When a song is working well, it means that all its separate components don’t just sound good on their own, but they also partner up well with all (or most) of the song’s other components. In that sense, a good song is typically better than the sum of its parts. Some songwriters find chords to […]
As you know, you can strum a chord for quite a number of bars, and the melody that you sing over that chord will usually feature a lot of different notes. Sometimes, the various notes of a melody might actually come from the chord itself. For example, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (Norman Whitfield, Barrett […]
When you listen to songs, you’re likely unaware of the concepts of fragile and strong being played out, but it’s actually a very important aspect of good songwriting. If you’ve written a melody and you want to explore the many ways there are to add chords to it, you need to get “How to Harmonize a […]
A few days ago I wrote a post in which I talked about the chords-first method of songwriting (“Giving Your Melodies Some Shape in the Chords-First Songwriting Process“), and warning of the main pitfall of this process: the ignored and uninteresting melody that might result. As in all things in songwriting, you can find exceptions […]
There’s an inherent danger in writing songs by starting with the chords, which is that the melody can get a bit static and uninteresting. You may have come up with a chord progression you really like, but when you try to add a melody to that, you often find yourself stuck on one or two […]
Maybe I’m just not paying enough attention to today’s new music, but it seems to me that in the 70s and 80s, mainstream pop groups did a better job of using interesting chord progressions that added a lot to the overall effect of their music. As you likely know, I encourage especially newer songwriters to […]
