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 …
# # # #
![“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’ …
# # # #
“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 …
# # # #
“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 …
# # # #
“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
# # # #
“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 …
# # # #
“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 