A bad chord progression can kill a song, but don’t assume that a good chord progression must grab your attention. Many of the best songs in the world use very basic chords which, by themselves, are probably a bit boring. That’s because a chord progression must work with your melody and lyrics without pulling focus. […]
From Billboards Top 100 List, here are the current top ten From the issue dated August 30, 2008: Rihanna: Disturbia David Archuleta: Crush Chris Brown: Forever Katy Perry: I Kissed a Girl Coldplay: Viva La Vida M.I.A.: Paper Planes Kardinal Offishall Featuring Akon: Dangerous Rihanna: Take a Bow Ne-Yo: Closer Taylor Swift: Change From […]
This is a guest article for “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website, written by songwriter Luc Brisson. Luc would appreciate any feedback to his comments or music, so please feel free to leave a comment below. ______________ Hello everyone, fellow songwriters. I’m a relatively new singer/ songwriter/ arranger/ instrumentalist- about 3 years in the process, […]
Occasionally I’m asked about software for songwriters. It’s tricky to recommend one over the other, because by the time you’ve been using one piece of software for years, other programs become irrelevant to you. It’s best to do your research, read online forums, and gather as many opinions as you can before buying. But that […]
It’s relatively commonplace to change key in the middle of a song. It happens for various reasons, but probably the reason that stands out over the others is the need to increase the song’s overall energy. In that regard, you’ll find that raising the key by a half-step (semitone) or a whole step (whole tone) […]
All songs exhibit patterns that are easily picked up by the listener.Rhythmic patterns are probably the first ones to be noticed, and might arguably be the most important ones in certain genres. A more subtle pattern is one that we call harmonic rhythm. Harmonic rhythm is, simply put, the frequency of chord changes, and there […]
