The media often portrays great songwriters as simply having inspiration strike them, then magically writing inspiring songs on their first try. In reality, a lot of revision is done between the song’s first draft and the version that the listener hears. Here, we’ll discuss how revising your songs is a necessary habit for great songwriters.
A famous quote often repeated by many artists which was originally said by RC Bannon, is “Great songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten.”
Amazing songwriters understand that the majority of songwriting doesn’t happen from flashes of inspiration. They don’t assume that the way the song came out first is the best way. In fact, they realise that the best version of the song can only be reached through various changes and iterations.
Revising your songs gives you the chance to take them through a process of development and refinement to get them to the finish point.
If you’d like to discover more ways you could improve your songwriting, download this free PDF eBook entitled “14-Day Songwriting Challenge”:
Examples of Artists Who Revise Their Songs
Neil Finn:
This genius behind Crowded House champions this concept and talks about revising his own work. He says “I’ll try as many times as they can possibly be improved on. Occasionally, that does mean that things get over-polished or overworked, but I actually think that most of the time when I’ve gone the extra mile to refashion something or re-edit or change words, it’s almost always ended up better.”
Paul McCartney:
A great example of how revisions can make or break a song is Yesterday by Paul McCartney. Contrary to popular belief, the song did not come to him in a dream. The song actually came out with a jumble of lyrics such as “Scrambled eggs, oh my darling, how I love your legs”.
Only after spending a year on revising the song did he manage to create the version that we know and love today.
Conclusion: Songwriter Habit #2 – Revise Your Songs
In conclusion, great songs don’t just appear on the page magically. We don’t wake up one day, have inspiration strike us and write the next great hit of the century. Instead, disciplined songwriters take the time to revise their songs. This way, they manage to turn them into the best songs they can possibly be.
A common complaint that many songwriters have is that they’re unable to finish their songs. You can easily avoid this by ensuring that you have a clear concept before trying to develop your song idea. In this article, we’ll talk about how having a concept is the first step in the songwriting process.
In the case of songwriting, a concept refers to having a general idea of what you want to write. Famous songwriter Jimmy Webb provides a great example in his book “June Smith”, as follows:
“I want to write a song about someone who goes through acute mood swings from euphoria to emotional exhaustion. I love this person and want to address the song to him.”
A song concept can also just be an interesting angle of approach. For example, “I want to write a love song about a person I want to marry but I’m going to address the song to the person’s father who’s refusing to let me propose.
By establishing your concept, it will help you when you’re writing your song map later on in the last step of the process.
In the meantime, click here to download a free PDF song map template that will help you finish every song you start:
A Song Concept Isn’t a Song Idea
It’s important to note that having a song concept is not the same as having a song idea. In order for a concept to be an idea, you require a title.
To follow up on the previous excerpt from Jimmy Webb’s book “June Smith”, the songwriter said the following:
“If, however, you add the following sentence: ‘I want to call the song Problem Child,’ then you have an ‘idea,’ even though the song may not end up being called ‘Problem Child’”.
Conclusion: Part 1 of The Songwriting Formula – The Concept
It’s important for us to establish our concept during the songwriting process. This allows us to have a solid base upon which to build our song. In addition, it also ensures that we don’t lack a sense of direction in our songwriting.
Chord Tips to Learn from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is one of the Beatles most popular and well-known songs. Buried within this masterpiece are some truly amazing chord sequences! In this article, we’ll break down those chord sequences so that we can learn from them and use these tricks in our own songwriting.
Before we begin to discuss how The Beatles borrowed chords from outside the key, we must first understand the chords that the key contains. The following are the chords in the key of A Major, which is the key of the song:
The verse of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” contains the chord progression A A/G F#m F, which in chord theory is I I7 vi bVI. As you can see, F#m is not in the key of A, and this creates an element of surprise for the listener. So, this F chord really creates a sense of intrigue because we’re not expecting it.
If you need to brush up on what chords are diatonic to a key, then download this free PDF of the “Functions of Chords in a Diatonic System”:
Variation in the Chromatic Bassline
In the verse of the song, the chords are varied slightly the second time around, which creates this really nice descending bass line. When it cycles around to the A, The Beatles could have just used the same A chord in root position. Instead, they used an A/E, which created a descending bassline that goes from G to F# to F then E.
This is an important lesson on how we can try to look for ways to create variation when a chord progression repeats. It keeps your listeners wondering what’s going to happen next.
Playing with Rhythm and Timing
Another detail worth mentioning in regards to the verse is how the F chord at the end is held twice as long as the other chords in the progression. This is such a great technique because we’re really expecting the sequence to be balanced or symmetrical.
