Originally Posted by JaneK
Gary,

Thanks for your taking the time to help me decide what I am going to do - I think first I will hang around here for a little bit if you don't mind, your information is very useful to me. And you all are so nice!

I see folks here also put up songs for review, I have done one song here, probably not my best song though. But, your critique was very helpful to me. If you all don't mind I will probably put up a few more before I invest financially in any songwriting courses.

You know Marty Dodson is right, I feel there are no right's or wrong's as far as music. If it works it works. If it doesn't it doesn't. And picking apart and dissecting lyrics and music is really not the way to go; the emotion of the music could be lost very quickly. All the songwriter courses in the world are not going to do it for you unless you "have what it takes".

I have been a little disappointed in what I have viewed on some songwriter forums (not this one though) where they continue to argue about this rule and that rule. Sounds like they are bitter and jaded because they didn't "make it" and want to tell others how to write songs because a so called expert told them to.

Well, again I am having such a good time here.

Thanks so much

Jane



Often people don't want to hear it, but you'll get more by critiquing other people's songs than you will having them critique yours. A rule of thumb I suggest is to critique at least 5 songs for every 1 you post. And post exactly the length and type of feedback to others as you hope others offer you. If you do that, even if you aren't very good (in your mind) at first, not only will you learn a LOT, but you'll ironically end up getting far more critiques of your own work than you would any other way. Even if you don't think you are an expert enough to do it, all you need to do is explain how the lyric or song made you feel, what you liked or didn't like and any ideas of how you might do it differently in their place. Do that and you'll learn a lot without even realizing it.

Music is nothing more than lessons we write about ourselves to teach us something our mind and heart want us to know. We may not realize it, but it's a code we use because fixing ourselves is so hard to do and often we are the only ones who know the truth about who we are and what we really need. It's a trick our minds use to teach ourselves, the same as doing critiques of others will teach us about our own flaws and often the things you point out are similar to flaws your own work has. It's funny how that works if you know what to look for. -Brian Austin Whitney 5-30-2019

Brian Austin Whitney
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"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney

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"Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney