Improvisation is an important part artistic creation. Who knows where those very first ideas come from — the ones that pop into your mind as you’re walking down the street or sitting on a bus. But almost everything that follows, at least for most songwriters, happens through improvisation. In that context, improvisation means using your […]
When you play through chord progressions for songs you know, you’ll occasionally come across ones that involve a slash: F/A, C/G, Dm7/F, etc. These kinds of chords are called inversions, known colloquially as “slash chords” because of that slash. As you probably know, the letter name before the slash is the actual chord that you should […]
One of the biggest drawbacks to starting your songs by working out a chord progression is that melodies can get a bit neglected. Historically, composers in the Classical realm rarely if ever started compositions with just chords. They’d practically always start with something hummable (a melody), or something otherwise memorable (the lyrics, perhaps). And since […]
Whatever you write about comes with a mood. Not to simplify this, but songs are usually either generally happy or sad, with often a blend of many different shadings of emotions. “Happy” can mean “triumphant”, “at peace”, “jubilant”, “satisfied”… you get my meaning. Of all the various elements that go together to make a song, chord progressions are […]
Most chord progressions work best in the forward direction, and the longer a progression is, the truer that statement is. For shorter progressions, you’ll still often find that a progression sounds best when played beginning to end, but you’ll notice that playing them backwards isn’t a total wash-out. For example: C Am F G C […]
Let’s say that you’ve been working out a new chord progression, and you’ve found something — a combination of 3 or 4 chords — that really seems to work. The trouble is: you can’t figure out what key that progression is in. How do you identify it? The first question you might ask is this […]
