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Academy Piano Course

The Evolution Of A Piano Method

The comprehensive course for the beginning pianist

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SOME SONGWRITERS ARE ‘SETTERS’ OF WORDS LIKE ELTON JOHN

whose music is inspired by the lyric of Bernie Taupin; some are teams like Page and Plant, where Jimmy’s ‘riffery’ is the backdrop for Robert’s lyrical outpouring. For a solo songster, it is all apiece. Strumming idly at a few chords and suddenly a lyric forms in the subconscious; or a tangled phrase jumps out of a conversation and lodges in the mind; or a melody, incessant and gnawing, an earworm begging to be verbalised. Sometimes it is a rhythm, a groove, or even just a sound: a train on a track: bells ringing across a hillside. 

The stimulation to write is as irrational as anger or love; it just emerges and when songwriting is what you do, then you have to do it.

Songwriting can be like physical fitness: it requires a little exercise to begin. You start with short and simple before unwinding into more complex and difficult. The idea determines the style: at least in a perfect world it should. An idea arrives and its ‘background’ the music that will support it is suggested quite quickly. It is never fixed, and frequently changes, although it is reasonable to say that songs that most easily find their place have a sense of clean perfection that is difficult to realise over time. 

It is often better to leave an idea that won’t settle until another day or week or month, when the time may be right.

The Academy Piano COurse

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