Music

Chord Keys

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

Here’s an email I received recently:

“Irene,

If I write a song and start playing the first chord as (A) what other chords can I use that would fit. Usually I go to the C to G type, but that’s because I’m limited. How can I find a wide selection of chords that would that would fit ? especially with minor chords.”

When I first started to learn how to play guitar, every new “neat” chord or progression I learned ended up being in a song 🙂 The more I learned, the more I wrote! So I understand completely the limitations that pop up when you don’t know your instrument all that well. Translation: Learn your instrument!

Here is my simple explanation of very basic chord theory…I hate theory, but it helps to know some of it so you can expand your understanding:

First of all, chords are grouped together in families called “keys”. These chords all relate to each other, which is why they sound good together! If you sit down and look at the chords to a lot of popular songs, you’ll notice that very often the same chords will be together in different songs. If you see a song with a “G” in it, you’ll often also see a “C” and/or a “D” too.

Below, I’ve listed some keys, and all of their relative chords. If you play these chords together, you’ll notice that they all sound like they work together…voila!

Chord Keys
Chord Keys

So that’ll give you a few chords to work with. But of course there are MANY, MANY more different types of chords! Not only that, but you don’t HAVE to use chords in the same key…experiment by throwing a chord in a different key in somewhere…that’ll give a little musical twist to a song! Nirvana was a band notorious for writing songs with chords that were in different keys…it gave a kind of strange mood to some of their material that was part of their ‘sound’. What’s your sound going to be? 🙂

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More On Magical Melodies

Posted on by IJ
“If It Makes You Happy” cover
Image via Wikipedia

© I.Woloshen

I went to a Songshop recently, put on by the Songwriters Association of Canada where there were a number of songwriters baring their souls and their songs all in the hopes of improving their craft. Sometimes as an observer it is much more obvious where the problems lie within a song…but when you’re the writer you can’t see the forest for the trees (ugh! sorry, little cliché there 🙂 One of the workshop leaders talked about hearing someone, who wasn’t a songwriter by the way, say that the highest note of the song had to be in the chorus! Is that true? Of course not…but he’d obviously made that decision after hearing songs for years and years. Defining a melody and how a great one works, will NEVER be that simple!

We get caught up sometimes in finding a neat little groove and getting those lyrics perfect, or having that lead guitar pop in at just the right moment…that we often neglect what may be the one thing that we might want people to most remember about the song! Think about all of those “great” songs that you listened to growing up…how often is the lead guitar riff the only thing you remember? While a memorable guitar riff such as Eric Clapton‘s first version of “Layla” (Derek and the Dominos) can stand out from everything else…for the most part, it isn’t going to carry the whole song!

The most difficult part, I think, about writing a melody, is keeping it simple AND unique at the same time! Why is simplicity important? Because MOST listeners out there will probably only remember the song in bits and pieces after the first listen. Test this out on somebody…play them a song of yours they’ve never heard before, and then afterwards, ask them to repeat something about it. Don’t tell them you’re going to do this beforehand, that would be cheating! What do they come up with? Melody? A line? A guitar riff? What a cool test, eh?

Let’s take a look at a couple of contemporary hit songs…I’m going to focus on Pop/Rock for the time being. Joan Osborne had a hit with the song “One Of Us”. Think about the first line of the chorus…”What if God was one of us?” The first three notes are about as simple as you can get…(F#, G#, A in the actual key) same length, major scale…you could find that same set of three notes in a thousand other songs somewhere. On their own, what they do is ascend (rise) to the most central theme of the song…God. And the word “God” is the highest note (okay, maybe that non-songwriter had a point!) But the next four notes really help to reinforce that melodic hook…C# C# D E. So simple and powerful. Now look at the whole chorus…that series of 7 notes is repeated all the way through except for the last line. So the melody is not only simple, it is repeated and reinforced throughout the chorus. And of course, lyrically, it has a powerful message!

Let’s take a look at another contemporary song…”If It Makes You Happy” by Sheryl Crowe. This is another example of a very simple melodic line in the chorus, but sung with such power! I teach this song to some of my guitar students…as soon as I sing that line, they know the song! When she goes from the first D up a whole octave in the first line, there’s the whole song right there! And look at the notes, very simple and straightforward (If D it D Makes D*octave You B Hap A py B!).

