Did you ever wonder about what the most important part of a song is? Your initial thought might be that it’s the chorus or the hook… I’m not here to say that the chorus is not important…  It certainly is. But it’s worth noting that a chorus won’t mean much if the listener never hears it. People have short attention spans when they’re listening to music, so you’ve got to catch their attention as soon as possible with your song. That means the introduction had better be memorable, or at least quick enough to let the song get to something memorable as soon as possible.

So because it’s a first impression, and first impressions are crucial, the intro just might be the most important part of your song. That’s why it’s imperative that you don’t write it off–spend as much time crafting a great introduction as you do crafting the rest of the song.

Did you know that when music industry people–like A&R and radio DJs–listen to a demo, they usually only give it about 30 seconds before they skip to the next track? That means a song had better really get going well before the 30 second mark to make them want to listen more. It also means that your demo should probably include songs that get right into the good stuff and have great intros.

Use a hook in the introduction

If you hope your introduction will make people want to keep listening, put something memorable in it–an instrumental hook, a really cool guitar part, a catchy melody, etc. There are no rules to what you can and can’t include, so do whatever makes it stand out!

Studio Pros artist Rich Marcello does this in his song “Mary.”  The introduction includes a catchy little acoustic guitar lead that quotes the main hook of the chorus.  It’s just long enough to give us a taste of the melody, then leads right into the song’s first verse.  Listen to it here:

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Kevin Tye had never made a professional product with his music.  With the help of Studio Pros, he’s now taken his passion to the next level.

Kevin Tye has quite a bit of musical experience–he played in local bands for almost a quarter century. Eventually he moved on to writing his own material, taking advantage of the fact that he could set up a home studio very easily with today’s computer recording options. These days, he writes and records songs in his spare time when he’s not a this full-time job as a teacher. “I do it as a passion,” he says. “I just like to create things.” But until recently, he had never attempted to make a fully professional recording of his music.

Tye writes in multiple styles and genres, but as of late he has been focusing his creative efforts mainly on writing country songs. He saw an ad for Studio Pros in a magazine. “I decided I would give it a try,” he remembers, “to see what one of my songs would sound like through a professional studio.”

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“I was a bit unsure exactly how it was all gonna play out,” he admits. But Tye’s confidence grew with each step of the recording process with Studio Pros; it started with a song sketch and built from there, while he gave his input on each of the tracks as he heard them. He was particularly interested in hearing the musical direction his songs would take by letting Studio Pros’ session musicians make their own decisions. “I wanted to see what the choices would be for people who are doing this thing day in and day out,” he explains. Then, giving more of his own feedback as the process went on, Tye struck a balance that he felt optimized his songs. “In the end I think it was a good mix of musical choices. For example, the singer did some slightly different things in the vocal than I had done, which I ended up liking quite a bit. So it was kind of that process where I was just feeling it out at first, then giving more input at the very end stages.”

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Jeff Heiniger knew the importance of a professional production–so he turned to Studio Pros when he didn’t want to settle for anything less.

Jeff Heiniger has known what goes into a professional production for a long time. In 1987, he won a national songwriting competition in the UK that was put together by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. The prize: a chance to record in the Stones’ state-of-the-art mobile recording studio with top producers Mick McKenna and Terry Taylor. “It was brilliant to work with actual professionals,” Heiniger remembers. “They turned our demo into something that was fantastic.”

Heiniger first started taking music lessons after getting a piano when he was 13.  He also started listening to all sorts of pop music, from Electric Light Orchestra to Depeche Mode, ABBA to The Beatles. Since winning the competition he has put together a Pro Tools-equipped home studio, but soon realized that without a professional producer behind the board he wasn’t going to achieve the same sort of radio-ready product he got with is winning song. “The problem is that I’m not an engineer, so I didn’t have anybody to record my stuff,” he explains. “What I found was really good about Studio Pros was that the production was sort of taken out of my hands in a way.”

