The success of a song comes down to how the various elements connect. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and build your audience base. _____________ One of the things that immediately attracted me to the song, “How Come You Never Go There“, by Canadian singer-songwriter Feist, is the sheer simplicity of its structure, […]
If you’re paying attention while improvising, you’ve got the makings of your next song. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and increase your song’s HIT potential. _____________ In a way, everything we write is the product of improvisation. We toss ideas around in our mind, try some things out on guitar or keyboard, and create melodies […]
It’s practically impossible to create progressions that haven’t been used before. But altered chords will help. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and increase your song’s HIT potential. _____________ An altered chord is one that doesn’t naturally exist in the key of your song. The chords that naturally exist are the ones that you build on […]
A tritone substitution is a great way to make a typical I-ii7-V sound more interesting. Here’s how it works. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and increase your song’s HIT potential. _____________ The jazz world has been using the tritone substitution for decades. And true, the chord is typically found in jazz genres, but like all […]
This simple exercise will help solidify your understanding of verse and chorus melodic construction. __________ A couple of posts ago I wrote about why choruses sound like choruses. In that article, I mentioned important features of choruses such as strong (versus fragile) progressions, the predominance of the tonic note and chord, the higher placement of […]
A pedal point can make a complex chord progression sound stronger and fresher. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and build your audience base. _____________ If you’re like most songwriters, you’re probably on the constant lookout for chord progressions that sound fresh and unique. But in that search, you may be overlooking some techniques […]
