I’ve written a fair bit about chord progressions lately, because it’s the most popular topic on my blog. When I take a look at the stats, it’s normal to see that 8 out of the 10 most popular posts deal with some aspect of chords. Recently I received an email from someone who asked me […]
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 […]
Do you find that getting chords to sound right is the hardest part of getting a song working? Chord theory is a topic that takes considerable study to understand it thoroughly, so let’s look at it from a different angle. Here are 7 things about chord progressions that many songwriters don’t know. It may help you […]
Get “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” Deluxe eBook Bundle, and take your songwriting to a new level of excellence. Includes “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression.” When we say that you can write a song with nothing more than three chords, we’re usually talking about I-IV-V (like “La Bamba”), or perhaps I-ii-V. In C major, […]
I use the word “fragile” when talking about certain kinds of chord progressions. “Fragile” usually means that the tonic chord less than obvious. In that context, here’s a list of chord progression characteristics that might result in a “fragile” progression: “Fragile” may mean that it uses a lot of chords that don’t exist naturally in the song’s key. For […]
There are very few songs on the Rolling Stones List of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time that made it to the list because of their stunning chord progressions. Chord progressions, when they work well, should almost disappear into the background of your song. Occasionally it’s nice to throw a chord in there that grabs attention, but […]
