Last post I mentioned some common chromatic chords.
Over the weekend I also got involved in a very silly debate about the comparative ‘cultural significance’ of Radiohead and Aqua. It involved the sort of long pretentious discussion I was thankful to have left behind in my student days, and I should probably be ashamed of myself, [...]
chromatic adj. Relating to colours or colour
Chord choice can be a tricky thing for songwriters. It’s often a balance between the desire to be musically interesting and the need to not confuse the listener with too outlandish a change.
Thankfully, the modern listener is actually pretty sophisticated. After all, western audiences have had about three [...]
House of Fun is a breezy, quirky, cheersome little pop song by Madness. It has an up-tempo ska groove to it and a video that steals liberally from Monty Python sketches.
It’s great fun, but this is Songwright so the important question is: are there any songwriting ideas we can steal from this song?
Of course there [...]
Who says key changes are just for boy bands?
Yes, I’m abandoning any hint of respectability I might have retained. I like cheesy heavy metal. Love it. And in this post we’re going to see a very different use the basic key change idea we talked about before.
First a little background
Last post I mentioned the [...]
Having established that changing key is a valid way of adding interest and contrast to a song, how might we achieve it?
First a recap
Last post-about-key-changes we reached a conclusion:
Being ‘in C’ means two things.
Only the notes from the C scale
The C note as a ‘home’ or tonic note
Which can be generalised as
Being in a key [...]
This is the first of several posts that will look at key changes.
Key changes? I hear you wail, The cheesey bit in the final chorus of boy band ballads? I have no need of such cheap tricks!
Well, no I don’t just mean that particular cliché, although a key change in the final chorus doesn’t have [...]
Recent Comments