RIP Ralph Murphy. May your soul rest in peace and many, many harmonies. You were a legend and a gentleman.

"behind every great songwriter is an astonished mother in law"

Hit Song Checklist: 60 seconds to first use of title did you explain the premise of the song? did you establish the structure of the song? did you invite the listener in? what would a distracted woman at worst time of day think of the character of the singer? is the singer’s roll as portrayed in the song consistent with the image of the artist you’re going to pitch it to or that you’re surrounding it? is the story set up with ear-catching new detail? not the same old rubbish. come up with a purple tiara on a red flower or some shit like that is the hook or title properly set up? is the hook or title memorable because it was properly set up? and the melody compliments it is the language consistent with character and setting and remember: the more fun you have, the more money you’ll make, so have fun!

I could feel my soul draining away while he was talking.

Well, if you read the title - it's how to write a HIT song. For you who do not know what that means - it means that a song was VERY commercially successful. And he is telling you how that in general works, and he is on spot. If you are not considering what he says, and if your GOAL is to have a HIT, then I wish you good luck.

As a guitarist, this is a big leap forward to becoming a more proficient lyric writer and songwriter. Be the "fish", not the fisherman... Hehe.

I am glad I watched this lecture. I am certain now that I do not want to be a commercial songwriter. I love music. Commercial songwriting is the equivalent of being with a woman you don't love just for the sex. Commercial songwriting is not music, it is music exploitation. If it will make a dollar it will be exploited, it's the corporate way.

This guy is not an idiot. He is saying everything that needs to be said. Music is a universal language for a reason. It gives you a feeling that pertains to every and all emotions.....

"Or some shit like that!" Lol! I just love this guy xxxxxxX

Goddammit, people. He's not talking about SONGS, he's talking about HIT SONGS. What he's saying is that if you want to make loads of money with a song, you should follow these tips.

rest in peace to a legend ❤️

Pure Gold!!! 😊

Lots of great analysis here, most seems obvious *after* he tells it to you. There is a HUGE phenomena, at play here that he only touches on indirectly, when he says that _most_ people don't want to hear *new* music. I randomly picked up a book in the library in the 80 called "Top40" which dealt with the birth/growth of *Charts* & Pop-Music. The described in there somewhere a *RULE* of Hit-Songs. "People don't know what they like, they _like_ what they KNOW" If you listen to ANY top Popular Artist, they will _always_ say that neither *they*, or anybody else the know of can consistently tell you when a certain song will be a hit or not. Just a few hours ago, I was watching a video of Paul McCartney talking about successful songwriting, and he spent about 5 minutes on the mysteries of this topic Back in the 1950-60s, Dick Clark's Bandstand was a HUGE TV show for popular music, and every week they would have their audiences rate new songs, as to whether they were good or not. *It turned out,* not surprisingly that _those kids_ were totally and completely useless when it came to predicting which songs would go on to become hits. *The part about LIKE WHAT THEY KNOW* led to the *"Payola-Scandals"* where record promoters would hand out cash to radio stations to get them to _push_ their records. THE ULTIMATE REALITY is that there _really are_ absolutely good songs, and bad songs. And even bad songs will _usually_ still make money, if they are played enough, and _pushed_ enough, but they won't do as well as a good song that gets the same amount of airplay. That's in part, why so many second-rate & 3rd-rate songs end up on top of the charts. *ALSO,* as others have mentioned here, there are thousands/millions of incredibly great songs that have been recorded but have never become hits. Because nobody ever heard them

You have helped open my eyes! Thank you!

freaking Genius! want more!!!

what is most fascinating is that he took the time and interest to do this! I still find that what becomes a hit is often something we can not predict ,but once it happens, everyone tries to imitate...Originality is still part of the great mystery of connecting as a writer both with something greater than self and with those that hear your song.

Absolutely incredible !!!

Thank you for the information. ..Awesome!

Thank you for this excellent talk and vital information. Greatly appreciated!

You'r the man Ralph

Thank you for this!!

RIP Ralph Murphy! So much wisdom in one session. I learned a lot 🙏

At least he makes it clear that the rules are only for hit songs which are not necessarily (and nowadays hardly ever) great songs!

glad i watched this. hilarious

That was freakin' great!

no artists that seeks to be genuine and authentic should take this seriously.but it is fascinating how the pop-music industry works.

I really like this ....thank you.

This is gold. R.I.P Ralph

Thanks for sharing your experience and wisdom with the world

Respect!

