Song Structure: When It’s Right, You Don’t Notice It

Song structure is hard to define in any specific way, but songs can die when it’s missing.

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Back in 2003 I started doing research into pop music in preparation for writing “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting.” At that time, I had a number of students in my theory classes at Dalhousie University who were songwriters. They were keen to show me the songs they were working on, and I was very interested to help them. In fact, my desire to help them improve is what led to me writing my text on songwriting.

To help me organize the book, I made a list of the seven most common errors I was seeing in the songs that my students were writing. Right at the top of the list, I wrote what I considered to be the most common error: the form of the song is confusing.

The form, or structure, of a song is something that listeners don’t often take overt notice of. That’s because structure does its work from the background. It supports the more noticeable elements such as melody, lyrics and harmonies. Architects know that a building needs a solid structure. And they also know that when the structure is solid, it’s not often what you notice. Structure stays in the background, while attractive design elements grab the attention.

To many, a song’s structure refers to how you’ve organized verses and choruses. That’s true, but there’s more to it than that. Just as tall buildings rise to a point, a song needs to have a similar focal point, what we call the climactic moment. Check out this list and see if your songs are being weakened by faulty song structure.

1. Songs usually need a climactic moment. Climactic moments are easy to create when you write in a verse-chorus form, because choruses tend to naturally grab more attention. But if your song is sectional without being verse-chorus (i.e., if you’ve written a song that’s in ABC… form, where there are no choruses as such), you still need to think about where to put a climactic moment.
2. Structure is strengthened when you build energy upward. Listeners need to perceive a gradual building of energy as it leads up to the climactic moment. That building of energy can come purely from the lyric, but needs to come from something.
3. A song can have more than one climactic moment. But in cases where there are several “big moments”, there needs to be one that seems to take precedence. Buildings can have several peaks, but the one in the middle often rises higher. So too in music. A good example is “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, where the end of each refrain represents a noticeable climactic moment, but the one at the end of the final refrain is bigger than all the others.
4. The biggest climactic moment needs to be nearer the end than the beginning of a song. Listeners need to feel that even though they’ve just heard something big, something bigger is coming. It keeps them listening.
5. Repetition is a crucial part of solid song structure. Nothing strengthens a song like providing something that the audience has heard already. Too much repetition is boring, but no repetition of musical ideas leaves people feeling like they’re on a wandering journey with no goal. So in and around a song’s climactic moment, allow for the repetition of melodies and motifs.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Why the Hook is Vital in the Writing of Hit Songs

Hooks give listeners something that’s hummable, and something easy to remember.

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Sometimes a song will become a hit to the surprise of the writers, performers and producers. But so-called “sleeper hits” – songs that rise to hit status unexpectedly – are actually not all that common. Suffice it to say, songs are usually greater than the sum of their parts, and so it can be a little bit unpredictable to determine which songs will become hits. But producers usually know which songs are going to grab listener attention. And it usually has to do with the hook.

But it’s not so simple, or else the instruction would be: just write a good hook and you’ve got a good song. The problem is that a catchy hook has a way of dumbing a song down, and so you need to be careful.

So in what way does a hook dumb a song down? It’s probably a poor choice of words, because it doesn’t have much to do with the song being poorly written. But a great hook has a way of making other aspects of a song fade into the background a bit, while the hook stands out and grabs all the attention. It can appear that songs with good hooks don’t have a lot else going for it – sometimes an unfair judgment.

A hook will tend to grab attention whether the rest of the song is great or not. And in fact, a catchy hook can come across as being inappropriate for that reason. Many songs are really fine works on their own, without the need for an attention-seeking hook.

But hooks do tend to be a requirement of most songs that become Billboard hits. And there’s a clear reason for that. Hits are all about sales first, songwriting quality second. That’s not to say that a hit song can’t be both, and often is. But making sales (or getting online clicks) requires people coming back. And people won’t come back if there isn’t something that pulls them back.

That something is usually the hook. It can be the song title, (“Born in the USA”, “Moves Like Jagger”), a background instrumental lick (“Smoke on the Water”), or anything else that grabs attention. For that reason a hook needs to be short, easy to remember, and catchy.

