When I listen to a song that’s spent a good deal of time at the top of the charts, I’m often amazed by how simple its structure is, how simple the chords are, and how few notes the melody actually uses. Sure, there are the exceptions. Elton John’s songs, for example, tend to use long […]
The best songwriters that I know consider themselves to be “students” of songwriting, even if only in an unofficial sense. They consider every song that they hear to be an opportunity to learn something. The problem with being a student of songwriting is that we all hold very strong opinions about music. We have our […]
Getting melodies and chords working well together is vital knowledge for any songwriter. “How to Harmonize a Melody” shows you, step by step, how that works, and gives you sound samples to follow. About seven years ago I wrote a blog post about the best way to create chord progressions for a song’s bridge. I […]
Whether you come up with the chords and then create a melody, or have a melody that you want to add chords to, you need to be sure that the chords are properly supporting the melody. When chords and melody work well together, you have the happy circumstance that they both sound better than they […]
If you like starting songs by working with a chord progression, you need to read “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” It will give you the pros and cons of this songwriting method, and help you create songs that really work! Here in the northern hemisphere we’re in the dog-days of summer. If you’re […]
There is a kind of rule of life that most of us are familiar with: that the time it takes to complete a job expands to fill the time allotted to it. In short, if you give yourself a week to finish a task, it will take a week. If you like starting songs by […]
