Swapping Major and Minor Harmonies to Create Contrast

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career right now! ____________ I used to joke with a friend of mine that I liked when he parked his car close to mine: it made my car look so good. In songwriting, there’s a parallel. If you want a particular element of […]

Songwriting: Which Chords to Use, and When to Use Them

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career right now! ____________ Adding chords to a melody that you’ve already created causes a great deal of anxiety for some songwriters. For many, even if they know the seven chords that naturally exist within a key (by building triads on top of […]

Turning Basic Chords Into Something That Grabs Attention

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career right now! ____________ Chord progressions are usually the most predictable element we use in the creation of songs. It’s not easy to know what the next line of lyric will be, or even what direction the melody will take from one note […]

Improvising guitar chords

7 Chord Progressions That Work All the Time

FREE with the Bundle purchase: “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” shows you how to put lyric-writing front and centre in your songwriting process. Do you find that your songwriting gets stuck at the chord progression stage? When this happens, it’s usually attributable to a common misunderstanding about chords: the need for chords […]

Chord Progressions That Create a Walking Bass line

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and open your mind! Become the songwriter you’ve always wanted to be! ____________________ A walking bass is simply a bass line that moves primarily by step (tones and semitones), with a few leaps thrown in. Certain genres use a walking bass more than others; it’s most […]

Neil Young and the Art of the "Harmonic Diversion"

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle. Here’s how to get your songs working right away! Back in 1975, Neil Young released his 8th album, “Tonight’s the Night.” The second track, “Speakin’ Out”, is interesting for a lot of reasons. We often think that songs need to be in one key or another, […]