Avoiding the Tonic: the Never-Ending Progression

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and get your songwriting career going! _____________ If you want to know what key a song is in, you need to look at the entire list of chords used, and find the one key that uses all, or at least most, of them. That will get you close, […]

Songwriting: Which Chords to Use, and When to Use Them

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career right now! ____________ Adding chords to a melody that you’ve already created causes a great deal of anxiety for some songwriters. For many, even if they know the seven chords that naturally exist within a key (by building triads on top of […]

Songwriting and the Impact of the Tonic Note

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle, and kick-start your songwriting career right now! ____________ We know that melodies tend to work their way higher as a song progresses from the start of a verse to the end of a chorus. This rising shape helps to generate song energy and forward motion. The […]

Seven Progressions that Use Altered Chords

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and discover the secret of getting chords to work. An altered chord is simply one which doesn’t naturally occur in a given key. Altered chords add musical interest to a song by creating a small harmonic surprise. They work particularly well as accompaniment to melodies that are […]

The Tonic Note's New Place in the Chorus

Get FANTASTIC RESULTS! – Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and START WRITING GREAT SONGS! __________________ It’s a commonly-known songwriting principle that the tonic note – the note representing the key of your song – should occur more often in the chorus melody than in any other part of your song. This will probably happen […]

Avoiding the Tonic Chord: A Subtle Energy Builder

Get FANTASTIC RESULTS! – Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle and START WRITING GREAT SONGS! The overall energy map of a successful song is a line that looks like a stock market chart: over time, lots of ups and downs, but hopefully mostly in an upward direction. Music where the energy constantly builds without the […]