Sleep is the best meditation. -Dalai Lama I can do nothing without nine hours' sleep. -Ulysses S.

Grant We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. -Mother Teresa Smile, it confuses everyone. -Unknown What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. -Joseph Addison Let each man do his best. -William Shakespeare Cut off a people from their roots and they are easily swayed. -Karl Marx Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the charac ter. -Robert Lowell Night, when words fade and things come alive, when the destructive analysis of d ay is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. -Antoin e de Saint-Exupery Through the friendly silence of the quiet moon. -Virgil When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. -Charles A. Beard Keep the music simple, but with nice changes. Don't be afraid to use altered cho rds. -Shu'baby Montez Write strong hooks. Keep song length 3 1/2 minutes or less. Avoid predictability --create original lyric themes. Tell a story. Compose definitive melody. Tune in to the trends and fusions indicative of the '90s. -Rustron Music Publishers Make sure that you understand that your band is business and you must be willing to self invest time, effort and money just like any other new business. -Cella r Records We just require good lyrics, good melodies and good rhythm in a song. -Your Bes t Songs Publishing Be interesting lyrically and striking melodically. -Winston & Hoffman House Mus ic Publishers In slow songs make the music FLOAT. Make SPACE. There is something about the way our thoughts line up, the way music and words come together to express a realit y more focused and pure than real life, the way rhymes satisfy our ears and repe tition enchants us, that wants to fit itself into these songs structures. -Pat & Pete Luboff Get on your work clothes, grab your monkey wrench, and take apart any song you l ove until you understand why it is great. -Pat & Pete Luboff A drum machine is fun to use to get your musical juices flowing. Start by creati ng a pattern on your machine. Drum feels in themselves suggest an attitude. -Pa t & Pete Luboff Songs express the full range of human experience: prayer, pride in country, the call to war, the joy of personal love or misery at its loss, rage at social inju stice, the teaching of our children, story-telling, both serious and hilarious, dancing and just plain having fun. -Pat & Pete Luboff The writing technique of keeping the song IN THE MOMENT of the emotion forces th e lyrics to be immediate, highly charged with feeling, concrete and direct. -Pa t & Pete Luboff Truth clearly delivered in words that communicate action and emotion through ima ges is fascinating. Don't try to be interesting by being obscure. It will frustr ate and alienate your listeners. -Pat & Pete Luboff Dylan improvises like a jazz artist. He wasn't after perfection. He'd record a s ong and it would never be the same again. -Ron Sexsmith Its best to keep the language in a song conversational. -Pat & Pete Luboff A song is a three-minute motion picture. -Pat & Pete Luboff Each line of lyric needs to project a picture on the screen of the listener's mi nd. The more colorful and emotional the picture, the more likely the listener wi ll be to be moved by it. -Pat & Pete Luboff In order for your lyric to make a listener fight back a tear, get up and boogie, or march on the Pentagon, your words must convey one clear, consistent emotion. -Sheila Davis The best songs have more than one hook going for them. There is the main hook, w hich is coming together of the high points in the lyric and the melody. And then there are all these little hooky bass or lead riffs, slides or bent notes, betw

een chorus and verse sections and between lyric lines that keep the listener's i nterest up and the excitement going throughout the song. -Pat & Pete Luboff If you really want to get your message across to Mr. or Ms. Average Listener, yo u need to involve more than just their ears. You must grab the attention of thei r mind's eye with words that make them see what is happening in the song. This t echnique will quadruple the chances that your message will be received and remem bered. -Pat & Pete Luboff You can't write a song without a metaphor. You can mechanically construct verses , choruses, bridges, middle eights, but without a central metaphor, you ain't go t nothing. -Sting There's a statistic and I'll tell it to you because I know it and I'm still writ ing songs in spite of the fact that I know it. They say that of all the songs th at are written, 1 percent of those songs get recorded and 1 percent of that 1 pe rcent get to be hits. The odds are against you. -Sue Schiffrin If you really want to make it as a full-time songwriter, you will need endless p ersistence. -Pat & Pete Luboff Songwriting is a tool for personal expression and growth. -Pat & Pete Luboff The newspaper is an excellent place in which to come in contact with innumberabl e strange and interesting turns of speech. . . Woody Guthrie was known to write several songs a day straight out of the newspaper. -Paul Zollo I study and absorb. I listen to great songwriters, learn their songs and sing th em. I read short story collections, poetry and novels. You are what you eat. -P eter Mulvey You cant' wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. -Jack Lond on I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my hear t must come out; that is the reason why I compose. -Ludwig van Beethoven A melody line should contain a good deal of repetition. Certain "melodic figures " can be repeated over and over at varying pitches. -Bob Sorge The reason we all love great stories is because we come to care about the people in the stories. We know about them. They become our friends. We identify with t heir feelings. The feelings don't exist without the people who feel them. -Pat & Pete Luboff Patience is one thing a listener does not have, whether it's a publisher, produc er, some other music business professional, or a kid listening to the radio. If you're asking your listeners to stop and think about what you're trying to say, you're asking too much. The beauty of a great song is that it says what it says so clearly. The listener doesn't have to think about it. The message hits home a nd all the listener has to do is say, "Yeah, that's exactly how it is." -Pat & Pete Luboff