Today I’d like to recommend my all-time favorite magazine for music recording and production. The magazine is Tape Op. The info-packed pages are invaluable. The price for subscription is free. They’re not paying me to write this review. I truly love this magazine and I’ve been a hooked reader for years.

It’s a question that so many songwriters that are just starting out will ask themselves: “Should I sell my music or give it away for free?” You may be thinking, why would you give it away?! If you want to make music your career, then you need to make music make you money! But maybe there’s another side to this argument. When reality and passion have their say, you may find your goals of a success have a new twist.

Open mic nights at local bars, coffee shops, libraries, and other places are a great outlet for songwriters looking for an easy way to take their music to a receptive audience. If you’re a newbie to public performance then playing some open mics when you’re just starting out is a must. If you’re a more experienced gigger, you might use open mics to try out your latest songs on a real audience, or use your open mic performance to promote an upcoming full set performance in the area, or at the same bar. Here’s a list of some of the best go-to resources for finding a great open mic.

I recently wrote a guest post over at Mad Stratter about creative chord structure in songwriting. Going along with a general theme of addition by subtraction (which I talked about in another post), the basic idea is to strip your chords of extra clutter and noise by choosing the most essential building blocks.