood has also given her a new level of confidence. “I’m generally comfortable in my own skin and I really do love being a mother,” she said. “I think it comes across in the writing because you can’t really ignore it, you know. I mean [when you’re pregnant], you’re literally full of life. I’m writing songs that obviously speak to who I am now.”
Here’s the Official Video for ‘Jerk Ribs’, the first single from her new album …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
We all have the same 24 hours in a day as songwriters like Taylor Swift, Pharrell Williams and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (pictured), so how come they are able to turn out so many hit songs on a regular basis while other writers can’t?
One reason, it seems, is that some writers may have the talent to write hit songs, but they lack the determination, focus and self-discipline to make it happen.
John Legend, for example, believes success as a songwriter is as much about working hard as it is talent. “There’s this mistaken belief that everything is about talent,” he told Q magazine, “but talent has to be cultivated and developed. If it’s not nurtured, pushed and challenged it’s not going to happen.”
Diane Warren, one of the most successful female songwriters of all time, says she spent 20 years writing six days a week, 10-12 hours a day, before she felt she could finally take the occasional weekend off!
Experienced songwriters know how important it is to challenge yourself to write something every day—even when you don’t feel like it—otherwise potential hit songs will never get written.
Establishing a consistent writing habit—making it part of your daily routine—will boost your creativity and productivity, and lead to better songs.
As Burt Bacharach once remarked: “Music breeds its own inspiration. You can only do it by doing it. You may not feel like it, but you push yourself.”
Nick Cave agrees: “I go into my office every day and work—whether I feel like it or not is irrelevant.”
PJ Harvey takes a similar view: “If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn’t just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it.”
Of course, no two creative people are the same in the way they find their inspiration. That’s why it is so important to identify the most creative time of day for you. Some people like to write something as soon as they wake up in the morning, when their mind is fresh and full of ideas. Some work better late at night.
The fascinating infographic below—created by Info We Trust—shows the daily routines of some of history’s most creative individuals—including composers, painters, writers, scientists and philosophers. It is based on Mason Currey’s book, Daily Rituals, in which he investigated the rigid daily rituals that legendary creative figures practised in order to carve out enough time, every day, to work their craft.
How does your daily writing routine compare with the creative masters below?
Click the infographic for larger image
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
With Taylor Swift’s fifth studio album expected to be released in October 2014, the seven-time Grammy winner has been dropping hints that her follow-up to multi-platinum Red will be very different from anything she has ever done before.
It is likely to push the boundaries of her sound by featuring greater cross-pollination between different music genres.
“It’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted,” the 24-year-old recently told Billboard magazine. “There’s a fusing of genres that makes me happy and excited.”
In an interview with the Associated Press (AP), she also stressed how important it is for songwriters not to simply put out a retread of songs they’ve already done: “The goal is to continue to change, and never change in the same way twice,” she said. On her new album, this involved writing in ways that she had never attempted before and using a sonic backdrop that she had not previously explored.
She said: “I love [collaborating with] people who have endless strange and exciting ideas about where music can go—people like Max Martin and Johan Shellback who are likely to ask ‘What if we made it weirder? What if we took it darker?’.”
Meanwhile, Taylor Swift’s good friend Ed Sheeran has also been exploring entirely new realms of sound for his next album, titled x, which will be released on June 23. “I’ve been writing very specific songs to different genres,” he explained.
Never a songwriter to stand still, Sheeran has recorded x at various locations around the world—adding new flavours to his music with the aid of producers such as Rick Rubin (Eminem, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Pharrell Williams (Daft Punk, Robin Thicke, N.E.R.D), Benny Blanco (Rhianna, Wiz Khalifa), and Jeff Bhasker (Alicia Keys, Jay-Z), as well as his key collaborators Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol and Jake Gosling (who produced Sheeran’s first album +).
The first single from Sheeran’s new album is ‘Sing’. It was produced by Pharrell Williams—another singer/songwriter/producer who believes in marrying different elements together to create something fresh. “That is where I find the magic,” said Pharrell, “in trying to just blend different worlds together and mix it up.”
Commenting on his work with Pharrell Williams, Sheeran told Music Week magazine: “Pharrell took me way outside of my comfort zone, which was very, very helpful. He forced me to try new things.”
Here’s the Official Video for ‘Sing’ (featuring Ed the Puppet) …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Photo: Carlos Delgado
Multi award-winning Scottish DJ, singer, songwriter and record producer Calvin Harris has unveiled the official video for his new single ‘Summer’.
It is the first single from his forthcoming fourth studio album and is tipped to be one of this year’s biggest summertime hits.
‘Summer’ was written and produced by Harris, who won the Songwriter of the Year Award at PRS For Music’s Ivor Novello Awards in 2013. The feel-good track features Calvin himself on vocals for the first time since his multi-million selling single ‘Feel So Close’ in 2011.
Here’s the video for ‘Summer’ …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia)and HERE (Canada).
Last February, Grammy Award-winning Pharrell Williams urged songwriters to buck the trend toward sad-sounding songs by writing more tracks designed to make people feel happy.
“I believe there’s a need to lift people up emotionally,” Pharrell said. “There’s something to be said for making music that is jovial. Songs for people who need a break. Songs to bring joy.”
Now, British singer-songwriter Rita Ora is following Pharrell’s lead by releasing a new single, ‘I Will Never Let You Down’, which has been described as “the ultimate feel good love song”.
Written and produced by Calvin Harris, the single will be released on 11 May 2014.
“I love the fact this is such an uplifting love song,” says Rita. “I’m in a very good place and I really wanted people to see how I felt and how I want other people to feel when they listen to it … happy!”
‘I Will Never Let You Down’ is the first single from Rita’s forthcoming second album. Her platinum debut album, Ora, debuted at number one in the UK in 2012 and spawned the Number One singles: ‘R.I.P.’ and ‘How We Do (Party)’.
And here’s Rita lifting our spirits with the video for ‘I Will Never Let You Down’ …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 