And it’s a vital part of hit song writing.

If your aim is to write and ultimately market your music as something with hit potential, the hook serves that need by being immediately attractive and memorable. It’s like trying to improve a boring house that you’re trying to sell. One way to do it is to simply make improvements to the house, which people may or may not notice right away. The other way is to put a 20-foot-high fountain in the front yard. Instant gratification that helps you ignore (at least temporarily) the quality of the house.

Remember the two most important aspects of any hook: keep it short, and make it catchy. And if you can weave the hook into the title of your song, so much the better.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Strong and Fragile: Using Chord Progressions to Their Greatest Effect

So what’s the deal with strong and fragile chord progressions? What are they, and how do you use them? Answers here!

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If you’ve been writing songs for a while, you’ll notice something about chord progressions: they all tend to point to one particular chord as being the harmonic goal. That harmonic goal is the key of your song. So if your song is in G major, the chord progressions are going to move away from and toward G. It’s not unlike all the little walks you take during a normal day: they take you away from and toward your house. Just as your house will be the ultimate goal of most of your walks, the G chord is the harmonic goal of most of your progressions.

If that progression is relatively simple, and clearly revolves around G major, it’s considered a strong progression. If it wanders a bit, maybe strays off the beaten track a little, we call that a “fragile” progression. And it’s important to know when to use each type of progression.

Strong progressions are the most common type you’ll find in pop music. That’s because it’s in keeping with the style to not venture too far afield with your chord choices. Pop music usually has a noticeable groove, and chords that move in predictable ways are an important part of that groove.

Fragile progressions, when we do find them, are more likely to show up in the verse and in the bridge – the short section that optionally appears after the second chorus.

As mentioned, a fragile progression is one that tends to wander a bit, and makes the harmonic goal a little bit ambiguous. They can be very charming, but at the same time a little harmonically vague, in the sense that the key of the song is not being strongly indicated.

Here’s an example of a strong progression in the key of G major, a progression that makes it very clear that G is the harmonic goal:

STRONG: G  Em  C  D7  G [CLICK to listen in a new browser window]

Here’s an example of a fragile progression, where the harmonic goal is a little less obvious:

FRAGILE: G  D  F  C  Am  Bb  C  D  G [CLICK to listen]

As you can see, the fragile progression does one thing that the strong progression does: it starts and ends on G. But the fragile one takes a little side-journey that makes C sound like the tonic for a short while, before making G the clear objective.

Fragile progressions are arguably more interesting, because of the harmonic side-journey. But be careful how you use them. You can leave listeners feeling a little lost if your music is overrun with fragile progressions.

Not all songs need fragile progressions, and in fact many hit pop songs use primarily strong progressions. “We Found Love“, by Calvin Harris (performed by Rihanna) uses the same progression (and melody) for the verse and the chorus: Ebm  Cb  Gb  Db/Ab.

Adele’s hit, “Set Fire to the Rain,” uses this as a verse progression: Dm  F  C  Gm, and a similar one as a chorus: Dm  C  Gm  Dm  C. Both progressions are relatively strong progression. The only aspect of the verse progression that is vague is the purposeful ambiguity between major and minor: is the key D minor or F major? But the chords stay within that relative major/minor relationship.

A couple of reminders regarding the use of strong/fragile chord progressions:

1. One way a progression is fragile is if it strays away from the original key a bit (as in the fragile example I used above). So in those cases remember that you need time to get the progression back to the original key.
2. In songs that use fragile progressions, it feels right to follow fragile with strong, and not the other way around. So verses can use fragile progressions, but should then be followed up by strong progressions in the chorus.

One way to introduce a sense of “fragility” in a progression is to use chord inversions (slash chords). So you can take a strong progression like G  Am  C  D7  G, and put one or two of the chords in an inversion: G  Am/C  C  D7/C  G/B

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Power-Up Your Chorus by Fiddling With Verse Rhythms

It’s OK, even desirable, to have verses that are rhythmically complex. But choruses need to settle into a recognizable groove.

