Natasha Khan Quotes

Of course, you can't teach songwriting. You can only encourage people to do it and help them to sort out for themselves what they want to achieve, and get a list of exercises together that improves the craft and gives them more access to the craft of writing good songs.

I've always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks - you learn craft, you learn structure, all that - as you go.

I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.

I never stopped writing music, I just stopped writing songs. I've been writing music continually ever since the last album of original tunes, "River Of Dreams" in '93.

I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

All my songs were made at the end of the neck, 'farmer's corner' chords.

I think I'm much more of a guitar-songwriter than a singer. I start with chords and then test out melodies rather than improvising over it.

Ever since 'Hail to the King,' we've been more cognizant of our chord progressions, our key changes, drama in songs, a lot of dynamics - we've really added a lot of that in there.

I was teaching myself notes from three and then by seven I'd figured out how to play some chords, and at school I used to love writing poems and poetry, so I guess I kind of put two and two together and that formed my songwriting from an early age.

But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.

I am really heavy into songwriting.

If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it.

You have to have that organizational principle behind the song.

I think it's a bit of a myth that if you can read music you can write music. It doesn't work like that.

I'm used to making songs; that's how I learned to make music. My structures will always be more like pop songs than dance tracks.

I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you've finished it.

I kind of write in a very classic way. I sit in the piano, working on some catchy, cool melodies and coming up with song concepts for those melodies. I kind of write in a very traditional way '- how people have written since the early '40s.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

Basically, I'm a melodic writer.

Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I write a lot from instinct. But as you're writing out of instinct, once you reach a certain level as a songwriter, the craft is always there talking to you in the back of your head...that tells you when it's time to go to the chorus, when it's time to rhyme. Real basic craft... it's second nature.