Let me tell you a little secret…your listeners, unless they are musical masters or jazz enthusiasts, do not have complex listening skills! As I said earlier, they will collect bits and pieces of a song, but won’t grasp the whole thing on the first listen. So it’s important for you to get their attention with shorter, simpler lines of melody, reinforced with great lyrics of course! If you look at Sheryl Crowes’ song again…the first melodic part is repeated…so it’s broken down into four lines in the chorus:

If it makes you happy D D D* B A B *up an octave
It can’t be that bad D G G G B A G A
If it makes you happy D D D B A B
Why the hell are you so sad? G E G E G G B

And although she doesn’t do it the first time it’s sung…the chorus is repeated twice after every verse! Again, she really reinforces that musical hook. Her performance is another very important element…think about how she sings it…it’s balsy, not pretty, which is her style certainly. But it makes you want to shout it, rather than sing it!

In listening to some demos recently, another point came to mind. There’s a real need for “flow” in your melody…it has to move seamlessly and effortlessly from one line to the next. One demo especially stood out as having far too many “blank” spaces or pauses…it lost something and had little impact as a result. This does not mean that your melody shouldn’t have any pauses in it at all…you’ve gotta breathe! But if you ARE running out of breath when you sing it, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s much too full. And if it feels like it’s dragging, the opposite is probably true…you’re not doing enough!

So now it sounds like I’ve told you two contradictory things…keep the lines shorter and simpler, and make sure there’s a flow…well, they really do compliment each other. Look at the two examples I’ve shown you again…and then examine your own!

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You’re As Strong As Your Weakest Part

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

I used to be a lousy lyricist…maybe I had nothing to say, maybe I just let that part of my songwriting go, maybe I was just plain lazy! It was something I swept aside in my frenzy to write great music, especially when I was in my 20’s. I was impatient to finish…ever feel that way? These days, I have an endless supply of patience, but I digress…

When you get to the point of looking at the first draft of a song is when your weakness becomes most apparent. What is it that you’re skipping over in order to get the darn thing written? You know yourself better than anyone else, and this is when you have to be the most honest. When I say to be honest with yourself, I don’t mean that you need to be hyper-critical, just that you have to come face-to-face with the part of the song that isn’t “there” yet. This is the part of the song that will stand out to those who spend hours and hours listening to amateur songwriting, the people in the business. You can bet that they’ll pinpoint your weak point instantly!! You can’t hide it!

This weakness in your songwriting may take some time to strengthen, so be prepared! You essentially have several choices:

1. You can spend the time necessary to develop your skill in this area…for instance, because of my weak lyrics, I did a lot of reading and worked at writing a journal over a long time. When I would write in my journal, every now and then I’d come up with a line or phrase that stood out…that was the beginning of knowing I had my own point of view to express. If music is your weakness, push your envelope! Get out there and learn something…take a guitar class, learn some theory or join a choir and get a feel for how melodies and harmonies work together. There are endless possibilities.

2. You can skip the learning part and get yourself a co-writer. Find someone who has the skills you are missing…maybe they will be missing what you have! It isn’t easy at first to find someone suitable, but there are many, many songwriters out there who co-write. On Jeff Mallet’s site Lyricist.com you’ll find a huge list of songwriters broken down into lots of categories, including location.

3. If songwriting is your hobby, as opposed to a career pursuit, you have the luxury of time and little pressure 🙂 You may not be driven to change anything about the way you write, but even hobbyists like the idea of improving on the craft! Most of the books you’ll see on songwriting are primarily geared towards commercial writing, but there is a great book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron which focuses mostly on the creative side of yourself that you may find very helpful. It deals with “recovering your creative self” and although it doesn’t speak specifically about songwriting, I’ve heard many songwriters recommending it highly. If you are interested in other songwriting books, check out the Muse’s Muse for a whole list of ’em!

4. “Time…is on your side, yes it is…”…but for a great period of time in my songwriting “life” when I wasn’t focusing on improving it, I didn’t! There is no magic formula or pill. If you wanted to play better golf, you would probably consider taking lessons, or practicing as often as possible, maybe on a driving range…in other words you would focus in on your game and give it the time it deserved. The same is true of anything, including songwriting. When I focused in on my weaknesses, I learned to write better songs. Simple as that.

