Mike Rutherford, Genesis

Building Musical Energy With a Dominant Pedal

In a movement from a classical symphony, the music isn’t divided up into verses and choruses as is typical for pop songs. You’re more likely to see reference to sections called “1st theme”, “2nd theme”, “transition”, “development”, “coda”, and so on. With pop songs, you get a definite feeling that the basic energy of the music changes […]

David Bowie

Ideas For Controlling the Mood Of Your Song

One of the interesting qualities of music is its ability to affect our mood, perhaps even to generate certain moods. Politicians certainly know this; musical choice is an important consideration at rallies and speeches. There are some aspects of music that immediately come to mind when we think about controlling the mood a song portrays. […]

Guitarist - Songwriter

Simple Changes to Simple Chords Can Yield Amazing Results

If you have a chord progression that works but doesn’t do much to inspire you, you can of course toss it and look for another. But with the simplest of changes, you can take a progression from being mundane to something much closer to awe-inspiring. So let’s say you’ve got the following simple progression: C […]

7 Things You May Not Know About Chord Progressions

Do you find that getting chords to sound right is the hardest part of getting a song working? Chord theory is a topic that takes considerable study to understand it thoroughly, so let’s look at it from a different angle. Here are 7 things about chord progressions that many songwriters don’t know. It may help you […]

bass guitar

Three Kinds of Bass Pedal Point to Try

When you feel that your chord progression is lacking a bit of excitement, you’re temptation might be to toss it out and go looking for “the killer chord progression.” But that shouldn’t be your first choice, for a number of reasons. First of all, no chord progression is “killer” unless it’s partnering well with all […]

5 Ideas To Make a Boring Chord Progression Better

To create a progression that sounds fresh, try starting with something strong and predictable, and then modify it. Here are 5 ways to do that. _____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-Ebook Bundle. 11 Songwriting Principles That Will Turn Your Writing Around – Guaranteed. _____________ Most great songs are built on chord progressions that sound, on their own, […]