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Verses differ from choruses in several ways. It’s easy to notice things like melodic range: we know that chorus melodies tend to be higher in pitch than verse melodies. We also know that verse lyrics will tend to be descriptive of people and situations, while choruses tend to allow a more emotional response. The difference also extends to rhythm, particularly as it relates to melody and background instrumentation. Verses (especially first verses) will benefit from more complexity such as syncopation (off-beats) and other rhythmic devices, allowing the chorus to settle in and make the basic beat more obvious.

Lots of songs do this, and current hit “Not Over You“, written by Gavin DeGraw and Ryan Tedder, is a good model. The structure of the song is a basic verse-chorus-bridge design, with a simple piano-percussion accompaniment, so it’s easy to analyze and hear what’s going on.

The piano intro alternates between on-the-beat and off-the-beat articulations:

Because the left hand plays in rhythmic unison (i.e., the same rhythm) with the right, it’s not easily clear where the beat is.

When the vocal line begins, you notice that the syncopations continue, with an alternation between on-the-beat and off-the-beat rhythmic cells. And the first vocal line ends on the weak part of beat 3, further veiling the rhythm. In other words, there’s a purposeful attempt to make the rhythmic patterns and groove of the song a bit ambiguous:

As I mentioned, this kind of thing is not uncommon at all in verses. Ambiguity (what I’ve often called “fragility”) works well in verses, because it goes hand-in-hand with the recounting of a story.

Choruses, however, usually need to solidify. In the case of rhythm you have two choices: 1) either allow the syncopated rhythms to be replaced with a strongly on-the-beat melody; or 2) continue with a chorus melody where syncopation is an important motif, but accompany it with strong on-the-beat backing accompaniment.

In the case of “Not Over You”, they opt for the second approach. Syncopation remains an important rhythmic idea, but everything becomes much more rhythmically solid with the introduction of a strong half-note pseudo-bass drum effect that makes it absolutely clear where the beat lies.

For verse 2, rhythmic syncopation remains an important structural tool for the melody, but the bass drum remains, strengthening the underlying rhythmic structure. It works well: songs should generally move from fragile to strong.

This concept of rhythmic treatment can be a tricky one, because we usually want words to come out in a very natural way. Forcing words into unnatural rhythmic patterns can compromise their effect on listeners, and your lyric’s emotional potential.

So be certain that any rhythmic ideas you use allow you to pulse words in a natural way. Experimenting with a bit of rhythmic ambiguity in the verse can be a great way to increase the emotional impact of your chorus.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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7 Tips for Changing Key Within a Song

Changing key is a great way to inject a bit of song energy. But it’s got to be done well, or it can just sound confusing.

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The key that you choose for your song has more to do with your (or your performer’s) vocal range than anything else. That original key choice is a whole topic that requires considerable thought. There’s a notion that you should choose a key that allows your voice to reach all melody notes easily. But good performers know that you sometimes want to sing in the highest range possible, even if it means straining to get those notes out. But that’s an entirely different topic. What we want to look at right now is how to change key in the middle of a song, and why you’d do it.

Putting a key change within your song will usually dramatically alter song energy. Listeners get used to a key, and even though most of your audience doesn’t really know much about music, they know enough to know when chords belong, and when they don’t.

In other words, most people can say that “something just happened” when a key changes, even though they can’t usually say what it was.

So you can use that awareness to your advantage. Changing key can bring a song to life. But it can be done well or badly, so check out the following 7 tips for doing key changes:

