If you like to start your songwriting process by working out bits of melody first, one of your biggest challenges might be the adding of chords. How do you work out a chord progression that supports your melody? It’s a bit amazing, when you think about it, that melodies can be so different, but chord […]
It’s important not to equate quantity with quality when it comes to anything. It’s true that we look with some reverence at the songwriters who have churned out hundreds of songs. But I think (at least I hope we think) that just because someone has written hundreds of songs, we haven’t really said anything with […]
Songwriting is one of those art forms that presents a strange dichotomy of purpose to the world. On the one hand, we have audiences who insist that their favourite songs, by their favourite songwriters, need to have something vital and important to say. But those same audiences, whether they’re aware of it or not, need songs that: […]
Chord choice is one part of songwriting that doesn’t require a lot of imagination. All that’s really required is that a progression works. In that sense, it’s not much different from a piece of country land that you might build a house on. Sure, it may seem important to have land that, on its own, takes […]
When we think about a song’s energy level, particularly as it pertains to the instrumental choices, we often think about how much energy we can generate by adding instruments into the mix. That’s a pretty instinctive approach, and it has worked in almost every genre, in any era. Eighties’ power ballads took this to extremes. […]
Last week I wrote about the similarities between classical and pop music, and what today’s songwriters can learn from the classics. Today I want to look specifically at song melodies, and see to what extent the structure of a pop melody resembles that of a classical work. There is a book that is in great […]