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When he found the Studio Pros website, Heiniger was actually looking for session vocalists on the web. “I couldn’t find anyone locally who was any good,” he says. “It’s quite laborious, taking your music to a recording studio and finding an engineer who will record a session singer who you may not like. It seemed quite a lengthy process, and one that may not yield results at the end of the day.” He found himself intrigued by the Studio Pros website. “The site itself looked very professional. Professionalism and price were important.”

With Studio Pros, Heiniger was able to focus on writing a song on piano, then letting our team of world-class studio musicians build the rest from the ground up. Along the way, he would provide input and feedback to make sure everything came together how he wanted it. In order to make it easier, Heiniger would provide reference tracks with other music that matched the vibe he was going for with each song.

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You probably have an amazing album inside you, just waiting to burst out. The funny thing is, you might not even realize it yet… Sure, you know you have a lot of great musical ideas and a whole lot of untapped creativity swirling around inside your head. But a whole album might seem like something that you won’t be able to tackle until you have 12 fully realized songs ready to go.

But the fact that you only have a handful of songs that you feel are ready to record shouldn’t stop you from starting the process. Back when I wrote about the biggest myths keeping you from recording your album, I mentioned that not having enough songs doesn’t mean you can’t begin recording your masterpiece. In fact, it may be even better to start laying down some tracks when you only have a few songs to work on. Here are a few reasons why:

You can better focus your creativity

Recording just a few songs allows you to think about only a few things at a time–which means you don’t have to worry about spreading yourself too thin while trying to deal with a whole album’s worth of material. Figuring out the background vocal harmonies on four songs is a much less daunting task than tackling a dozen songs!

Find your musical direction and vision

Many professional musicians don’t have a complete album when they go to record. Instead, they take the music they have and start working with top producers and collaborators who help them hone the direction and vision of the album. This is a good strategy, because if you simply go into a recording session with a full album, you might find that some of them don’t quite fit–and then you’re back to the drawing board again. Starting with a few songs will help you figure out what direction your music is heading in, thereby giving you focus and purpose as you write new material.

Stop putting off your project

It’s all too easy for musicians to say “I’ll record an album when…” But if you keep making excuses for why you shouldn’t start now, you may never start! There’s no rule that says you have to record your whole album all at once, so getting started is the first step to getting it finished.

Luckily, Studio Pros makes recording your album in different chunks incredibly easy and cost-effective. Instead of trying to book studio time over several weekends or worrying that you won’t have enough material to utilize the time you’ve paid for, we let you work around your own schedule, as your songs are ready, all from the comfort of your own home.  Not only that, but you get the added benefit of working with our professional producers who can help you achieve your musical vision.

Today is the day to start recording your masterwork, even if you’re not sure you have enough material yet–call Studio Pros today for a free project consultation from one of our producers!

Technology can be a great tool. It can help you come up with your next masterpiece, and it can give you the means of recording your latest creation.  And I don’t know about you, but it sure does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I buy a shiny new piece of gear for my home studio.

That is, until I plug it in.  You see, technology is something of a double-edged sword.  Even though buying new gear is really fun, it also means you have to invest a ton of time into learning how to use it well. That’s why the fuzzy feeling starts fading as soon as my new piece of gear is out of the box.  I’m faced with the daunting task of the dreaded musical equipment learning curve, something I may have time to get the hang of, but rarely have the time to master.

And there’s the real kicker–even when you get used to using new gear, it still takes a lot of time, experience, trial and error to be able to use it to its maximum potential the way a top professional would. While it would certainly be nice to get to that point eventually, I don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the recording I’m doing now to work towards the goal of great recordings later.

It’s because of this that technology, while seemingly freeing initially, can really put unnecessary limits on your song’s production and ruin your creative process!  Talk about a catch-22… Every minute you spend figuring out how to maximize your gear’s potential is taken away from time you could have spent composing, creating, and expanding your artistic horizons.

There is, of course, the obvious solution to this dilemma: put your music in the hands of a professional who already knows what they’re doing with today’s best technology.  But that sure sounds easier said than done–it’s not like you can just hand your stuff over to a Grammy-nominated engineer who will mix and master it to radio broadcast standards without forking over your life savings, right?

