YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR USEFUL SONGWRITING STUFF
Remember when you learned to ride your first bicycle? It wasn’t easy. You fell down a lot, but you kept trying. At first you needed someone to hold on, keeping you steady. Then you used training wheels to help you stay upright as you pedaled. Then, finally, you were able to ride on your own. You had found that complicated thing called balance. After that, it was a breeze! The process of writing songs is a lot like riding a bike. It’s all about finding a balance!
You’re Inspired! You woke up in the middle of the night with a killer first verse running through your head. You actually sat up in bed and said: “Man, that’s killer!”
You managed to write it down before you forgot it. Maybe you even got up and plunked a few chords on the piano. Suddenly you felt like Sting writing “Every Breath You Take.” You even recorded your inspiration onto the Voice Memo on your Smartphone before going back to sleep.
Now, in the cold light of morning, you listen back to it. Amazingly, it still sounds good!
Current hit songs in all mainstream commercial genres tend to stick to a few basic chords and lean heavily on the repetition of simple chord progressions. If you’re racking your brain trying to come up with complicated chord progressions, you may be better off limiting your chords to I – IV – V and VI, for instance, C, F, G, and Am.
You can hear these chords used as repetitive progressions in big hits like OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You).” These are just two Top 10 hits that rely on a basic, repetitive chord palette. There are dozens more.
So, how does that work? Why do listeners like these songs? Why don’t these repeated progressions become boring?
The secret to successfully using today’s repetitive chord progressions lies in the way the melody relates to them. The chord progression provides a solid, steady foundation on which a rhythmically interesting melody can be built.
Beyoncé’s Pop/R&B hit “Halo” is a great example of a rock-steady, repeated four-chord pattern with melodic phrases that begin in between the chord changes. This is one trick that keeps these repetitive chord progressions interesting: The melody doesn’t always emphasize the beat on which the chords change.
I recently discovered an inspiring, fun, informative website called OpeningLines.org. This blog by Seth Fiegerman takes a look at the very first steps in the careers of the famous and successful.
There are names we all know—actors, musicians, scientists, educators, community leaders, and writers we admire. We don’t think of them losing their first talent contest or being told they have no aptitude for the field in which they later dazzle us all. But that—or some form of it—is what happens to many. So here are a few stories that might help you along when you start to doubt your songwriting career.
I got this question from a very good songwriter in one of my songwriting courses. He was wondering about using loops or beats that are longer than one or two bars. These might consist of an acoustic rhythm guitar playing a 4-bar chord progression or a keyboard, or even a whole band that can be looped to form a song section.
You’ll find these kinds of loops in “construction kits” from Big Fish Audio or websites like Splice. They can be a great way to launch yourself into a song or even a new genre.
My student was asking if it’s okay to pitch song demos using these loops. Will there be a problem with music publishers and Film & TV music libraries? Is it legal? Will he need to tell them what he’s doing? I’m not a lawyer and I can’t give legal advice (disclaimer, disclaimer) but I do have some thoughts for you if you’re doing this or considering it.