I don't think "not having any hit records" disqualifies one from being a talented song-writer. There are too many other factors at play (and the recent "worse songs" threads give evidence to this) that are probably more important than the general artistic quality of a song.

Song-writing (either as a hobby or a profession/semi-profession) is sort of like "photography" to me. Some people prefer to snap-snap-snap and cull the results. Some people like to carefully frame and apply filters and do all the other photography skills/tricks. The former have enough "eye" to recognize the worth of individual photographs and may, over time, learn to produce a larger percentage of their work that become "keepers". The latter have enough eye to recognize the value of the skills/tricks they've learned, and seek to learn more.

I've seen hobbyist photographers who barely knew how to operate a point-and-shoot camera take more pleasing photographs after a few lessons. I have to believe the same can be true of "song-writers". As long as they have the "ear", the skill-sets can be taught. And sometimes what is taught has to be interpreted to meet the requirements of the song instead of reworking the song to meet the requirements of the skill-set. I think that at least sometimes works in engineering too.


I'll look into the video/series more as time allows. At the least, I'd like to know what a "Pre-chorus" is as I've seen it mentioned on this forum before and have no idea.

BIAB 2021 Audiophile. Windows 10 64bit. Songwriter, lyricist, composer(?) loving all styles. Some pre-BIAB music from Farfetched Tangmo Band's first CD. https://alonetone.com/tangmo/playlists/close-to-the-ground