Happily, I can tell you that you really can do that–and for a lot less money than you’d expect. Studio Pros gets your music into the able hands of Grammy-nominated engineers for a very affordable price, and you get results quickly. In fact, it costs less than most high-end audio gear, so you’re saving money and time for a product you probably wouldn’t get on your own in the first place.

Think about your musical goals. If you want to have a great sounding album of your own, you should do what the top artists do: they don’t buy another keyboard or a new software title. In fact, some of the most successful artists in the world may have never touched professional music gear in their entire lives! They simply hire the best session players, engineers and producers they can find. You can do that too, with the help of Studio Pros.  Call today to get started on the album you’ve always dreamed of recording.

A successful song usually has great lyrics that stick to a central theme or idea. “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos has a theme of an unrequited love, while “Fix You” by Coldplay is full of sympathy and comforting words. Great lyrics tell a story or create a mood, sucking the listener in with every successive word.

But writing great lyrics can be easier said than done. If you don’t try to contain your thoughts to a particular theme, you run the risk of going off on tangents and losing the focus on the song. Losing focus means you might lose the attention of the listener… And you never want to do that!

Tell a story

Storytelling is a common device among songs. Direct storytelling can make it easy to keep yourself within the confines of your song’s theme. Take the song “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan. It’s about the alleged wrongful trial and conviction of a man in the ’60s, and the lyrics follow a straightforward narrative style. As the song progresses, you hear more of the true story as Dylan sees it; other songs make up fictional stories and tell them directly through their lyrics.

But storytelling doesn’t have to be quite as cut and dry. In the song “American Pie” by Don McLean, the lyrics don’t spell out a story per say, but they have a story-like quality to them (and they’re all related to the central theme of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper). In other songs, the lyrics tell the story of a turning point or defining moment of a person’s life.

Whether or not you actually narrate a story or simply recall the tale of a moment in your life, your lyrics should take the listener on a journey from start to finish, leaving them feeling like they learned or experienced something from the song.

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We used to think that the best thing about Studio Pros was our roster of world-class session musicians. In fact, I recently wrote a post about how to get the most out of our players and explained why they are such an amazing resource to musicians and songwriters all over the world.

But they’re not actually the thing that musicians like best about our service.

When we asked some of our artists why they love Studio Pros, most of them told us that it was because they don’t need to invest a lot of time when they use us to record their albums.

A lot of Studio Pros artists, like many aspiring musicians and songwriters, have a lot on their plate–families, day jobs, all sorts of obligations that make it really hard to devote a huge chunk of their time to pursuing their musical dreams.  All you need to do is read about some of our featured Studio Pros artists to see that most of them don’t start out as professional, full-time musicians. But luckily, none of them let that get in the way of recording the album they’ve always dreamed of making.

Instead of saying, “I just don’t have time to record an album, I have a job and a family so I should just give up on the dream,” these artists said, “I don’t have much time to record an album, so I’m gonna find a way to do it without taking away from paying the bills or spending time with my family.”

And boy are they glad they said that. Because they were proactive, they found Studio Pros and got done what they never thought they could. If these artists had kept saying that they’d never have time to record an album, they’d still be wondering if their music career would ever get a chance.

Some of our clients have been clever about how they fit Studio Pros into their schedules. We’ve even heard stories of some of them working on their production while they were at work–so I guess that means they were technically getting paid to make music! We’re always glad to be a part of that!

If a lack of time is your biggest excuse for not making a great production from your songs, I’m here to tell you that it’s no longer an excuse you have to make.  Studio Pros can bring your dreams to reality on your own schedule, without cutting into family time.  Call us today to start recording a professional album you’ll be proud of.

A music bridge is a new section of a song that differs from the verses and choruses.  A great bridge can really take your song to the next level, but sometimes we’re so focused on the verses and the choruses that we forget how powerful an amazing bridge can be.