I don't write songs but I enjoy music and singer songwriters' songs are my favorite kind. I like music of all genres and this was very enlightening.

AWESOME!

Mingoy! Watch at 1.5 speed if you don't want to get bored.

Rest in Peace Ralph ....... you shared so much wisdom with so many

"TRULY"........AMAZING!!!!!

Great stats Thanks!

he's so right about everything, i cant stop doing music.check it out when u have time

Informative thanks!

Fascinating

Ralph, that was a great seminar, I love the way you put my years of self-taught songwriting into words. I know now I am truly a HOG, and want to think like a bird. $$$.... Hum, I have metamorphosed into a Pig with wings. Hope we can meet on 04/07/16’. Robert (Jake) McCormick

i've attended a few of ralph's seminars and he knows his stuff when it comes to demographics, form and content. i'd love it if he analysed melody with the same analytical rigour!

Thankfully,the best music of our lives do not follow any of these categories.Because it is the originality of the song that makes it special.

Wow. Impressive data!

This was very informative. I think every one commenting is underestimating Ralph Murphy's career. He is in no way telling you to lie, telling you you can't make art for the sake of making art, Telling you that can't make money and be successful simply for the love of music. He is simply discussing how to make a "Hit". None of you commenting have made it to the billboards. He is bang on the point for the pop and country billboards at least, think like a fish, not like the fisherman.

A great lecture. But it says more about how dumbed down our society has become than about anything else. The first million selling record was the sublime Vesti la Giubba, sung by Caruso, and recorded in 1902. How far we have fallen as a species.

Very educational!

Genius!

Just purchased your book.

The largest flaw with the entire premise behind these tips for writing popular music is that the industry dictates what will be popular rather than responding to what could or should be popular. So all of the statistics remain consistent year after year because the music industry has taught people what to expect, the music industry pays to get that music on the air, the music industry promotes that type of music, and you get more and more of the same music. Good music shouldn't be particularly formulaic. Some basic formulas are okay, but worrying too much about it destroys creativity. The majority of the public never hears most really great tunes.

33:00 call and response in southern church! Amen to that - best part of this vid!

When he quotes Jay Frank for the common song topics , I literally lost it that was hilarious.

thax

NOW ITS BRO COUNTRY..he has the formulas, at least as of years ago.

I think he gives good information on writing hit songs, as for independent artists like, city and color, Mumford and Sons, circa survive, or bands in that genre use a little bit of that form as well too.

Steely Dan really worked the "you" principle: "Done up in blueprint blue It sure looks good on you And when you smile for the camera I know I'll love you better . . ."

Writing hits is really the "art" of appealing to the lowest common denominator, thereby attracting the most possible listeners...

learnt something

I don't think it is about "you", the listener. It's about "Me", the listener, and my relationship with "you", "my" lover/friend, "my" people and "my" qualities. The core idea is f.ing awesome, but I think Ralph Murphy missed where the point of view is. When I sing a song in my head, I want it to be about me, I want to relate to what it says as if I myself personally wrote it. The rest is pure gold.

With all those rules given, I don't wonder why chart music hasn't appealed to me anymore since the 90s.

i think its badass how he throws the paper on the floor

Why are people upset with this? It's great information, you can use it or choose not to. Thankyou Ralph Murphy this was very insightful.

I think Ralph makes some good points. He's a pro. I write songs for my leisure and play them at my gigs. He's talking about writing hits and his point is well taken. There are many ways to write songs. Though I don't think Stephen Sondheim woulda' done it that'a way.

He is bang on the money. Great information.

The listener is presented with something someone decided it's going to be a hit and the song is played every ten minutes. This is how the pop radio in my area works. It's very unlikely the listener bought the song before they listened to it somewhere. The chicken or the egg.

You will be making music for people who dont care about it. I dont mind that, we've all been judgemental consumers before. You can still bump the lamp though, look at Adele, or damn Kendrick was on a Taylor Swift track not too long ago. He's not telling you how to souless, he's helping you when you inevitably cash in, because if you don't you'll just be miserable. Its ok. Thank you Ralph.

Yes, this is how they do it today. In the good ole days they just wrote great songs!

Thanks Ralph, why little folk like me. Need people like you. Have you seen the Big Data plot, 1960's, 2019, most Popular in the so-called dumb chain (Opps).. The Four Chord song, just so POPular.

