by Mike Errico | Mar 24, 2022 | Music Lyrics and Life, Podcast, Press
I love doing podcasts. There’s list of the ones I’ve done so far here, and I’ve made a Spotify playlist of about 14 hours (so far) of me talking my talk, if you’re planning a long drive to hell, lol. You never know what’s going to happen when the host, most likely a stranger, hits the red light. You could call it “just a conversation,” but it’s a little more loaded than that; it’s more like improvisation, knowing that an audience will eventually be inserted, and maybe even entertained. So, it’s extra-great when you get on a roll w the interviewer, especially when they are also fans of “Contact,” the best sci fi film ever made. Long way of saying: Thanks Susan Ruth, and Hey Human podcast E304 Hey Human podcast available now: “Mike Errico is a recording artist, educator (teaching songwriting at Yale, Wesleyan, the New School, and NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music), journalist, and author. His book; “Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter,“ is in its second printing. He was recently on the show Billions, and has had numerous song placements in film and tv. We discuss the importance of threes, the movie Contact, the “X” factor, and more!” Find it on iOS and Android podcast apps, Spotify, Google podcasts, iHeartRadio, HeyHumanpodcast.com or iTunes:...
by Mike Errico | Mar 18, 2022 | Music Lyrics and Life
You get one “fancy first book festival” in life, which means you also only get one “fancy first book festival that got zoom-bombed by the hardest-core pornography the Internet has ever coughed up.” Wow, it was awkward! And also kind of hilarious to watch people scramble with settings while hiding their eyes and apologizing… but I guess that’s the thing about being in live music. Everything is in the realm of possibility, and the important thing is how to roll with whatever it is. After a few mind-searing images flashed by, the moderators reset the meeting, and we were off. Here’s the audio (and now you know what the apologizing is all about). A truly thoughtful question: “Where can I buy your book so that it’s most advantageous to you, the writer?” Thank you for asking it. The answer: Bandcamp. It’s the only place for personalized and signed copies, WITH a matching decorative bookmark. Q: “What if I bought the book already, but would love you to sign it?” On the Bandcamp page, you can buy also bookplates, which are adhesive and stick right into the signing...
by Mike Errico | Mar 11, 2022 | Music Lyrics and Life, Press
This was awesome. We laughed a lot, and wow, turns out a LOT of people have heard it. I love it. Here’s the link. A truly thoughtful question: “Where can I buy your book so that it’s most advantageous to you, the writer?” Thank you for asking it. The answer: Bandcamp. It’s the only place for personalized and signed copies, WITH a matching decorative bookmark. Q: “What if I bought the book already, but would love you to sign it?” On the Bandcamp page, you can buy also bookplates, which are adhesive and stick right into the signing...
by Mike Errico | Jan 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
So, this was fun. Thank you to David Constabile, Peter Zizzo, Ed Grauer, Jacob Slichter, Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and all at...
by Mike Errico | Jan 3, 2022 | Books, Music Lyrics and Life, Teaching, Text Journalism
This is a great one, written by Matthew Wang. Congrats on your book, Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide For the Advancing Songwriter. Can you talk about some of your former songwriting students, some of whom are interviewed in the book? First off, I’m grateful that so many of them came out to be a part of the book—and that includes you, my friend. I really think of us as a team, and I spend a lot of time trying to find opportunities to connect former students to each other. There’s an Instagram account dedicated to the amazing stuff everybody’s doing, and there’s also a Facebook page where we share job opportunities, gear, etc…, but that one’s secret. Can songwriting be taught? Partially, yes. And to a specific subsection of the songwriting community, absolutely yes. Mke Errico connects through songwriting. (Photo Credit: Stan Horaczek) Of course, there are the people who walk into my class with an innate gift of how melody and structure flows, and for them, sometimes all I can do is encourage them to finish as much as possible, and to challenge them to stretch into areas they hadn’t considered. Which, frankly, is a lot. But the writers I can help most obviously are the ones who are maybe not as gifted naturally, but who make up for it by being hell-bent to be a songwriter. They’re early for class; they set up weekly office hours; they apply for all the internships; they co-write with everyone they possibly can; they wake up in the morning wondering how they can get better. I work hard to...
