Chapter 10

Using Chords in Songwriting

In This Chapter

Understanding how chords and chord progressions shape your song

Picking an instrument when working with chords

Creating colors through your choices in chords

Given the fact that you’re reading this book, you may already have a basic grasp of chords on the instrument of your choice. You can use this knowledge of chords to your advantage and actually play the songs for others while you’re in the process of writing them to receive some valuable feedback. But, even if you’re strictly a lyricist, you can use what you learn in this chapter to speak intelligently about chords with your co-writer. The more you understand the underlying chord structures of a song, the more appreciation you’ll have for them when you hear a great song on the radio or Internet. The next step will be applying that knowledge and appreciation into your own songs. Putting chords to work within the context of a song is what this chapter’s all about.

Using Chords to Write Songs

Just like the concrete that forms the foundation of your house, think of chord structure as the foundation of your song. If the chord structure is solid, you can build a masterpiece on top of it; if it’s weak, everything you lay on top of this foundation runs the risk of collapsing.

So what is a chord? A chord is a combination of three or more musical tones played simultaneously. Chords are constructed of different combinations of the half step intervals between the notes. You can locate these intervals by going to a piano and finding your way up and down the keyboard, including the black keys. The specific intervals between the notes determines the colors of the individual chord you use. The color of your song will depend upon the chordal intervals you choose. It’s perhaps the most overlooked element of a song because it does its job more or less invisibly. (When was the last time a friend came up to you and said, “Wait till you hear the chord progression on “Uprising” by Muse. It’s almost Bach-like.”) Nonetheless, great songs need great chords and interesting progressions. They do their work “behind the notes,” influencing a song’s mood and where it’ll turn melodically. A particular note or series of notes can sound entirely different depending on the chord it’s played against.

If you have very limited know-how on an instrument, check out Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Mark Phillips and Jon Chappell, Rock Guitar For Dummies by Jon Chappell, or Piano For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Blake Neely (all published by Wiley Publishing, Inc.) for additional great tips and information.

When I’m listening to a new song on the radio, my ear usually focuses on the melody first and the lyrics second — the chord pattern is just the delivery medium. However, when a writer is daring enough to throw in an unexpected chord or two along the way, I take special notice and gauge whether it was a risk worth taking.

—Jim Peterik, performer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist for both Ides of March and Survivor, plus writer of hits for .38 Special, Sammy Hagar, and others

Believe it or not, your choices of chords can dramatically affect the commerciality of your song. Throwing in odd intervals (unexpected jumps between chords) can be too jarring for simple pop tunes, but it’s practically required for grunge and alternative rock. Diminished chords (in which a musical interval is reduced by a half step) are hardly ever used in country music, but they’re commonplace in jazz-oriented songs. Knowing what genre your song fits into is a big part of choosing the right chords.

You can’t copyright a chord progression; if you could, the estates of the pioneers of the 12-bar blues progression would be overflowing! So unless you’re particularly inventive with your chord progression, you’re building melodies over ground laid by others. This is not to say you can’t vary the changes and substitute chords to make them your own. Just don’t be too surprised when someone else comes along with the same variation.

Getting started with chords

As a songwriter, even if your focus and strength lie primarily in lyrics, having a working knowledge of a chordal instrument like keyboard or guitar can help you find the proper chords for your song — or at least help you guide your co-writer. Learn some of your favorite songs on piano or guitar to see the chord sequences used and to notice the moods being set. Songwriters start as fans of different writers and songs, and then as they learn those progressions, they start to adapt and modify them to their own style.

The first song I ever learned on the guitar when I was nine years old was the hit “Tom Dooley” by The Kingston Trio. With the sequence of just the two simple chords, A major to E major, suddenly I was making music — not to mention impressing my relatives and members of the opposite sex!

—Don Barnes, .38 Special

The most basic and useful thing to learn when studying chords is that each key has seven different notes. From each one of these notes, you can build a chord — one through seven. When you hear someone refer to a “1, 4, 5 progression,” he’s talking about the one chord, the four chord (four notes up in the scale from the first), and the five chord (five notes up in the scale from the first).