Loads of people seem to think this is a "soulless" way of making music. I wouldn't be so quick to judge. He's just giving you the facts for making a radio hit. Just because there are certain parameters that making hit songs usually follow, doesn't mean that the song is lifeless and "garbage". He's just showing you how a producer would probably mould your song once you bring it to them anyways! Take everything with a grain of salt, but clearly the guy has amazing insight.

HATERS GONNA HATE.

This would mean more to me if I liked any of his songs.

"it's about the money" I think the great Charles Ives would have stopped him right there, as it was his philosophy not to rely on your music financially as to keep it more pure, and enable one to experiment freely. making a statement like this is making an assumption that all song writers strive for the same thing, which just isn't accurate by any means. had it not been for the many composers and songwriters who simply wrote to challenge themselves intellectually, and to try to further develop music as we know it, indifferent to their popularity, we would not have the music we have available to us today. besides the fact that even the general goal of striving to write a "hit" is a shallow pursuit that requires one to compromise their integrity simply to gain popularity. this guy isn't talking about songwriting, he's talking about marketing

Quantifying and formulating music like this is absolutely killing the industry; both for artists who write truly fantastic songs which don't follow these guidelines, and for listeners worldwide who have to suffer the talent deprived, monotonous drone of today's top 40.

🤞🏽💯

RIP

I'm the star of the Century!

I feel like what he says is very true. This will help me alot to become a better songwriter! But as mentioned in earlier comments (with a little twist) "The wand chooses the wizard, not vice versa".

I'd like to see someone talk about chords and melodies, like how the 4th chord (Sub Dominant) is always the one that changes from a major to a minor when you're in a major key.

If it wasn't for Ralph Murphy and Miles Copeland I would never had got a publishing deal! Everything you need to learn about songwriting is almost here. (:

This advice is equivalent to teaching someone how to assemble a Big Mac.

It didn't take this guy 2 minutes to get on my nerves, which tells me he's probably good at what he does.

"i wrote a hit song after watching a similar seminar" (c) nobody ever

I don't usually like "new hit songs" and prefer the classics (60's, 70's, 80's...) but even the classics had their "mathematics"... I saw the Songwritting Workshop I and II with Larry Dvoskin and he talked about how a certain melody was used over and over again for big songs that are still big today. So, even though I don't like the lyrics of the modern songs 90% of the time because they talk about "nothing" or are shallow, the melody and beat kind of sticks with you. I find it is a bit of a moral conflict to write what you know is going to sell instead of writting what is true to you but as Ralph Murphy, Larry Dvoskin and probably lots of other people said, you cannot write only for yourself because it won't sell at all. So you need to find a happy medium.

how many top song writers gave a proverbial about stats. Write what is in your heart, if it appeals to you it will appeal to someone.

RIP Mr. Murphy

I think high bpm is desirable now because people are short attention span zombies... the phone the internet and the instant gratification of everything these days (especially for the young people around under 30 or so)

I love how you gave this speech in silence.

Music has always been quantified and been following rules, it just seems as the human being is prone to conservatism. Hence "It was better in the ol' days" - which is a saying that goes for every generation. The way music is consumed changes with time. Listen to the sonics of todays production and how they interact with the lyrics like never before.

vital information to my agenda is now already being heavily implicated.

Could someone explain the creating "expectation" then 'fulfilling" concept?

I spent 10 years in Nashville, living 50 feet away from this man's office, and I have visited him personally on many occasions to play him the exact sort of 'formula songs' that he is detailing in this video, right down to the exact molecular genetic DNA makeup of his speech. It got me ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE. (and I even sold my soul to do the 'co-writing thing' because these business people think that personal art can be created in that way. It would be like painting half a Van Gogh, and then handing Vincent the brush to finish the other half. It's a complete bastardization of your spirit and your work. (and a bastardization of HIS spirit and art as well) You will forget the reason you became a writer within less than a year in this town. This stuff sounds soooo logical, but don't be fooled by this scientific horseshit. They are 'telling you what you want to hear' and trying to make you think that they are 'giving you what you want to hear', and those 2 things are NOT THE SAME. .Today someone asked me, "Why do you write songs? Where do you get your inspiration to write songs?" For years I wandered around a city filled with zombified songwriters who had fallen prey to all of this crap, and because of all the pressure- I had forgotten the answer to those questions. I had lost my way. But now that I am completely alone, and able to write on my own, and think for myself again- I am able to answer those questions. I write songs for purely selfish reasons, and that feels damn good. I write them to shout to the world in a brutally honest way about what I see and feel. (and the only thing that matters is what 'I' see and feel. Not what anyone else might enjoy hearing about me seeing and feeling. I hate to admit it- but you don't matter.) I write songs to tell the truth. MY observation of the truth. I just want to have a concrete example of who 'I' am that is in a repeatable form, and songs are an artistic example of that very thing. Then... if someone wants to know me, they can go listen. If they DON'T want to know me... they can ignore what I've written. But I will never again allow myself to be tricked into writing a song for the sake of 'Pitching a Song' or 'Getting A Song Recorded'. I realized that when I lived that way... I was poisoning myself The new works speaks for itself, and so did the other stuff.

