Songwriting Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Mark JW Graham: Singing Lessons Nottingham

July 17, 2012July 6, 2025

Stevie Wonder – For Your Love

The last few weeks I’ve been listening to lots of Stevie Wonder – he is an absolute monster songwriter and vocalist. This one is particularly excellent. In particular, check out the epic key changes and effortless pure high notes towards the end. The man is unbelievable.

I should also point out that he is a long-time student and friend of Seth Riggs – if you want to know more about Seth and his contribution to the progression of vocal technique (trust me, it’s important!) then just click here.

Love it.

June 5, 2012June 1, 2025

Rhyming + Songwriting

Stumbled upon this great clip today covering some helpful songwriting tips, so I had to share.

I felt the need to share because someone intuitively commented on this very idea in a songwriting workshop I went to. The presenter in this video discusses how choosing your words to rhyme or not rhyme, or to imperfectly rhyme, can really change or ‘subvert’ the mood of a song. Rhymes create predictability, and this can be a good thing, e.g. to help a listener engage with the song and make it feel familiar and comfortable. Or you might want to take the listener away from a comfortable place… all this can be done just with how you rhyme, and this video explains really clearly how that might work.