Knowing your scales in every key will be an enormous help for you as a songwriter. In every key, you have three major chords, three minor chords, and one diminished chord. In a major key, the chords built off of the first note, the fourth note, and the fifth note will give you a major chord. This is the 1, 4, 5 progression of so many great rock ’n’ roll and blues tunes. The chords built off of the second note, the third note, and the sixth note will give you a minor chord (a 2, 3, 6 progression). And a chord built off of the seventh note will give you a diminished chord. As long as you know what key you’re in and what notes are in that key, you can begin to base your major and minor triads (three-note chords starting with the root — or basic note — of the chord) off of each respective note. Technically, you can arrange them in any order (this is where personal taste and style come in) and they’ll all sound reasonably good together, because they contain notes from that key that you’ve chosen.

When I’m writing a very simple pop-oriented tune, whether on guitar or piano, I definitely try to use the three major chords in a particular key — so if you’re in the key of G, you’d have G, C, and E minor to give it a little color. G, E minor, C, and D are often called “ice cream changes” because this chord pattern harkens back to the ’50s and many of the doo-wop and rock ’n’ roll songs heard in the old-fashioned ice cream parlors. This is kind of a cool way to start — just knowing the basics of which chords are major and which chords are minor in a major key.

—Mike Aquino, noted Chicago session guitarist

Blues and blues-rock chords

Blues and most forms of rock ’n’ roll use a premise of a major key for the most part, using the 1 chord (the root), the 4 chord (the fourth), and the 5 chord (the fifth), which are the major chords. If you are in the key of A, you’d have an A major, a D major, and an E major. What blues and some rock do is to make each chord a dominant (the namesake of the key — if you are in the key of E, then E is the dominant — also referred to as the root or tonic of the chord) seventh chord. Your A will become an A seventh — an A major chord with a G natural on the top of it to give it that grindy or bluesy sound. To the D, you’ll also add a dominant seventh of a C natural on top. The E will be an E major chord with a D natural on the top. When you’re adding sevenths to your chords, you’re actually going outside the notes contained in the major scale of that key and dipping into the notes of the minor key. It’s that minor sound on top of that major chord progression that gives you the bluesy sound.

The minor blues progression is also a popular form from which to base your song. In the key of A, your 1 chord is now an A minor (lowering the second note of the triad from C sharp to C natural) with a G on top making it an A minor seventh chord. The D or 4 chord becomes a D minor chord with a C on top to make it a D minor seventh. Theoretically, your 5 chord — the E in the key of A — should also be a minor chord in a minor key, but often writers will make it a major or even a seventh to give it a more definite resolution back to the 1 chord. Songs like “Ball and Chain” (written by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton; sung by Janis Joplin) feature the minor seventh on the five-chord turnaround and it sounds great.

Chord progressions don’t have to be complex in order to be powerful. In fact, often a simple two-chord sequence can sometimes be the most powerful of all. Listen to the two minor chords (E minor to B minor) of “Fallin’” (written and sung by Alicia Keys) as a good example.

Pop- rock chords

Pop and rock chord progressions are all over the map in terms of style. The minor-key sound, however, may take the prize for being the most popular. The sound of classic songs like “Separate Ways” (written by Jonathan Cain and Steve Perry; performed by Journey) and “Eye of the Tiger” (written by Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan; performed by Survivor) are good examples of how the minor key mode can be used in the rock genre. In “Eye . . .,” you start with your C minor (the first degree of the scale) then move to G-sharp major (the sixth degree of the scale), still keeping the C note in the bass. Then you move to A-sharp major (the seventh degree of the scale), also with the C in the bass, and then back to home base, C minor. You can see that even though there are more major chords than minor, the verse still has a minor-key sound because of how that first chord sets the tone for the rest and how the common bass note C casts the minor mood on even the major chords.