I can hear music my father listened to in the 30's, and 40's and some of it follows Murphy's Rules, some don't. In the 1950's 3 genre's were big - saccharin stuff like "How Much is That Doggie in the Window" "Old Cape Cod" "Casa Ra Sira" Jazz not quite as big on lyrics but dynamic and did pretty well for itself, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson. Rock and Roll, which followed the rules in the beginning as most of the songs were written in what was called "Tin Pan Alley" by roomfuls of pro songwriters. But later the music broke out of the rules. Little Richard, Elvis, Link Wray and the music was more about personal experience which evolved into folk music, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary and along came Bob Dylan and blew the rules away which evolved into 60's "relevant" music. Sure there were bands who followed the rules, but they were definitely on the B list. Take the Beatles for example. They started out following the rules to the letter "I want to Hold Your Hand" but it didn't take long before they were writing, "Im a Loser", "Help, " Elenor Rigby" "Taxman" "Within You and Without You" "A day in the Life" Rolling Stones with "Satisfaction" "Something Happened to Me Yesterday." Grateful Dead "Uncle John's Band" "The Wheel" "Dark Star" Those bands and writers made millions and a few decades later we still hear them on the radio, especially during ratings periods. Punk had few rules and a short life of rage against manufactured life. Today people are wired emotionally and technically. Life is homogenized, moving faster. Attention spans are shorter and music is basically rhythm & beats geared to today's pace of life. Happy music is a must because people need it in their arsenal of methods to fight off misery. Home studios can be had for a few hundred dollars, post it on KZfaq and there are literally thousands of musician/songwriters here today, gone tomorrow. Everybody is still looking for the next "Beatles" but because the music industry can't manufacture what that band had, they opt for sex and weird haircuts for pop music, heart throbs for the lonely hearts. I predict 98% of the songs today will not be played during ratings periods 50 years from now. On the other hand I can appreciate " Murphy's Rules" because just maybe somebody will learn and work at it and write another "Stardust" (Which you can't sing while driving to work) or "When the Saints Go Marching In" or even "That's it For the Other One."

Lol. Thank you. 💐

All interesting and useful information but please let's not lose the courage to try to create hit songs that try to do something different. I wish he had done the same analysis on the top 10 on some random week in say 1986 or 1996 or even 2006.

to you mr Murphy; who did your market research cuz i thinks its bullshit but thats ok cus it sounds great and this is really all i was lookin for so i thank you your incredible and im greatful for your presentation oooo whoa oh i thinks its all ready here dont you?

Hi, I do not really know English, the translator in KZfaq is not yet perfect. I would really appreciate if someone could write me that three basic things listener wants to hear, which said Ralph. and I understand that it may be suddenly, but if you will not be difficult, it would be good to have some dopysaly basis points, which Ralph said, and I have somehow translated them. In any case, thank you very much, good day and a remarkable video (translated Google translator

Everyone hates new music!!! thats all the advice a I need haha.

i've had a habbit of putting my dippty dips and my boptty bops at the same time during the lala laa's and boom boom booms so i probably really need to focus on deciding when it needs to be a boppty bop during a lala laa or a dippty dip during a boom boom boom. i'm just sayin'. 👌

He said not ta wine but could you in"form" Mr Murphy that David Lee said he wants his last name back and that could you please put the dust back on the bottle or "arse" before people hear him popping the cork on Creoles secret recipes....aside from the poetry attempt, like...ummm ...what a religious experience to discover his lectures, over dramatic sounding maybe but in the last two days these have brought answers to so many things in my writing that I was too dumb, I mean he was too dumb to understand. My friend loves this guy, I remember when I had my first beer.

What did you mean to me?. Dmaj 7, the busker with a voice. 25:15. One chord, arpeggio.

16:52 One guy realy knows what he talking about