If you’ve written a melody and you want to explore the many ways there are to add chords to it, you need to get “How to Harmonize a Melody.” It shows you step by step, with sound samples, how to create the chords that will bring your melodies to life. There are two ways to […]
Chord progressions are responsible for much of the mood that we pick up in a song. Chords don’t do it on their own of course, but we get a clearer picture of the mood from the way the chords change more than from pretty much any other single element. Simple, standard progressions work just fine […]
One of the reasons many songwriters like the chords-first songwriting process is that chords do a great job of setting up a mood. Once you’ve got the mood, you’ll find that lyrics happen a bit easier, and then many things fall into place: melody, rhythmic feel, tempo, and so on. One way to get even […]
If your song is in a major key, you know that the ii-chord is going to be minor. So if your song is in the key of C major, the chord based on the note D will be Dm (D-F-A). And you’ll be using progressions that might be like the following: C F Dm G […]
Written by Gary Ewer, Senior Instructor, Dalhousie University, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. • Follow Gary on Twitter • Fix your songwriting technique! Check out “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle – available now at a 50% savings! ________________________________ A borrowed chord is a simple concept: you know that for any major key, there are […]
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. ________ Coming up with the list of chords that work in a particular key is relatively easy: simply build triads (3-note chords) above each note of a key’s scale. Of those seven chords, you’ll find that you use I and V the most, with […]
