I've always believed "Stardust" to this day to be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The legendary story of “Stardust”’s genesis goes that Hoagy Carmichael was walking around Indiana University’s campus one night in 1927, looking up at…

I came up with the first eight bars on piano while visiting friends on a trip to the Midwest. After returning home I just kept adding a few bars here and there until it got 2 minutes long. Then, I…

So much of what informs my songwriting is based on the music my folks played for me as a child at home and in the car (8 track of course!). 

From dad came the classical stuff. One of the most…

I recently rediscovered a tune I wrote roughly 15 years ago. As the years pass, I'm heartened by these pleasant little surprises that I completely forgot about…

"My heart is open
For all to see
It's been searching out a…

When it comes to songwriting, for me the best results always has come down to a simple acoustic instrument (piano/guitar) along with the human voice. Trouble is, when you constantly go back to those same old chord progressions, you find…

So much of the modern craft of songwriting ties in with the software platform we writers choose to use. How intuitive is the user interface or GUI? How rich are the instruments and effects plug-ins? Am I inspired when firing…

I was recently listening to a few songs I wrote back in the 1990s. Both tunes were very personal and were trying to address the emotional troubles I was having in a relationship at that time. What is fascinating to…

Sometimes it's personally rewarding to stretch your songwriting to a genre you've never tried before. Back in the 90s, I was a bit taken by the tune "Con Te Partirò" performed by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli. In truth, it…

Vince Clark of Erasure, Depeche Mode and Yaz fame, was asked once why he had an acoustic guitar in a studio, when he's primarily known as a synth keyboard player.

He replied that all his songs are first fleshed out…