Many songwriters love starting the writing process by generating ideas from a chord progression. That’s a legitimate way to write, and it’s very popular. By starting with chords, you lay down what is in effect a landscape upon which you can place other items. I’ve been working on a new short manual for songwriters who […]
There are typically two times when a song’s key becomes something that a songwriter considers: During the initial songwriting process. You create your first melodic ideas based on an often-random choice of key and chords. During the performance or recording stage. You might possibly change the key to one that puts the melody in your optimum […]
It’s amazing how imaginative you can be using mainly pentatonic scales to create melodies. You might think that limiting yourself to 5 notes per octave means you’ve cut out a lot of possibilities, but that certainly doesn’t have to be the case. If you haven’t done so yet, you might want to give Deerhunter’s new album, […]
When you feel that your chord progression is lacking a bit of excitement, you’re temptation might be to toss it out and go looking for “the killer chord progression.” But that shouldn’t be your first choice, for a number of reasons. First of all, no chord progression is “killer” unless it’s partnering well with all […]
A chord is 3 or more notes all sounding together. Those 3 notes form what we call a triad, and they are the bulk of the chords that get used in most songs written in any of the pop genres (rock, country, folk, etc.) As you know, there are lots of ways to modify triads. One of […]
Ever try playing a good chord progression backwards? It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth the time to experiment. When you do something in songwriting the same way each time, it’s called using a formula, and it’s not usually the kind of thing a songwriter should be aspiring to do. But there is one exception, […]
