If you have a friend who’s going through tough times, you might say to them, “Everything’s going to be all right.” You hope your words will show your care and concern that friend. But sing those words to them, and you’ve got a much better chance of getting through. That’s the nature of music, and everyone seems […]
When we talk about a song’s key, we’re usually talking about the key of the chorus. That’s because it’s not that unusual for various parts of songs to have different key centres. The chorus, the part that gets the most attention, is the section we usually think of when assigning an overall key to a song. […]
Have you ever been in a position where you’ve got a great line of lyric for your verse or chorus, but you simply can’t come up with anything that follows it? It can be a great frustration. In this video, you hear George Harrison trying to come up with a second line for his hit […]
Let’s face it, it’s not that hard to come up with chord progressions, because when all else fails, you can simply grab a book of progressions and steal them, guilt free. But if you’re the kind of songwriter that wants to make their mark on the music world, simply taking a progression sitting in a […]
A number of years ago I wrote a blog article called “Pop Songs: What Checking the Fossil Record Can Do For Us“. In that post, I made a comparison between how Gregorian Chant (the music of the early Christian church of about A.D. 500) bore certain similarities to the way melodies are written today. You may […]
No one could ever fault David Bowie for playing it safe. Even for Bowie fans, his songs, and particularly his lyrics, would often evade clear meaning. When your music moves to the edges of the avant grade, you’re often going to make as many haters as fans. If your songs, however weird they may sound to others, stand […]
