Songwriting

Writing Better Songs: Major Keys
In the first segment of this multi-part feature, your About.com Guide to Guitar examines how to create interesting chords and chord progressions for your songs.

Writing Better Songs Part II: Minor Keys
The second installment of this feature deals with the slightly more tricky process of writing chord progressions in minor keys, with many examples included.

Writing Better Songs Part III: Effective Melodies
In part three in this series, your About.com Guide to Guitar explores how to create more memorable melodies, by studying the music of Brian Wilson, Radiohead, and Paul McCartney.

Cliches: The Sleeping Puppy
From Jeff Mallett's songwriter site, an illuminating article on many songwriter's tendencies to overuse cliches when they write lyrics.

The Muse's Muse
Wow! A large, fantastic site devoted solely to songwriting. Includes spotlights on songwriters, interviews, articles from guest columnists, and more. All-encompassing.

The Rhyme-Finder
For those of you looking for help to find that elusive rhyming lyric, you'll find this site invaluable. Enter a word, and it will list any words that rhyme with that word.

Roget's Thesaurus
A useful tool for all aspiring lyricists, this no-frills site uses a search engine to provide alternate words with similar meanings to the ones you submit.

Silver Kat Checklist
Tips for writing songs aimed at succeeding in the commercial market. The site makes some practical (if somewhat distressing) points about popular songwriting.

Songwriters on Songwriting
From the Lyricist.com website, a large collection of tips and hints on writing great songs from other songwriters around the net.

U.S. Copyright Office Home Page
Government site detailing the copyright laws in the United States, and explaining what procedures you need to follow to copyright your own material.