1. Changing from minor to major. This is a common musical device, involving writing a verse in a minor key, and then switching to relative major for the chorus. The minor to major shift has the advantage of brightening the overall mood of a song. ADVICE: Use the bVII of the minor to make the change to major. Example: From the key of A minor to C major: Am  G  Am  Dm  Em  Am  G___||C  G  C  F…
2. Changing from major to minor. This is less common, because switching to minor can tend to feel like a bit of a downer. But in songs that have considerable instrumental energy it can put a desirable edge on the feel of a song. ADVICE: It can work to do a switch to the relative minor (i.e., switching from C major to A minor), but it can also add the energy you’re likely looking for by doing a switch to the parallel minor (i.e., from C major to C minor). Example: Relative Minor: C  F  G  Em  Am  G  Em___ || Am  G  Am… or Parallel Minor: C  F  G  Am  D7  F  G||Cm  Gm  Cm… 
3. Moving key up by a semitone or whole tone. Be careful with this one, because it can sound tired and trite very quickly. Many listeners interpret this kind of modulation as a cheap way to get an energy boost. ADVICE: It’s relatively easy to make this modulation work: simply end a progression with the dominant chord (the V-chord) of whatever key you want to move to. Example: Semitone modulation: C  F  G  C  Ab  ||Db  Gb  Ab… Whole tone modulation: C  F  G  C  A7  ||D  G  A…
4. Avoid downward modulations. It’s not that they can’t work, but they’re definitely trickier. ADVICE: Try sliding into the new lower key at an unexpected moment, like in the mid-point of a progression. Example: C  Am  Dm  F  Gb7  F  C/E  F7  ||Bb  Eb  Bb…
5. Modulations that build energy should be accompanied by an intensifying lyric. We know that all aspects of a song need to work together. The energy that comes with upward key changes can sound odd and out-of-place if the lyric doesn’t intensify. ADVICE: Lyrics need to ride the energy wave created by a key change.
6. Most modulations feel more natural at structurally important places. In other words, it’s hard to make sense of a modulation that happens near the beginning of a verse. ADVICE: The most common places for key changes are at the change between verse and chorus, or in final repeats of a chorus.
7. Most songs don’t need a key change. And in fact, since key changes result in rather distinctive moments, they can sound predictable and hackneyed if used too often. ADVICE: Look for other ways to boost song energy, like intensifying instrumentation, moving the melody line higher, and increasing volume.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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5 Ways to Increase the Number of Songs You Write

There are several ways you can make sure that the songs keep flowing. Check out the list in this blog post.

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If you’re like most songwriters, you’ve probably got a ton of musical bits that don’t have a home yet. Snippets of melody, a great bit of lyric, a chorus with nothing else… that kind of thing. And it’s frustrating, because those fragments of music probably arose from moments of great musical inspiration, and then – nothing. It’s important not to obsess about this sort of thing, because it’s normal for people in the songwriting field to have bits of ideas that haven’t come together yet into a fully-fledged song. But there are things you can do to increase your musical output and make it more likely that the songs you start will get finished.

I’ve mentioned this list of ideas before, but I like to remind songwriters of it every now and then, because it’s very important. The five items on the list relate to a vital quality that all songwriters need: discipline.

The sooner you can organize your creative life, and make songwriting something that you do regularly, and not just when you feel inspired, the easier music composition will be for you. And though I’ve mentioned this list several times before, it’s a good idea to check it every now and then, and make sure that you’re incorporating the ideas here into your daily life.

So check out these 5 important ways that successful songwriters keep the creative juices flowing:

1. Create a dedicated writing time. Designating a certain time of the day as your time to write is probably the most important step to instilling discipline into your creative life. It doesn’t matter what time of day, but be sure that it’s a time that you don’t have to negotiate on with others. And be certain it’s a time that you can stick to for at least 5 out of 7 days a week.
2. Make songwriting games and short creative tasks a regular part of your writing regimen. I’ve offered some ideas before about how this might work. These kinds of games are a great way to stay creative when you’re suffering through writer’s block, but it can and should be a small part of your daily writing practice. Why not start every writing session with a short writing challenge before moving on to the song you’re currently working on.
3. Keep a recording device or note pad with you to record any musical ideas that pop into your mind. You really never know when songwriting ideas will occur to you, such is the nature of the creative mind. It’s frustrating when you think of something, but have no way of preserving it for your writing session later on.
4. Never throw out failed music. Some musical ideas can seem rather lame, but that doesn’t mean that they’re useless. Quite often, music that just doesn’t work just needs to be reworked or put away for a while before you figure out how to use it.
5. Make listening a regular part of your life, even (or particularly) music that you don’t normally like. If all you do is listen to the music that comes from your favourite genre, you miss out on opportunities to expand your musical mind. Music that comes from other styles has a different sound, a different approach. It will surprise you how inspiring it can be to listen to music that sounds different from what you’re used to. Inspiring, and often exciting.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Tips ‘n Tricks: Chord Progression Guidelines for Songwriters

A bad chord progression can bring cause an otherwise excellent song to fail. Here are some basic tips for creating good progressions.