You will probably always feel more comfortable with one aspect of your writing, the part that comes naturally…it’s easy to ignore the rest when it’s too much “work” to fix it. But if you’re interested in getting your songs heard by others…it’s something you can’t ignore anymore!

PRODUCTION WEAKNESSES:

If you are considering sending your demos out to publishers…here are some problems that relate to production that you may not have considered (some I’ve heard and been guilty of from time to time myself). Seriously think about going to a professional studio to do a decent production on the song.

1. If you are a great keyboardist, vocalist, etc., etc., but you can’t program drums worth a damn…THAT’S exactly what the publisher is going to hear first…those lousy drums! Don’t you dare think you can hide them 🙂

2. Vocal buried in the mix…it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I’ve heard publishers, etc., say this, songwriters STILL forget that the lyrics are half the song and if they can’t hear ’em, they won’t listen any further!

3. Self-indulgent solo leads…come on, maybe your favourite part of recording is putting down that nice over-effected guitar lead that you just can’t play enough of…but that’s when the machine is going to get turned off. I’ve had demos sent to me when the songwriter raved about his guitar part, as if the song itself had very little to do with it!

4. Bad tempo shifts – I hate over-quantification, don’t get me wrong…there’s nothing that beats a “real” feel or groove in a song. But it’s got to be tight, it has to feel solid tempo-wise. Even if you’re just playing a simple keyboard or guitar and vocal, keep it on time!

5. Forgot to tune – oh, there’s no excuse for this one! Tune all of your instruments first…new strings on guitars if you can, don’t give somebody another reason to hit the “stop” button!

6. Lo-o-o-o-o-ng Intros – are for performing songwriters who can get away with it…if you’re pitching, don’t bother with much of an intro, get to the song as soon as you can! Equally true with long extros…nobody’s going to be listening that far into the song anyway!

7. And last but not least – REAL fancy production, but weak song. Let me tell you right now, you can’t hide a lousy song with great production. Somebody’s going to see that one right away. Make sure your song is “there” first before you even THINK of anything else!

Well, as I said, you are as strong as your weakest part…as soon as you figure out what that weak part is, you’ve got it made!

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Music Terminology

Posted on by IJ
Guitar Sheet Music
Image by *persiflage via Flickr

© I.Woloshen

If you don’t play an instrument, or only play by ear…OR you’re new to this whole songwriting thing…here are a few terms you may hear and what they mean. These are just a few musical terms, for songwriting terms, see below.

  • Bar – A piece of music or a song is broken down into sections called bars. If you’ve ever looked at sheet music, the bars are defined by dark vertical lines (hence the term “bars”) and between each bar is a set number of notes. You’ve probably heard the term “4 beats to the bar”. Bars help to define how long chords or notes are played (i.e. two bars of G).
  • Time Signature – This defines how many beats there are to a bar, and the value of each one. 3/4 time is recognizable as a waltz-type feel (ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three). The most common time is 4/4…in fact, it’s even CALLED Common Time!
  • Lead Sheet – This is a very basic kind of sheet music. Most lead sheets have only the bars written out and the chords within the bars and some simple notes. This is often used when you go into the record, and is used by each musician to follow along. Lead sheets don’t necessarily have lyrics written on them, although some do.
  • Sharp/Flat – You’ve probably heard the reference to singing “flat”…this means that you’re singing just a little lower than the note should be. Singing sharp means it’s a little too high. I won’t go into the theory of sharps and flats, but it helps to be able to identify which is which!
  • Octave – a standard scale has 7 notes (not including all of the sharps and flats) before it reaches the same note higher up…think of Doe Re Mi Fa So La Ti Doe…both “Doe” ‘s are the same note, but the second one is an OCTAVE higher than the first.
  • Vocal – the voice! There are “lead” vocals which is basically the singer singing the melody, and there are background vocals, singing harmony, etc.
  • Lead or instrumental – Sometimes in a song there is a section where an instrument plays for a few bars before the vocal starts again…this is called a lead or an instrumental section.
  • Fills – These are little bits of music that are often played by a lead instrument to “fill” in a space on a recording or performance. When you ask a guitar player to play some fills, he/she will usually weave some notes in and around the melody or vocal, just to add a little flavour.
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Songwriting As Storytelling

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

Most people don’t equate songwriting with telling stories unless it’s in the form of a folk song. Folk songs often have what is called an AAA structure, with “A” representing the verses and no chorus, therefore lending themselves easily to a story format. Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and many of the 60’s folk artists wrote in this style, which is in fact one of the oldest songwriting formats around.

