For most of the songs you’ll write, you’ll likely use the same key throughout. If you do happen to change key, the mostly common scenario is to put the verse in a minor key and then switch to the relative major for the chorus, like Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” That’s pretty standard, and […]
This is a bit of an addition to yesterday’s post, in which I gave some thoughts on the melody and lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart“. There’s one other aspect of this song that deserves a quick mention: the key change at the song’s instrumental bridge (at 1’38”). The song is in C# major. We […]
You know that there are many songs where verses and choruses are in different keys. When it comes to questions about chord progressions that I receive, the most common kinds of questions relate to that issue: how to get from one key to another in a typical song. It’s not unusual for a song to […]
Most of the time, a song will start and end in the same key without ever changing. But once in a while, it can be interesting for the audience if they hear the music move off to some new key, even if that key change is just temporary. In music theory terms, it’s called “modulation.” […]
Let’s say that you’ve got a verse that consists of a short melody and chord progression that repeats several times before it reaches the chorus. That might start to sound boring to you, and I want to suggest a way to alleviate that boring sense of repetition. How much a short melody can or should repeat before moving […]
Songs, especially in the pop genres, normally end in the same key they start in. But every once in a while you’ll come across songs that feature key changes in various spots. This is called modulation in music theory circles. One of the most common key changes happens in the final chorus repeats, when the key […]
