(This is a post taken from Jeremy’s blog.)
I believe songwriting is just like any other art form - you need to constantly work at your craft in order to get better at it.
When I look back at my own personal development, I do think I have gained a little bit more confidence than when I first started seriously writing songs early last year. To me, it’s about achieving little goals in small step-by-step progressions.
When I first started out, I merely wanted to write a complete song, complete with verses, a pre-chorus, a chorus, and maybe even a bridge. That’s all I wanted to achieve, nothing more.
Then, I started to want to pay a bit more attention to the lyrics. Then, I tried to write more well-constructed melodies. Then, I tried to be a bit more adventurous with song structure. Then, I started to try writing proper song pieces for piano and voice (whereas previously it was mostly on guitar). Then, I started to try writing in other genres, e.g. Broadway, chorale.
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“Non-Family” Chords
One of my major objectives right now in songwriting is to make better use of chords. That’s my biggest focus at the moment.
I resolve to make use of chords that are even outside of the normal “family” of chords (the term “family” being my own jargon!).
For instance, I would consider that in the key of C Major, the main “family” of chords would be C, F, G, and Am. The “extended family” would be perhaps chords like Dm and Em.
Most songs can be played with these chords alone. You could probably play thousands of songs with just these “family” chords. However, you’d find that in many of the great songs out there, the composers are able to use chords (still in the key of C Major) like Bb, Eb, E, Gm, and even Db to wonderful effect.
That’s something which I’m trying to learn at the moment.
In the last few songs I’ve written, and for the next few songs I’m going to write, I’m going to make it a conscious effort to incorporate these “non-family” chords into my songs.
I want to stop thinking solely in terms of this strict boundary of “tonality”, e.g. C Major only utilises C, Dm, Em, F, G, and Am chords. I think I’ve been stuck in this mindset for too long, and it might take awhile to break out of it.
I’m not intending to incorporate these “non-family” chords just for the sake of incorporating them. I believe these chords really add a touch of sophistication to your songs. And if used properly, these “non-family” chords produce an extremely magical effect which the standard “family” chords can’t really produce.
In my opinion, here are the advantages of adding “non-family” chords to your songs:
1. Adds COLOUR to the music: You’re a composer. Think of the chords available to you as your “palette of colours”. Writing a song using just C, F, G, Am is like painting a picture with simply red, blue, green and yellow. Adding exotic chords like Eb, Bb, Fm and E is like painting a picture with additional hues of fuchsia, lilac, navy, grey, lavender, maroon, etc. Sure, you could still create a painting with just the basic colours. But it would be even more attractive if you could incorporate more varied colours don’t you think? I think one of the reasons why the Broadway music of Richard Rodgers and Frederick Loewe is so colourful is because they were masters at using a wide palette of chords.
2. Adds INTRIGUE to the music: A “non-family” chord tends to create an element of “surprise”, and it piques the listener’s interest since the listener was not exactly expecting to hear such a chord being used at such an instance. As such, the element of “interest” is created. For example, the pop version of “Beauty and the Beast” has a number of highly interesting chord changes and modulations throughout the song. One particular instance of note, which is often talked about, is at the part “bitter sweet and strange…” (2:32 of the clip).
3. Adds SOPHISTICATION to the music: Incorporating interesting chords to your music goes a long way in making your music sound much more sophisticated. One reason why people always regards Burt Bacharach’s music as “sophisticated” is because he was such a genius at utilizing chords for fascinating harmonic effects.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, while it is not extremely necessary to employ the use of “non-family” chords in your music, the use of such chords would definitely serve to give your music that added edge over music which doesn’t.
There are numerous instances whereby a great song worked simply because of the use of certain interesting chords. Great chords can change the entire complexion of a song.
They are that powerful.