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When songwriters go looking for a “killer” progression, what they’re really looking for is something that’s unique, and something that really clicks with the melody. But uniqueness can sometimes, or often, lead to shaky progressions. Whether we like it or not, what makes progressions work is a good dose of predictability. It’s OK to have moments where strange, unpredictable things happen, but strong progressions that are mainly predictable are the ones that really grab attention.

For many songwriters, however, all they’re looking for is something that they know works. Every time. Check out the following chord progression tips & tricks. They’ll give you a basic idea for why good progressions work, and how to fix bad ones.

1. Your song’s chord progressions will usually need to have an obvious harmonic goal. In other words, if your song is in A major, the chords will work together to make the A chord sound like the tonic.
2. The strongest progressions use chords whose roots are a 4th or 5th apart, and strongly indicate the key of your song. That’s why the circle of fifths progression is so strong, and so often used by composers of all types of music.
3. So-called “fragile” progressions are ones where the intended key is not clearly indicated by the chords you’ve chosen. For example, if your verse is harmonized by moving back and forth between Em and Dm, it’s not really obvious what the key might be (C major? E minor? A minor (aeolian mode?), etc.) Fragile progressions are by no means bad. In fact, they can be quite lovely. But fragile verse progressions are best followed up with stronger chorus progressions.
4. Predictability in chords is not a negative quality. It’s why they’re called progressions, and not successions. Especially in pop song genres where you want to build a large audience base, you want your chords to be mainly predictable (strong), with only occasional moments of surprise.
5. The tonic chord is usually the most common chord in a progression. The V-chord is next in popularity, then the IV-, vi- and ii-chords. The iii-chord and the vii-chord are usually least used.
6. A melody that uses only the notes of a major or minor scale can be harmonized by using the I-, IV- and V-chords. In other words, if your song is in A major, and the notes you sing all come from that scale (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#), the melody can be harmonized with the A, D and E chords.
7. To make a chord progression more creative, consider diatonic chord substitutions as a first option, altered chords as a second option. In other words, if you want a more creative option to a standard I-IV-V-I progression, try substituting the given chords with others from your chosen key. So try I-ii-V-I, I-ii-iii-I, etc. If that doesn’t work for you, try some altered chords (i.e., chords that require sharp or flat adjustments: I-bVII-V-I, I-iv(minor)-V-I, etc.
8. Avoid consecutive chords where the melody note is the same as the bass note. In other words, if your melody starts with the three notes A-C#-E, avoid using I-iii-V (A  C#m  E) as your progression.
9. Create chord progressions that allow the bass line to move independent of the melody. It feels natural to hear bass lines moving in contrary motion to the melody, but here are 2 other options: bass line moving obliquely (i.e., the melody repeats the same note while the bass moves) and in similar direction (i.e., both bass and melody moving in the same direction, but by a different interval.
10. Use chord inversions (“slash chords”) to smooth out a jumpy bass line, or to add “interest” to a boring progression. Don’t simply throw chord inversions into the progression with no good reason for them. Inversions work best if there’s a reason. And the best reasons are to fill in a leap (i.e., change C  G  Am to C  G/B  Am), or to add interest by avoiding the same chord over and over again (i.e., change C  C  C  F to C  C/E  C  F)

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Vital Features of Good Song Melodies

Song melodies need to be memorable to be good. But how do you make sure that the tune you’re writing sticks?

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There’s nothing like succeeding in writing an “ear worm” – a melody that grabs hold of a listener and won’t let go. It’s very hard to define why some melodies do that to us, why some melodies just seem to go around and around in our brains. It can annoy us, but most of the time it’s because we thoroughly enjoy that melody on some level. Good song melodies don’t need to be ear worms, but they do need to be memorable.

