Intros are meant to identify a song, and, more importantly, entice people to keep listening. They do this usually by setting up the mood, the key and tempo (though not necessarily, as you’ll see below). A good intro acts an identifying banner or flag for the rest of the song. If you find yourself always […]
It’s somewhere between possible and likely that when you come up with a song melody, you’re following pure instinct. You may work and re-work lyrics and may spend a lot of time tweaking the chords, but I wonder if melodies always seems a bit random, where the changes you might make over the course of […]
It seems that the era of one song-one songwriter is quickly passing us by. There really aren’t many hit songs that are written by one songwriter anymore. Part of the reason for that is that how we assign credit has changed. In the 60s, for example, you might, as part of the band, suggest a different […]
Chord progressions, even in music that sounds innovative or novel, are usually the most predictable part of a song’s design. A song might have lyrics that are hard to understand, and use odd instruments, time signatures or unpredictable melodic ideas, but chords are usually the most easily understood part. That’s why I often use landscape […]
You’ll notice that when you’ve got a melody, the notes of that melody imply the chords you’re likely to use. That’s not to say that you’ve got no choice in the matter, of course. For every chord you might use, there is a list of chords that could serve as substitutes. Just as an example, […]
For musicology students who delve mainly in the world of Classical music, history has a way of filtering out “bad” music, leaving them with what might otherwise be known as “the hits.” And there are lots of them to study. Ask those same students to list every Classical composer they know, and they’ll be able […]
