Giving Chord Progressions a Sense of Direction

Being imaginative with chord progressions is a good thing. But imaginative progressions need a harmonic goal. __________________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10 e-book bundle, and build your audience base! Get today’s deal: A FREE copy of “Creative Chord Progressions” when you purchase the bundle. __________________ Imaginative chord progressions are wonderful to experiment with, because chords that […]

Creating Chord Progressions That Always Work, in Any Key

Noodling with chords can help create songwriting ideas. But how do you do this effectively? ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and build your audience base. _____________ If  your songs are all sounding the same, you may find that you’re starting them all the same way. Generally speaking, how you start a song will often determine […]

Practicing Verse and Chorus Melody Writing

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 […]

Add a Pedal Point to Strengthen a Complicated Progression

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 […]

Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games”: Chord Cleverness

Even minimal differences between verse and chorus progressions is often all that’s needed. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and increase your song’s HIT potential. _____________ In the less-is-more world of modern pop song balladry, success is often in the subtleties. Songs sometimes make their greatest impact when you have to go back and listen several […]

8 Chord Progression Sequences for Songwriters

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 […]