Another popular progression in rock would be 1 to 4, 7 to 3, and 6 to 5. In the key of A minor, this would translate to A minor to D minor, then G major to C major, and finally F major to E major for your 6 to 5 change. Each of these chord pairs is all a fourth apart, just down one step from the previous pair.

Jazz chords

In jazz, instead of the 1, 4, 5 progression that you find so often in pop, rock and blues, you might use a repeating back and forth cycle of the 1, 6, 2, 5 chord progression. In the key of A major, this would be A major or A major seventh or sixth (adding the seventh or sixth note of the scale to the chord) to F-sharp minor to B minor to E seventh.

In the swing era, to make this jazzy progression less “white bread,” songwriters substituted an F-sharp dominant seventh for the F-sharp minor. Instead of B minor, they used a B dominant seventh and also kept the E as E seventh. In this cycle, there are always two notes in each chord that are a half step away from the next chord — known as leading tones. These leading tones help create smooth transitions from chord to chord. Tricks like these make things a little more interesting — adding color and opening up other notes from which to write your melody. Whenever you change a chord from minor to major temporarily, you’re obscuring the actual key you are in.

There may be times when you are driving and are without a musical instrument in your hands (I know, I know — you’re still threatening to build a synthesizer into your dashboard), and there’s a certain chord buzzing around in your head, but you don’t know its name. Try singing the notes of the chord into your digital recorder or cell phone, and when you get home, pick the notes out on your keyboard.

Moving forward with chords

It’s now time to get inspired by chords and to move forward. Get out your big acoustic guitar (the one with the low action and deep ringing tone), and sit in your favorite part of the house or under that tree in the backyard. Perhaps you’ll want to plug that electric guitar into an amplifier and even hook up one of those inspiring effects pedals like a flanger (units like the Electric Mistress flanger by Electro-Harmonics give your chords that shimmering 12-string effect you heard on those Tom Petty and Rush records), so that each chord sounds profound. If you’re writing hard rock, dial up some heavy distortion on an overdrive effects pedal (like a Ratt pedal by Pro-co). You could combine many effects into one by plugging into a Pod effects unit (made by Line 6 Electronics), which digitally models the sounds of classic effects pedals and devices from vintage fuzz boxes, Leslie speaker effects (the rotating speaker sound that simulates the classic Hammond organ), phasers, wah-wahs, and other sound-warping mischief to get your juices flowing. Or sit behind your electronic keyboard and find an inspiring patch (one of those factory programmed settings that you fiddle around to find — as a last resort, refer to the manual!). A good suggestion would be a piano setting combined with a touch of strings or choir to give it a little cushion and grandeur.

Now play a nice big C major chord. Voice it fairly low on the keyboard or fret board so it sounds big and rich. Hold it for four beats. Now play a G major. Hold it for four beats. Play four beats on A minor, and then go with F for four beats. Next time around add a second (the term for a note just one note above the basic or tonic note of the chord) to the C chord (in this case a D). Sounds cool doesn’t it? No charge! You just played a chord progression as good as the best. Next, close your eyes as you play these same chords and just let your mind drift. From nowhere often come fragments of melody, words, and even where to go next from that basic three-chord beginning — this could be called a meditative state. Your unconscious mind is now in the driver’s seat — and there are no wrong turns! Rhythm will almost invariably suggest itself as you wander about mentally and emotionally. You become a member of the audience — and yet you are at the same time also the performer!

Play these chords over and over, experimenting with different tempos and different styles of chording from staccato (choppy and short) to legato (long and connected). Next try substituting a few of the chords for others to see if you like the sound of the progression even more. Perhaps it may spark a different melody. After the C major and the G major, try a B-flat major instead of the A minor, and then move to F major as before. Notice the edgier mood the chords now convey. Want edgier still? Follow the B-flat major with an A-flat major. Now, instead of changing your left hand with the chords (it had been changing with the root note of the chord), let that hand stay on the C root through all the chord changes (this technique will radically change the mood of the chords to a much darker perspective). Now go back to your original C, G, Am (abbreviation of A minor), F progression. What a difference! You can experiment endlessly with any number and sequence of chords till you come up with one that inspires you to find the perfect melody (or motivates you to call the perfect co-writer to help complete your vision).

