If you’re very observant, you will notice that a whole lot of songs use very similar if not identical progressions. That similarity is what allows the songs to lock into their genre and styles and be seen as in the pocket of the style they are competing in. Some progressions have a harder edge and are perfect for hard rock, metal, and strong blues. Others are way more relaxed and support strong, singable melodies, and as a result, are more pop and light rock sounding, even folky sometimes, although that depends more on the arrangement than the song itself.

We have cycled through the use and borderline overuse of several main progressions over the years. The I-vi-IV-V progression was everywhere in the 1950s and 60s. In addition there were hundreds, maybe thousands of songs written to the I-IV-V-IV progression , like Twist And Shout, La Bamba, Good Lovin’, Hang On Sloopy, Summer Nights (from Grease), Louie, Louie (with a modified V chord making it minor), and a whole lot more. I’ve included a video here by the Axis of Awesome demonstrating the current popularity of the I-V-vi-IV progression in today’s music. There’s a little bit of swearing, but it makes the point really well about how many songs can very creatively use the same progression, and yet sound completely original.

In the next post I will give you some great exercises to work with to get your juices flowing around the use of chord progressions.

And remember, if you’re looking for a coach to help you get your songwriting where you want it to be, we recommend My Songwriting Coach.

My Songwriting Coach

So what happens when that inspiration comes to an aspiring songwriter? Well, if our songwriter only knows a couple of chords, we’re likely to get a two chord song. Now I’m not disparaging two chord songs. The band America had a major hit with a two chord song called “Horse With No Name.” But it’s one thing to have a broad knowledge base and choose to express with two chords, as opposed to being forced to write with two chords because that’s all you know. Understanding chord progressions, cadences, chord extension and substitution, secondary chords, and relative and parallel key areas will equip you with powerful tools that you can creatively use to express yourself. I maintain that the more you know, the wider the possible range of expression to interpret your inspiration.

If you haven’t explored melody writing, you are likely to write your new song from your new inspiration in the same way you wrote your old song from your last inspiration, and while that may have been quite enjoyable, you can get stuck in a rut. Learning about phrase development, motifs, harmonic and non-harmonic tone usage, anacrusis, appoggiaturas, internal rhythms, intervallic leaps, among other skills can put you in a place where all the tools at your disposal makes it simple to create musical and expressive melodies for every style of song. Again it would seem that the greater your knowledge base, the greater the opportunity for you to advance in your songwriting prowess.

Lyric writing is actually the most justifiable part of songwriting that we can observe benefiting from education, training or lessons. Virtually every university on the planet has a creative writing program which will include novels, novellas, short stories, essays, article writing, poetry, and lyric writing. As an aside, because lyric writing is intrinsically linked to music, the teachers in the literature department may not have as good a grasp on the musical functions of the lyrics and its internal rhythm and accents, yet the fact that literature departments everywhere teach and train writers how to be better writers on a daily basis gives us hope that we can learn to be better lyricists as well. At least we can upgrade our knowledge base and that is the point of this article.

Lastly, if you went to buy a house in a housing development where every single house was built to the same blueprint, it would seem very strange. We love our neighborhoods to have variety. If you look at your collection of Cds or downloads on your computer or iPod, you’ll see a wide variety of styles, forms and structures. The more you know about structure, the more you can be in control when choosing the format that is perfect for your song. Again, we are discussing knowledge base.

It appears to me from all I’ve observed that the greater your knowledge base for the things you wish to do in this world, the better you’ll be at doing them. That is true in a very powerful way with songwriting. If you can find a teacher, trainer, coach, or course and curriculum to raise your knowledge base regarding songwriting, you are going to be a better songwriter.

If you’re looking for such a teacher, we recommend My Songwriting Coach.