Roger Bourland
writes about music and life

I discovered a most remarkable piece of information today: a list of the 365 top selling songs of the 20th century as compiled by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). I encourage you to spend a few minutes and look down the list to see what songs have charmed Americans for the past eleven […]

In the Baroque, Italian composers deemed melody as the most important element in a composition, whereas French composers held melody as subordinate to harmony, melody being merely the top voice of a progression of chords. This is clearly an oversimplification, but these philosophies have resonated down through the ages. Some songwriters come up with a […]