The instrument you choose to write on and the sound you dial up can markedly affect not only your attention span of concentration on any given day but also the style of song you’ll be inspired to write.

When coming up with a basic chord progression, try not only substituting one chord for another but experimenting with different voicings of chords. For instance, a basic C major chord is the notes C, E, and G. To give the chord a little more uplifting sound, make the lowest note of the chord the E and then add the G next and make C the top note of the chord. Also, a trick from the arranging style of Brian Wilson is to use a note other than the root. If you play a C major chord on the right hand, try playing an E on the left hand instead of a C. Notice how nicely that configuration slides into F major.

I love fooling around with substitute bass notes when I’m working on a progression. If a chord pattern is sounding a little commonplace, I’ll search around with my left hand to see what color I can add to a chord. On “I Can’t Hold Back,” a song I co-wrote with Frankie Sullivan for Survivor, tension is added to the first chord of the chorus (“I can’t hold back, I’m on the edge”) by putting the third of the chord on the bottom instead of the tonic (the chorus is in E major, so the third of the chord would be three notes up — a G#). The last of three times the E major, A major, B major chord progression is repeated, the root of the chord is used for that extra solidity the last time around. This trick makes the chorus of this song much more unusual sounding. Go ahead and try this on the next song you’re writing.

—Jim Peterik, writer of 18 Billboard Top 10 hits

Now try a minor key progression. Start with an A minor chord, and stay there for two beats. Move to C major for two beats. Now to D major for two beats, then to F major for two. Sounds really cool and smoky doesn’t it? Kind of like “House of the Rising Sun,” written by Eric Burdon and John Sterling and made popular in the ’60s by The Animals. Now try a few substitutions. Start with the A minor, then move to the C major like before, then to F major and to E seventh. Notice how the mood is retained, but you avoid the inevitable comments like “It sounds just like ‘House of the Rising Sun.’” Now really shake things up and try A minor to D minor to G-sharp seventh to G major. Wow! How cool is that? Just keep experimenting with different progressions and combinations until you have something you can’t wait to come back to every day.

Substitute chords are a staple in a songwriter’s larder. For instance, instead of using an A major chord, which contains the notes A, C sharp, and E, you can find another chord within that key or outside of that key that contains one or two of the same notes. If I want to stay in the key of A major and find a sub for the A major chord, I go to the sixth degree of the scale — F sharp — the notes in that chord are F sharp, A, and C sharp — which contains the A and the C sharp just like the A major chord. These substitute chords help add variety and create a different mood under exactly the same melody notes.

—Mike Aquino, Chicago session guitarist

A while back Jim learned a valuable lesson about substitution chords when listening to “Private Dancer,” the hit for Tina Turner written by Mark Knopfler. At the end of the chorus under the lyric “and any old music will do,” where it could’ve been totally predictable and gone to the one major of the key, it goes instead to the minor six chord. This technique is called a deceptive cadence because you expect it to go home to the root, but it goes to the relative minor. It creates an unsettling and unresolved mood that’s in keeping with the bittersweet message of the lyric. Now, when Jim writes, before he changes a melody, he experiments with the underlying chords to see if a simple substitution will add the needed interest.

Learn as many chords as you can on the instrument of your choice. If you’re a guitarist, you can’t do better than the old Mel Bay chord book: Rhythm Guitar Chord System (published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc.). Countless rock, pop, and jazz guitarists have cited this book as their primary source of self-learning. Basically, if a chord isn’t in this book, you’ve probably just invented it. Another great online source is at chordbook.com where you make up your own virtual chords and store them for later use. The more chords you have in your arsenal, the more options you give yourself.