Prolonging the F chord creates instability because it makes the chord progression have an uneven number of bars. When you have instability or an odd number of bars in a sequence it creates forward momentum because it’s unresolved and you want to hear a resolution.
Modulation Using Borrowed Chords
The second half of the verse is almost exactly the same as the first half, except with the addition of Dm and Dm/C at the end. The Dm has the same borrowed chord sound as the F chord. But one important difference here is how there’s a new descending bass line which goes from D to C, and leads us towards the first chord of the pre-chorus, which is Bb.
In the context of the original key of A Major, Bb would be the b9, C would be the major chord of the b3 and as we’ve previously established, the F is a borrowed chord. When there are 3 borrowed chords in a row like this, it means that we’ve modulated keys.
Our ears will now tell us that Bb is the new key. The presence of the C chord might be confusing since it isn’t diatonic to Bb. However, when we listen to how the V chord ie the F brings us back to Bb, we can confirm that Bb is the new key. The reason our ears accept this key change is because The Beatles have employed a technique known as priming.
Priming is the process of exposing your listeners to some of the sounds that they’ll hear later on in the progression so that their ears can accustom themselves to it first. So, since we’ve heard the F as a borrowed chord throughout the verse, our ears easily accept that F is the new key in the pre-chorus.
This happens again in the second half of the pre-chorus. We’ve already established that C is a borrowed chord since it’s not diatonic to Bb. The next two chords which are G and C, are also not diatonic to the key of Bb. And since there are 3 borrowed chords in a row, that means we’ve modulated keys again This change is once again, facilitated by the use of priming.
The C chord is easily accepted because a Dm/ C was used at the end of the verse. In addition, the G can be heard in the bass of the A/G chord. The D chord gets introduced to us just for a moment before we hit the F#m in the verse, through the use of the notes in the melody. The progression that is formed creates a modulation to the chorus, which uses the same 3 chords (C G and D) in a different order.
Time Signature Change
An interesting thing to note is that the chorus is in a completely different time signature compared to the rest of the song. Up till the end of the pre-chorus, the song is counted in threes. However when we get to the chorus, we notice that there’s a complete shift to straight fours instead.
The final trick that The Beatles uses in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is to hold the D chord for an extended period of time at the end of the chorus. D is the IV chord of the original key of A Major. So, by playing the modulated chords in the second half of the chorus then holding the D at the end, it makes us feel as if all these chords belong together. This is how The Beatles take us back to the song’s original key.
How to Apply this in Your Own Songs
Based on everything that we’ve discussed so far, the following are ways you can apply these chord tricks in your own songs:
Write down the chords of the key you’re writing in then look for ‘borrowed chord’ options.
Look for opportunities to extend the form by adding beats or bars at the end of a section.
Consider a modulation (key change) as you move between sections – look to use your borrowed chords as ‘priming’ devices.
Look for opportunities to change the time feel and use other rhythmic variations.
Conclusion: Chord Tips to Learn from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
An important lesson here is that Lennon and McCartney were always looking for these little variations and ways that they could surprise their listeners. It’s these changes that help keep our listeners interested and create a truly memorable song.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now.
Level up your songwriting with five radically practical exercises used by professional songwriters around the world:
A common issue that songwriters often struggle with, is how to determine the length of their song. In this blog post, we’ll learn the importance of song length, by studying Queen’s famous rock anthem, “We Will Rock You”.
The original recorded version of “We Will Rock You” is two minutes and two seconds. It’s straight to the point, with absolutely no fluff or filler. In order to understand why the song is this short, we have to first understand the purpose the song was written to fulfill in the first place.
Queen created this anthem to encourage people to sing and clap along. To this end, the song has three refrains which in turn provides the audience three opportunities to join in. However, once that’s been done, the song would have served its purpose.
Imagine, if the song had been even 30 or 40 seconds longer, we may have felt that it was dragging and thus, the punchiness and impact that the refrain currently has might have been entirely lost.
If you’d like to learn more about how you could plan your song sections out, click here to download a free “Song Map Template” PDF now:
Questions to Ask Ourselves
Based on what we know about the length of “We Will Rock You”, we can surmise that it’s important for us as songwriters to ask ourselves the following questions when determining the length of our songs:
What is the purpose of our song?
Does the length of our song currently support its purpose?
Have we given enough time so as not to detract from the punchiness of our refrain/ chorus?
Remember that there isn’t a fixed answer to how long a song should be. Some songs might even need as long as six and a half minutes to tell the full story. Instead of trying to follow a specific songwriting formula, what’s important is that we tailor our song lengths to suit the purpose of our songs.
In the case of “We Will Rock You”, Queen felt that it needed to be short and sweet, with three verses and three refrains. This keeps the song punchy, and successfully carries its point across.
