Chord Progressions - And How To Manipulate Them
Monday, April 6, 2009 at 11:03AM I try to go and hear people perform at least once each week that I’m not working. As I keep saying, there are always things to learn and things to be warned about by seeing and hearing other performers and songwriters.
Most songwriters don’t seem to realize that if they are on the stage in the spotlight that there is an understanding that you are going to be entertaining. Telling us what the song is about is pointless. You are about to sing the song, so if you’ve written with any kind of clarity, we’ll know what it’s about.
A far more interesting thing to say is what inspired the song. That adds a subtext to the song that we would not otherwise have and will give more resonance to more people if they can include their own interpretation of what is going on.
What I want to talk about to day, however, is not performing, but chord progressions. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is the group of notes played simultaneously beneath a melody that give the melody a character, a mood, and partially, a momentum.
A good chord progression, like a good melody, will have a momentum that will draw the listener in, pull the listener along, and finally deliver a satisfying conclusion to the listener. If this is done well, a listerner will want to hear that again. The ultimate compliment to a songwriter wouldn’t you say?
The first person to put together a chord progression that worked must have seemed like the musical genius of all time, but now thousands of years later, all the chord progressions have probably been tried and used successfully at least once.
To see what a good chord progression can do for you, pick your favorite song, learn the chords that support the melody, then take the melody away and write your own song to the progression. Unless you are a melodic genius, your song will probably not be as good as the song you took it from.
And that, unfortunately, is what I hear many times as I listen to my fellow songwriters. They take a progression that is shop worn and write a predictable melody to it. Couple that with inane lyrics and you have a cure for insomnia.
In the past, we would have people writing a hit song, and then using that same progression writing another song, which sounded, not so mysteriously, like the song that had preceeded it. Dylan unabashedly admits that he takes chord progressions that he’s already heard and melodies he’s already heard and then he goes left where they go right, up where they go down, etc. By the time he is finished with it, the song sounds like a complete original. That is something that would not have occurred if he had just used everything as he had already heard it done.
There are many ways to vary a familiar progression to make something new happen. You can change the time value of the chords. If they are used as one chord per two beats, change that to one chord per four beats, or one chord per beat. McCartney admitted that Hey Jude was just the chords to Save the Last Dance For Me sped up.
Using a chord progression the same way it has already been used is an easy way to write a semi professional song, but the best way is to introduce some kind of surprize into it; a modulation; a time change; a pause at one chord for longer than the progression originally held.
If you don’t introduce something new into the mix, you are like a person going down the 101 Freeway and taking credit for discovering the way. The way was already laid out for you and millions of others. If you don’t stray from that path, you end up being another anonymous vehicle mired in the creative traffic jam that is always waiting to claim us. Wow, there’s a metaphor for you. Sorry.
Don’t settle for something that you’ve already heard. And apply that to your lyrics as well as your chord progressions and your melodies. If someone has already used the phrase “heart shaped box” then for you to use it is simply you proclaiming that you don’t really have anything original to say, so you’re saying something someone already said. Bad move. Apply it to your whole project, your words, your melodies, your chord progressions. Kurt Cobain did it over and over again. You can too. Just accept the rewards in a more healthy fashion than he did. His originality was so easy for him, I believe he thought that he didn’t deserve the accolades he was getting. That can really screw you up. Do the work as best you can. That’s the easiest way to be able to handle the rewards.
Reader Comments (3)
The Dylan method is very good and easy to do...take someone elses sculpture or painting and do your own version...going left where they went right etc as you said...This post pairs well with the post you worte on writing a song like a previously written song...write in someone else's style etc...
You've given your personal opinion on what music you get and who leaves you dry...I was wondering what you thought of Counting Crows
Pax
Namaste
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