Most songs, if they are one of several possible verse-chorus formats, usually start with a verse, and before the 1-minute mark will move on to the chorus. The timing involved with this — i.e., the fact that we usually hear the chorus at or before the 1-minute mark, as you hear in a song like […]
The great thing about various possible song designs is that they usually work for any genre. It shouldn’t matter if you’re writing pop, rock, country, folk… the principles that make a formal design (verse-chorus-bridge, for example) work apply to any and all genres. And not just genres… you find them used in practically any era as well. That means that […]
Most songs are said to be “in a key.” If the key is C major, that C major chord is said to be the tonic chord. A dominant chord is one that is built on the 5th degree of a scale. Dominant chords like to move to tonic chords. That’s why G7-C (V7-I) is so […]
There are moments in music history that can be described as game-changers. Whether that moment is a song (“Like a Rolling Stone”), an album (“Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), or even an event (Woodstock Festival), most things that present as a game-changer in the arts happen almost by accident. No one can predict, it […]
How do you make people think something with music? It’s amazing that simply hearing the air vibrate can do that, but such is the strength of being a member of the human race. I’ve mentioned on this blog before that some songwriters, like Paul Simon, like to compose music (melody and chords) and then decide […]
I remember once reading a criticism of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, that he made too many albums. True, Peterson made more than 200 albums, and the criticism seemed to be that if someone recorded that much, surely musical ideas would get watered down and eventually become simply ineffective. In Peterson’s case, I don’t think there would […]