Many writers will find interesting ways of linking chords together by keeping certain notes within the chords the same whether they are at the bottom of the chord or the top of the chord — keeping the main note of the key common to at least two or three of the chords. This technique has the effect of holding things together. The chords are moving in a certain direction, but there’s an element behind the chords that says, “We are all connected.”

A course or two on music theory is a good idea for the aspiring songwriter. You’ll come away with a better idea of why things work and don’t work in chord sequences. But if you are in a hurry, you may want to take an hour or two and learn the following six chords: C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor. With these six chords you’re basically on your way towards writing your first mega-hit — heck, most of the top-charting songs use only three or four chords, so with six in your arsenal you’ve got more than enough to write your masterpiece!

Choosing Your Style of Chordal Instruments

The type of instrument you choose as you write your song may influence the direction your song will take. Conversely, if you are attempting to write a song in a particular style, the appropriate instrument will help inspire the results you need. Take a look at the following sections for various chordal instruments and their stylistic strong suits.

Picking the guitar

Depending on the type of guitar, this instrument can run the gamut of musical styles. For folk, country, light rock, and certain types of pop, a good acoustic guitar (also called a folk guitar) might be your first choice. With its airy, transparent sound, it’s a beautiful texture to use to experiment with the chords needed in those genres of music. Interesting to note is Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled debut release, which relies heavily on acoustic guitar to give it its organic, personal, and soulful quality — quite unique in her adult contemporary rhythm and blues genre.

When you want to write hard rock (or the various styles of alternative, punk, grunge, melodic, and so on), choose an electric guitar run through an amplifier that’s overdriven to various degrees. To make sure your landlord doesn’t kick you out of your house, amp manufacturers have come up with a master volume control, which allows you to dial in all the distortion your heart desires even at low volumes. You can write hard rock on an acoustic guitar, but it takes a lot of imagination to hear it differently. Also an acoustic guitar lacks the sustain of a distorted electric that helps extend the chords and create the signature riffs of this genre.

If you happen to be in your home studio, you may just want to access your Amp Farm (Line 6) or your Sansamp Software and scroll through the various sounds that these fine companies have modeled for you (the art of manipulating sine waves, wavelengths, and other electronic content to precisely mimic the signature sound of these classic amplifiers) — everything from a distant mic’d Marshall stack (the classic British rock amp used by Pete Townsend of The Who, Duane Allman, and countless others) to a shredding Soldano tone to a bone-clean Fender Twin Reverb.

For Latin songs, a nylon-stringed guitar (also called a classical or flamenco) may be your ticket to inspiration.

Using a capo on the neck of your guitar can be a useful technique while writing a song. A capo is a device that you clamp onto the neck of your guitar to change the key you are playing in without changing the way you form a chord. (For example, if you place the capo on the third fret of the guitar and play an E major, the chord will now become a G major without changing your fingering.) By wrapping a capo around the neck of your guitar at various fret positions, you can vary the key signature you’re working in without changing the voicing of the chord. This is great when trying out various keys for a singer, but it also inspires different emotions from a songwriter because the chords take on a very different perspective and color when moved up and down the scale.

I’ll use the capo device (good ones are available at any music store for about $15) especially when I’m writing country and folk. I’ll place it generally on the third or fourth fret. I love the chimney, almost mandolin, texture it adds to the chording — it makes the song sound fresh. When I’m writing rock, especially alternative, I enjoy tuning the whole guitar a whole step down to give the instrument a grungy sound. I also enjoy tuning the low E down to D — this is the sound of the guitars on Aerosmith’s “Draw the Line.”

—Jim Peterik, writer of 18 Billboard Top 10 hits

You might want to buy one of several books on alternative tunings. Whether they are the tunings of Joni Mitchell on acoustic guitar or the tunings of Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones on electric and acoustic guitar, these alternatives to the standard E, A, D, G, B, A tuning can elicit totally unique chord progressions and accompanying melodies. Also, take a look at how the group Creed based their chordal sounds on the D, A, D, A, D, D tuning, which gave their chords an ominous power and droning quality.