A lot of pop songs on the charts these days don’t rely very heavily on storytelling or even good lyric writing! I’m sure you can think of popular songs where you have no idea what it’s really about, but you can relate to parts of it and it has a great musical hook, so it’s on your list of favourites. Does that mean you can get away with writing nonsense lyrics? Nonsense!

As far as stories go, any good one will draw you in from the first sentence, hold your attention all the way through and satisfy you with a great ending…maybe even leave you wanting more! When you write a song, even if it isn’t in the folk or storytelling format, you need to remember to have the same elements…a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what if there isn’t a “story” in your song? How do you accomplish this task?

These days when I sit down to write lyrics, I often start with the first line before even knowing what the song is going to be about! As I add each line, an idea starts to unfold, and once I have a first draft I more or less know what the song is about. But not everyone approaches their lyric writing this way, and some songwriters find that their end product is lacking some kind of cohesion. There are several things to look for that may be contributing to this:

1. THE ‘HEAR’ AND NOW: Is your lyric taking place in the present, past, future, or a mixture of all of these? A listener can get confused pretty quickly if you jump from one to the other for no obvious reason. The most POWERFUL tense is the present, but as you know, many of us long for the past or hope for the future, and all tenses can all be used with equal impact if you know what you’re doing. A lyric that moves from past to future can also give a sense of continuity to your song. Look over your lyrics and clear up any inconsistencies in this area.

2. DRAWING A PICTURE: Some writers, when getting ideas for their lyrics, first sit down and actually write a paragraph or two about what they want to say. Having the full picture in front of you can help you to build the song lyric in a clear, intelligible way, and maybe even give you a better idea as to how to structure it. Think about grade school when you were learning how to construct a story. Remember the “5 W’s” (who, what, when, where, why)? This is a very useful tool when putting together your lyric. Who is this about? What is happening? When and where is it taking place? Why is it happening?

3. PURPOSEFUL SONG PARTS: Each part of a song has a job. The chorus is a summation of the song, the central theme or idea. The job of the verses is to flesh out this idea a little further, going into more detail and carrying the song forward. If there is a bridge, its purpose is to take a fresh look at the whole subject. Normally the music in the bridge goes into a different progression or melody from the rest of the song, and the lyric does the same. It’s a kind of “break” from the repetitiveness of the rest of the song. Use your song parts correctly and the rest of the song will fall into place. Don’t be afraid to change the parts around either. Maybe what you call your first verse is REALLY better as a chorus!

4. ‘THREADS’: Each part of a song should tie into the one before and the one after, in what I like to call “threads”. When you examine your verses, look for continuity of thought…are you carrying through on your central theme? To simplify the process, write out a one phrase description of each verse, the chorus, bridge and any other part of the song to see how each part works with the rest. Some people critique songs using this idea…they’ll map out each part of the song to see whether or not it flows.

5. RHYMING FOR NO REASON: Sometimes we get so caught up in finding a rhyme for a word, that we forget what the song is about…I KNOW that any of you who have tried to write a lyric have found yourself in this position before. In fact, I’ve seen complete lyrics that seem to be a series of unconnected rhymes, a play on words perhaps, but with no thought to anything else!

6. WASTED SPACE: I know you’ve done this too…filling in a line or a phrase with something that fits the meter, but has nothing to do with the song. I call these “throw away lines”, and I DO use them sometimes just to fill the space for the time being until I can come up with something better. When I’m in the polishing stage or the re-writing stage, is when I will pull these parts out and replace them. And when I do, I’m ALWAYS looking for threads.

7. TOO MANY COOKS: Another problem that can overwhelm a lyric is too many ideas! Don’t try to write seven songs in one lyric…take it apart and write about one element, or decide more clearly what that one element IS and then make the others work around it. Ever walked into a terribly messy room? Your eyes don’t know where to look first, and it can actually create stress in your body! The same thing can happen with a “busy” lyric…the ear doesn’t know WHAT to hang onto and a headache is just around the corner!

So there you have some ideas for making a story out of your song. And though even the most popular song lyrics out there don’t necessarily follow these “rules”, that only means there’s hope yet for all of us!

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