So what makes a melody easy for the average listener to remember? There are several characteristics. Check out the following list and see if your melodies are making the grade.

1. Good melodies usually have a shape that explores a low and high range. For sure, it’s possible to name great song melodies that dwell around two or three notes, but those are in the minority. Most song melodies, to be memorable, need a shape, something that distinguishes it easily from other songs. Think of the melody for “A Thousand Years“, by Christina Perri, the verse and chorus of which shows beautiful contour.
2. Chorus melodies are usually written to be higher in pitch than verses. The reason for this is that song energy needs to increase as a song moves from the start of a verse to the end of a chorus. Melodic range is a strong generator of song energy/momentum.
3. Memorable melodies consist mainly of stepwise motion, with only occasional leaps. When melodies move by step (i.e., from one letter name to an adjacent letter name), it’s easy for singers to learn and perform. Occasional leaps are great for injecting melodic interest. Again, “A Thousand Years” is a great example.
4. Melodies that are too “leapy” can be hard to sing and hard to remember. Having said that, be sure not to always default to easy melodies. There are great melodies that are not necessarily easy to sing. And a recent example might be “Moves Like Jagger”, who’s principle hook (the whistle-like melody at the beginning) is quite difficult to perform accurately. But in most cases, you’ll want to avoid too many leaps.
5. Good melodies will incorporate a motif. A motif is a short “idea”, a melodic shape that’s easy to sing, and can be added to itself to create a longer melody. A present-day example would be Bruno Mars’ “It Will Rain.” Most listeners won’t be consciously aware that the melody is comprised of an alternating up-and-down motif (“If you ever leave me, baby…”) That motif provides a kind of musical glue that helps the listener make sense of the melody, and keeps it from simply being a wandering of notes that move higher and lower indiscriminately.

Remember that no melody works without the partnership of a good lyric and a supporting chord progression. So melodies can be enhanced and improved by considering the words carefully, and by making adjustments to the underlying chordal structures.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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5 Reasons Your Song Might Use a Pre-Chorus

A pre-chorus can go a long way to building energy and excitement in a song. Here are some handy tips.

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A pre-chorus is the short section that sits between a verse and a chorus, and its main purpose is to build energy. A most recent example is Katy Perry’s “Firework,” with the pre-chorus starting with the words, “You just gotta ignite the light…” There are no rules regarding how long a pre-chorus needs to be, and no rules that state that a particular song must have a pre-chorus. Certain songs will benefit from the energetic build-up that happens when those extra bars are added, so take a look at the following 5 things you should know about writing a pre-chorus.

Songs that exhibit the following characteristics are often good candidates for a pre-chorus:

1. The verse melody is similar or identical to the chorus melody. Sugarland’s 2010 hit “Stuck Like Glue” is a good model for this. Where the verse and chorus melodies play around with the same notes in the same basic range, a pre-chorus can offer an opportunity for a new melody.
2. The verse melody is short. John Lennon’s “Imagine” is a good example here. The verse is comprised of a very catchy but simple melodic shape that’s repeated over and over. The pre-chorus (“Imagine all the people…”) helps to build energy, and connect the verse to the chorus more satisfactorily than simply jumping to the chorus from the verse.
3. The verse chord progression is simple, and doesn’t really get going. “Imagine” is a good demonstration of this point as well. If you find yourself writing a verse that moves back and forth between two chords, you may want to allow the music to move a bit further afield before entering the chorus.
4. The melodic range of the verse and chorus are very different. This is the situation in “Firework” that is solved by the pre-chorus. In “Firework,” the verse ends on a low Ab, and the chorus begins on a Eb, an octave-and-a-half higher. The pre-chorus allows the melody to work its way upward to make a smoother connection.
5. The verse lyrics need a more obvious build to match the emotion of the chorus. Shontelle’s “Impossible” shows this clearly. Simply remove the words of the pre-chorus (“And now when all is done/ there is nothing to say/ you have gone and so effortlessly/ you have won, you can go ahead tell them..”) and you can see how unpleasantly abrupt it feels to move directly from the verse to the chorus.