Conclusion: Songwriting Tip #6 – Keep It Short
As an overall, it’s important to remember that every song is unique and the appropriate length will vary. However, embracing the concept of keeping it short and sweet, as exemplified by “We Will Rock You,” can lead to powerful and memorable compositions that leave a lasting impression on our listeners.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them:
Step #4 of Writing Great Lyrics – Create Rhythmic Interest
Although the notes that you choose for your melody are important, that’s not the only thing that matters. We also need to think about the rhythmic variation of our melodic phrases. In this blog post, we’ll discuss creating rhythmic interest in our melodies.
Beginner songwriters habitually start all their melodic phrases on beat one. However, this isn’t necessarily the best thing to do, as it can make your melody feel cluttered. It’s easier to understand this by comparing rhythm in melodic phrases to body language.
Starting on beat one can be thought of as very forward-leaning body movement. It’s quite assertive in nature. When you alternate between starting on and off beat one, you create this dance in body movement similar to a body swaying back and forth. This is when a melody really starts to breathe and dance.
By creating rhythmic interest, we also are able to make more use out of the 4 notes we’ve chosen for our melody. Check out the article here for a refresher on creating a 4 note melody. Through varying your melody rhythmically, you can use your 4 note melody in different sections of your song, without sounding repetitive or boring.
What’s important to observe here is that longer melodic phrases are often built out of smaller melodic motifs that are varied in different ways.
To help you build your melody quickly, click here to download a free PDF eBook containing all the diatonic chords written out in 6 different keys titled “Diatonic Chords in 6 Different Keys”:
An Example of Variation in Practice
The song “When the Party’s Over” by artist Billie Eilish is a great example of the usage of variation. It doesn’t demonstrate rhythmic variation but it does show melodic variation.
In the verse of the song, the same melodic fragment is used four times. However, each time the fragment is repeated, it’s moved up the scale. This creates a beautiful sense of rising tension, which then resolves itself in the chorus.
Conclusion: Step #4 of Writing Great Lyrics – Create Rhythmic Interest
Crafting melodies that dance and breathe requires a deep understanding of rhythm and phrasing. By experimenting with the placement of our melodic phrases, we can create songs that genuinely come alive.
We’ve all been there before: You get a sudden idea for a song, and you tell yourself that it’s alright, you’ll remember it later. But let’s be honest, most of the time, we won’t be able to accurately recall what it is later. In this article, we’ll teach you how you can collect everything and ensure that you’ll never lose an idea again.
Collecting everything doesn’t so much mean that we have to record everything we see or hear. It means ensuring that we have a system in place that easily allows us to record any songwriting ideas that come to mind. Whether that’s through carrying a notepad around, recording voice notes or typing in your phone, you need to ensure that you can keep track of your inspiration somehow.
If you’d like to discover more ways you could improve your songwriting, download this free PDF eBook entitled “14-Day Songwriting Challenge”:
Examples of Artists Collecting Everything
Bela Fleck:
Grammy award-winning banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck has spoken about how he used to have to tour around the world at a time where handphones didn’t exist. When he got an idea for a song, he would call his house and leave a voicemail, singing whatever idea he had in his head. Then, when he got back from tour, he’d listen to all the voicemails and jot down the ones that he liked.
This story sums up really well the sense of desperation to capture an idea that a great songwriter should have.
Taylor Swift:
When you watch documentaries of Taylor Swift, you’ll notice that she always has her phone with her. In Thiago Forte’s book “Second Brain”, he talks about how she makes a habit of capturing every single idea that she has as it’s happening.
Then, she uses that as an archive that she can return to during the songwriting process. This is reminiscent of the cliché where songwriters are seen to have stacks of journals, lists of voice recordings and voice memos in their phones. The point here is that you should collect your ideas however you can, using a variety of different formats.
Max Martin:
Sometimes, ideas strike you at the most inconvenient moments. However, that doesn’t mean that you should just give up on recording them. Max Martin talks about this in the making of the popular Britney Spears song, “Hit Me Baby One More Time”.
The idea for the song came to him at 1 AM, when he was already fast asleep. Instead of telling himself that he’ll do it when he wakes up, he forced himself to roll over and mumble the melodic idea into his phone. After that, he had another idea and couldn’t quite go back to sleep. So, he rolled over and recorded another voice note into his phone.
This whole situation sounds inconvenient to us, but it shows just how determined songwriters have to be when collecting ideas.
Relating this Back to Stepping Away
All of this relates back to when we talked about stepping away as being part of the songwriting process. If you haven’t read that article, you can check it out here.
