Gary
EwerMusic Teacher, Clinician, Composer and Arranger. Author of "Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory," and “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" suite of e-books.
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Lesson 1 |
Focusing Your Lyrics |
LESSON 7: Choosing the Right Chord
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| This chord... | ...can often be substituted with... |
| I (A) |
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| IV (D) |
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| V (E or E7) |
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Substituting one
chord for another can be a bit unpredictable, so you'll want to make
sure that it works for you. And substituting chords also strongly
impacts on the form of the song, so you'll want to be sure that you
make any chord substitution happen at structurally strong places in
your song.
Here is an example of chords and some substitutions (Example in A
major):
(I IV V I) A - D - E - A.
Substituting the final I-chord with vi gives: A D E F#m
Substituting the D chord with a ii-chord gives: A Bm E A
Both substitutions: A Bm E F#m
Looking for some chord progressions? "Essential
Chord Progressions" gives you hundreds of them!
1. Take the
following chords and make substitutions as indicated in the table
above. For each progression substitute one or more chords, and make
note of your changes. (For chords with a slash, the letter name before
the slash is the chord name; the letter name after the slash is a bass
note):
* A D F#m Bm E A
* A F#m Bm A/C# D E A
* F#m D A Bm E A
* E7 A D A/C# Bm E7 A
* A E D A/C# Bm F#m E A
2. Take a song that you've written and go through the chord
progression. Try substituting chords one for another, and make note of
the effect on your song.
3. Write a short melody of two or four bars. Now harmonize it in as
many ways as you can. Some choices won't work as well as others. Make
note of all progressions that you find, and rate them from 1 (poorest)
to 10 (best).
...on to Lesson 8 - MIXING STRONG AND FRAGILE PROGRESSIONS
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songwriting articles at The Essential Secrets of Songwriting website.
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©2009 Pantomime Music Publications
P.O.Box 31177 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Contact Us: info@pantomimemusic.com | Contact Gary Ewer: gary@pantomimemusic.com
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