On Thomas Rhett

My June 4, 2019 provides some details of my music career, bands I have recorded and toured, and have been affiliated with.  I have dabbled in songwriting for years, have a meager professional music background, but only recently started really paying attention to the skills and mechanics of my songwriting craft. What I would now like to convey is some of the recent moves to promote my first and forement passion “songwriting” and how one particular artist has had and continues to have an influence on me as a songwriter.

I am an African-American male who writes R&B, Pop, and Jazz, but believe it or not one of my most favorite and the most influential artist of my current songwriting is country artist, “Thomas Rhett.” I have never met him, but his pedigree in the country genre is well-known and speaks for itself. Learning and reading about his upbringing, trials and tribulations, career, and his own inspirations and influences is amazing, and I love his songwriting style. I attribute his writing style to helping me understand storytelling.

I recently listened to an interview of him on Songville on Siris XM and it was great. One big take away from the interview was the importance and influence of collaboration in songwriting.  While I tend to study my craft and write alone, I will definitely consider his advice, utilize, and consider this social element of the songwriting process. Thank you TR!!

Use of Persuasion Principles

Songwriting is an art that uses many techniques and principles to create compelling, emotional, and creative intellectual property. Songwriters draw upon many resources to come up with ideas for their songs. I was reading an article from Changing minds.org entitled “Persuasion Principles” and had an ah-ha moment.  You can find these principles at: http://changingminds.org/principles/principles.htm.

The ah-ha moment consisted of reading the description of each of the sixty(60) persuasion principles listed, and realized, hey, these are and could be used as song themes and/or topics. If you find yourself having writer’s block, I encourage you to visit the Changing Minds website to view the full descriptions of each of the 60 principles.

As an example, the principle of confidence is described as “If I am confident, then you can be confident.” When thinking of this description, there are a plethora of ideas about confidence or a lack of confidence that come to mind to write a song about. Try your luck at using the principles listed, the next time you sit down to write a song.

Reference:

Persuasion principles. (2019). Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/principles/principles.htm