There’s one more point to keep in mind about pre-choruses, and it involves phrase length. A verse will sound complete if it consists of 2, 4 or 8 phrases. One of the ways we know that we’re listening to a pre-chorus, and not simply a “part-B” of a verse, is that the verse on its own sounds complete in this regard.

For example, the verse for “Imagine” consists of 4 equal-length phrases. The pre-chorus adds an extra 2 phrases before entering the chorus. And it’s very common to have a pre-chorus that does not conform to the 2-, 4- or 8-phrase rule.

Not every song needs a pre-chorus, and often it’s created right along with the verse and chorus, as opposed to something that’s added in later. But if you find yourself looking at your song and wondering what to do to enhance the build between verse and chorus, consider the power that can come from a pre-chorus.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website
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“Stairway to Heaven”, and 5 Other Killer Minor Key Progressions

Check out these 10 minor progressions… They’ll work in verses, choruses, or anywhere you need them.

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The main deciding factor in choosing a key for your song is the vocal range. The reason is obvious: you need the song to be singable! If your song is in a major key, it’s easy enough to find the 7 chords that naturally go with that key. Simply take the major scale and build chords above each note. If the song is in a minor key, you do the same thing. But with minor keys there is a difference: you might be talking about a minor key, or you might be talking about a minor mode. Because of that, coming up with minor chord progressions gives you tons of possibilities.

Check out the following minor progressions. Each one has a short description of what’s going on, and why it works. They are all transposable. Chord progressions are not protectable by copyright, so you can use them in your own songs. Remember, though, that the more distinctive a progression is, the more difficult it is to use it and call it your own. Honestly, it’s going to be tricky to use “Stairway to Heaven’s” progression, but there are ways, particularly if you approach them with a completely new tempo or different instrumentation.

1. “Happy Together”: Am  G  F  E  Am. The second-last chord, ‘E’ , makes this a tonal, as opposed to a modal, progression. You hear this progression in “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)” from Jesus Christ Superstar, during the “…But if I die” lyric, as well as The Turtle’s “Happy Together.”
2. “Hotel California”: Bm  F#  A  E  G  D  Em  F#. This progression, in the key of A minor, features what is called a chord progression sequence. A sequence means that a short pattern is set up, then repeated at a higher or lower pitch. In this case, we get two chords that descend by a 4th (Bm to F#). It’s then sequenced a tone lower, starting on A, then again on G, before rising to the dominant chord, F#.
3. “All Along the Watchtower”: Am  G  F  G. A simple modal (Aeolian) progression that starts on Am, descends to F and simply reverses. It can repeat forever, and it’s exactly what Dylan does in “Watchtower”.
4. “Stairway to Heaven”: Am  C #5+7/G#  C/G  D/F#  Fmaj7  G  Am. The famous opening progression from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. The progression is built at first on a descending bass line, which then rises once it hits F. (Many online chord progression sites erroneously name the second chord as an augmented G# chord, but that’s incorrect. It’s complex, and could have several possible names, but the most accurate is an augmented chord on C with an added major 7, in 2nd inversion (i.e., G# on the bottom.)
5. “California Dreamin’: C#m  B  A  B  G#sus4  G#  A  E  G#  C#m  A  G#sus4  G#  C#m. Starts in C#m, modulates via the A chord to E major, before quickly returning to C#m.
6. “Incense and Peppermint”: Em  A  Em  C  Em  A  Em  C || Em  Ebm  D  A. This progression features an odd chord movement of Em to Ebm. Descending roots by semitones are tricky to make work, particularly in minor. This progression is actually in the mode of E Dorian, which accounts for the major chord on A.

There’s a common perception amongst most people that major keys are happy ones, and minor keys are sad. However, this is a stereotype that doesn’t really hold true. You can hear very happy music in minor keys, and as a songwriter, you should be looking for ways to break out beyond predictable stereotypes.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
Follow Gary on Twitter 

PURCHASE and DOWNLOAD the e-books for  your laptop/desktop

or GET THE iPHONE/iPOD TOUCH APP