Take advantage of the repetitious nature of the circle of fifths to create strong, memorable melodies. _____________ A circle of fifths progression is one of the strongest types of progressions we use in music. There’s something about chords where the roots move by 5ths — it’s what we might call “pleasantly predictable.” You shouldn’t worry […]
A good chord progression’s best quality is that when it works well, you hardly even notice it. ____________ It’s not easy to attribute the success of a song to just one song element. As you hopefully know, all components of a song must work together to ensure its success. It is, however, possible to attribute […]
Pentatonic scales have a variety of reasons why they work so well in pop music. __________________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle. Write smarter – Tap into your creative mind. __________________ Recently I wrote a post that offered ten basic tips for writing melodies that are easily remembered by listeners. Just to finish up that […]
Sequencing chord progressions is an easy way of creating longer progressions from short ones. Here’s how it works. ____________ You’re probably familiar with a sequencer, which is a piece of hardware (or software) that can record and play back music. This article isn’t about that. A musical sequence occurs when you take a short bit of […]
Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 E-book Bundle. Kick-start your songwriting career, starting now. _________ A turnaround progression is a series of chords whose most important characteristic is to circle back to the starting point, allowing the music to continue on rather seamlessly. These kinds of progressions are quite common, having been in use for centuries, […]
Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 E-book Bundle. Become a top-level songwriter, starting now. _________ Recently someone posted an observation on my video about the circle-of-fifths. In that video, I was describing the harmonic strength that comes from root movements of chords that are a 4th or 5th apart, which is the theoretical basis of […]
