Major and Minor Tonalities Within One Song

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The word “boring” is a shorthand way of saying “not enough contrast.” That’s true whether you’re talking about songwriting, a football game, or life in general. Songwriters know that boredom can happen if the melody is too flat (i.e., not enough leaps), the lyrics are too mundane (i.e., have no special moments), or if the instrumentation is too dull (i.e., remains the same throughout the entire song.) But what do you do if you address all of those points, but the song still sounds humdrum? You might be looking at a problem with the chords, and contrasting major and minor tonalities can be the ticket to breathing fresh air into your latest tune.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Most songs will use some variation on the verse-chorus-bridge structure. If the majority of chords that you’re using in all three sections are, let’s say, major chords, there is a risk that there isn’t enough harmonic contrast. The result can be a song that feels boring, even if the melody and lyrics are well written.

If you’re in this situation, the solution is not as complicated as you might think. It requires knowing a little about chord function.

To more easily understand this concept, think of the chords you might use in a song as being in one of four categories: 1) Tonic and tonic-like chords; 2) Dominant chords; 3) Subdominant and other “pre-dominant” chords”, and 4) Miscellaneous “other” chords.

Tonic and tonic-like chords are ones that represent the key that you’re in, (e.g., an A chord in the key of A), and any other chord that can serve as a tonic chord substitute, which I’m going to get to momentarily.

A dominant chord is the one built on the 5th note of the key your song is in, but can also include other ones that lead easily to the tonic chord.

Subdominant and other “pre-dominant” chords are ones that precede the dominant chord.

The miscellaneous category is actually a more complex grouping, but for the purposes of this post, let’s agree that miscellaneous chords are the ones that can take us further away from the tonic “home” chord.

We can take the 7 chords that naturally occur in any key and categorize them this way (assuming a key of A major):

TONIC:
A, but can be substituted with F#m or D

DOMINANT:
E, and possibly C#m or G#dim

SUBDOMINANT/PREDOMINANT:

D, Bm, F#m

MISCELLANEOUS:

C#m, F#m, etc.

As you can see, different chords within a key can actually have different functions, depending on context. For example, the C#m chord can serve as a dominant chord if it moves to A, but can be miscellaneous if it moves to F#m.

So how does this apply to your song, and how can we deal with chord boredom by knowing this?

If your verse uses mainly major chords, and your chorus uses mainly major chords, that’s a lot of major, and that’s where boredom can happen.

So try this: as you pass the halfway point in your verse, look for ways to substitute major chords with minor ones. What that does is provide a contrast for the major tonalities that the listener has been hearing, and provides a nice harmonic contrast for the major tonalities of the chorus.

Here’s an example:

Old progression:

VERSE: A  D  E  A |A  D  E  A ||(repeat)|| CHORUS: A  D  E  A… etc

New Progression:

VERSE: A  D  E  A |A  D  E  A || F#m  Bm  C#m  F#m|F#m  Bm  C#m  F#m ||CHORUS: A D E A… etc

You might want to come up with a better connector from verse to chorus in the new progression (e.g., replace the F#m just before the chorus with E or Bm).

So what we’ve done with the new progression is take the listener into the darker minor side of the key without actually changing key. It provides a really great harmonic contrast that can keep your song fresh and interesting.

Just one other note: changing chords may require you to modify your melody slightly, so be sure that your new chords still work with the song’s melody.