Fender came up with a newer version of their iconic Stratocaster model that gives you many alternative tunings electronically with just the turn of a knob — amazing but true!

Pecking at the keyboard

The keyboard (any instrument based on the piano) is one of the most versatile and widely used chordal instruments for the songwriter. For everything from power ballads to old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll (Jerry Lee Lewis was perhaps the king of the rock ’n’ roll piano), the acoustic piano would be the weapon of choice. Nowadays, we have electronic pianos that rival the sound of a real acoustic piano at a fraction of the size and cost. The majesty and honesty of a good piano (or sampled grand — the name that refers to the electronic variety) is second to none.

For extra inspiration, you can purchase a keyboard such as the Yamaha S90 that not only contains a reasonably good grand piano patch, but also includes terrific electric piano — the sound of the Wurlitzer immortalized in “These Eyes” (written by Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings; performed by The Guess Who) or the Fender Rhodes piano featured in “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (written and sung by Stevie Wonder). In addition, you’ll find synthesized brass patches — useful when writing ’80s style rock — listen to “Heat of the Moment” (written by John Wetton and Geoff Downes; performed by Asia for reference), woodwinds, and a vast collection of strange and wacky synthesizer and bass sounds. R&B, gospel, jazz, new age, urban, and dance pop are all primarily the divinity of the keyboard.

Because urban music is so simple chordally (generally one or two chords throughout the entire song), the texture of the keyboard sound becomes especially vital in setting the mood and creating variation throughout the song.

Many of the classic synth (some refer to these sounds as “retro”) keyboards are now sampled and available in the newer instruments — formerly impossible to find sounds of the classic Jupiter 8 by Roland, the Oberheim, the Yamaha DX 7 and even the much maligned Mellotron. This wonderful British keyboard — heard most famously on many recordings by The Moody Blues — employed a series of magnetic strips of recording tape that contained first-rate recordings of real violins, cellos, flutes, and vocals. Unfortunately it had a penchant for not working. For instance, no sooner did Neil Young buy one for his band (at a then very pricey ten grand!) than it was transported on its side in the equipment truck instead of upright, thereby spilling all the strands of tape much like ticker tape on the floor of the van — and that was the end of that!

As fun as it is to experiment with chords on a keyboard or guitar, it’s also interesting to call up a bass patch on the keyboard (perhaps synth bass or electric bass) or plug in an electric bass guitar and work with the simple primary notes of each chord. It gives your imagination plenty of room to wander when not encumbered by a lot of chords.

Although you can write any genre on practically any chordal instrument (death metal on mandolin and acid rock on banjo being possibly the only exceptions), certain instruments seem to have a connection to certain genres. The more you experiment with different instruments, the more you’ll find your true direction as a songwriter.

Practice Makes Perfect

Now that you’ve found some amazing chords and great ways of joining them in progression from reading this chapter, go back to some of those great melodies you came up with in Chapter 9, and experiment with laying down different chord patterns beneath them. Who knows? Maybe you’ll create a chord pattern that creates a color of its own and takes the song to new heights.

Chord theories and progressions are certainly the more technical side of songwriting — and if it flows easily for you, great! But, if not, don’t get discouraged. Keep practicing and experimenting, and allow yourself the freedom to create and to also make mistakes. Review (over and over if necessary) the material presented here until you get comfortable with the nuts and bolts of chords. Then get in the groove and let your creative juices flow and see what magic can happen. Never judge your work in progress, and allow yourself to be a songwriting “Dummy,” if that’s what in fact it takes to get the inspirations flowing.

Regardless of what anyone says, when it comes right down to it, you’ll need to rely heavily on your gut instincts and inner intuitions to find just the right chords. Just try to remember not to go overboard and add too much in the way of chord progressions, or you might just lose your audience — basically because they can’t quite keep up with your creative moves.