A memorable song bridge can break up the monotony of simply switching back and forth between verses and choruses. It can be a great place to bring the dynamic level up or down in the song. It can fit nicely along with the feel of the verses and choruses, or it can throw the listener into unexpected new territory. There’s no one way to write a bridge, but here are some opportunities that you might want to capitalize on when it comes to writing the third section of your next song.

Introduce a new chord progression

A bridge allows you to bring a new chord progression into your song that hasn’t been heard before. Since the verses and choruses should generally stay consistent with each other, a bridge allows you the freedom to introduce something new. You might draw inspiration from (or use chords from) other sections of the song, or you could go the daring route and try something completely different. The sky’s the limit!  A good example is ”Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison

Change keys

Sometimes artists will modulate to a different key for their bridge. This can really make the section stand out from the rest of the song, and it keeps the listener interested in hearing more of the song. After you change keys, you have the option of getting back to the original key when the bridge ends, or simply staying in the new key for the rest of the song.  An example of a key-changing bridge is “Summer of 69” by Bryan Adams.

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If you’re hoping for success in this industry, you might want to take part in a little musical espionage:

If you want to pitch one of your songs to a TV commercial, study the music in every commercial on TV right now and learn it all by heart.

If you want to pitch a song to films, buy the soundtracks for ten films in the genre you’re interested in.

If you want to be at the top of the charts, listen to the top 50 songs every single week.  Know the charts so well that if I came to your house and woke you up in the middle of the night, you could tell me what was in the top ten that week. You might try subscribing to this Billboard Hot 100 – Top 50 Songs channel on YouTube–it will provide you with weekly updates on the top songs.

It’s not about copying — it’s about being aware

Knowing what other musicians are doing doesn’t mean you should be ripping off their material. All it means is that you’re doing your best to be completely aware of what’s already out there and, more importantly, what each industry is looking for.

Knowing that today’s action movies like including rockin’ metal songs with heavy guitar riffs is being aware. Knowing that most of the top songs on the charts have auto-tuned vocals is being aware. Once you’re aware of the trends and desires of the music industry, you can tailor your work to fit the scene.

This doesn’t mean you have to comform.

It definitely doesn’t mean you should just copy other artists.

It just means you can incorporate essential elements of today’s music into your own ideas–elements of the music that makes up the current standard for people who are making a living from making music. That’s what we all want, right? The end goal is to make music our careers. And that goal is within your grasp, but only if you keep up with the trends.

Get out there and immerse yourself in the industry you’re trying to be a part of. But you don’t have to do it all alone. You have the ability to get feedback and help from some of the industry’s top professionals. All you have to do is call Studio Pros today and get a free music project consultation from one of our professional producers for your next recording!

Sometimes an awesome guitar solo can add a new level of energy and fun to a song. In some cases, particularly in songs from guitar-focused bands like The Black Crowes and Van Halen, the guitar solo can be the defining moment of a song. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a bad solo can really bring a song down with it. Imagine that just when you are really getting into a song, suddenly a lame solo completely takes you out of it–and once you’re gone, the song may never recover.

It’s important, then, to be sure you’re laying down a sweet solo whenever you record your song–a solo that will enhance it and not hinder it. Here are some tips for recording the ultimate guitar solo!

To improvise or not to improvise?

Even before you go to record your guitar solo, you have some decisions to make. Do you want to sit down and write a solo beforehand or are you planning on improvising one on the spot? Unless you’re a seasoned improviser and you’re playing music that typically involves heavy ad-libbing (like jam band music or jazz), I would recommend at least outlining a sketch of your solo beforehand. You don’t have to plan it lick-for-lick, but it’s a good idea to come up with some basic guidelines: how long you’ll play in one position before shifting up an octave, what bar you want to play a cool arpeggio over, where you’re going to fit in that really catchy lick you came up with, etc.

When I was recording the solo to a song that had a particularly complicated chord progression, I knew I needed to work out what I would play ahead of time, because I probably wouldn’t improvise anything memorable on the spot. I was really glad that I did–the solo that I ended up writing was much more thoughtful and interesting than what I would have made up, and it became a signature musical moment for my band.

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