It’s important to understand that stepping away is part of the songwriting process. You’re not taking a break from songwriting, you’re just moving into a different mode of the creative process. So, even when you’re out taking a walk, having a long drive or jogging, be sure that you bring with you some method to collect ideas.
We shouldremember that inspiration could strike us at any time. In order to capture that inspiration, it’s imperative that we prepare methods to record ideas no matter where we are. In this way, we can be sure that we won’t lose any of our songwriting ideas and will always have a creative archive to draw from.
Do you have folders full of half-finished songs? This is a common problem and you’re definitely not alone. In this article, we’ll go through a songwriting formula I’ve learnt that has allowed me to know whether a song idea will work, and write better songs faster.
This formula is all about finding a writable idea. A writable idea is the combination of a concept, a title and a song map. We’ll go into each of these individual components in the later sections of this article.
For now, click here to download a free PDF song map template that will help you finish every song you start:
When you have these 3 components together, it gives your song structure and a plan. This ensures that you don’t feel as if you’re just groping around in the dark during the songwriting process.
Part 1 – The Concept
In this case, having a concept means having a general idea of what you want to write about. Jimmy Webb provides the following as an example of a song concept in his book “Tune Smith”:
“I want to write a song about someone who goes through acute mood swings from euphoria to emotional exhaustion. I love this person and want to address the song to him.”
It’s important to note that just having a song concept is not enough to make a song idea. In order to have a song idea, you must have a song title.
Part 2 – The Title
Having a song title does two important things. Firstly, it provides your song an anchor – otherwise popularly known as a hook. This is important because coming up with a song idea is all about limiting your options and possibilities. Aside from that, a title also ensures that you have a target for all of your lyrics.
For example, the song “First Times” by Ed Sheeran is a song about him celebrating all of the daily first times he gets with his partner. In the first line of the song, he describes the first time he played Wembley Stadium. This creates contrast to all of the first times he talks about in the song with the love of his life.
A title gives you destination, which in turn gives you direction. That being said, this doesn’t mean that you have to stick with the same title throughout the songwriting process. What’s important is that choosing a title gives you momentum and it’s that momentum that will help push you forward to further develop your song.
Part 3 – The Song Map
A song map is having an idea in your mind about how you could approach this title from at least two different angles, where the meaning and emotion will grow as the verses progress. The concept plus the title need to contain a clear way in which your song idea will develop.
As an example, let’s look at the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Below is the song map we’re able to extract when we examine the lyrics:
Verse 1: How happiness feels
Verse 2: The idea of obstacles to happiness is introduced
This is actually a really useful song map for writing songs to convey a clear mood or emotion – which is very common in film and TV songs. We can even replace the emotion “Happy” with any other emotion to create a different song.
Below are two examples of universal song maps which you could use:
Problem -> Intensification -> Escalation: A great example of a song that uses this song map, is “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” by John Mayer. The concept of this song is “A relationship that is on the brink of collapse”, and the title is “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”. The song starts with the narrator sensing that there’s a problem between the two of them.
This then turns into them starting to pick fights with each other, followed by the two of them trying to hurt each other. We can see from the progression of this song’s story that it clearly follows the song map Problem -> Intensification -> Escalation.
Situation -> Context -> Consequence: For this song map, we tend to start in the present moment. This is followed by us trying to zoom out from the situation to provide some context on the present moment. The final part is where we introduce the consequences of the situation that was introduced. Often, the introduction of the consequences is the emotional heart of the song.
A great example is “The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert. In this song, the situation that’s presented is Miranda knocking on her childhood home door. Then, we’re given some context as to why this action matters to her. Lastly, the emotional consequence of leaving her childhood home is made clear in bridge.
Conclusion: An Easy 3-Part Songwriting Formula
Although this songwriting formula is useful, it’s important to remember that by no means is it the be-all-end-all of songwriting. There’s no one right way to write songs. However, knowing this formula will provide you with something to go on when you feel stuck during the songwriting process. This way, you can put an end to unfinished songs for good.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them:
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using basic chords. After all, they’re safe, reliable and well-known. However, to truly make the most out of your basic chords, you have to learn how to make them interesting. In this article, we’ll take some of the most common chords on guitar and transform them into beautiful and versatile voicings for your next song.
This is a really simple open chord that is often one of the first that beginners learn. The great thing about this chord shape is that you can do a lot simply by moving some fingers around.
For example, by moving your first finger off, you introduce the major 7 note, which turns it into a Cmaj7. Furthermore, dropping your little finger allows you to add the nine note which turns it into a Cadd9. Observe the images below, where from left to right, we have C Maj, C Maj7 and C Add9:
To learn more, click here to download a free chords PDF with 10 pages of detailed diagrams and photo demonstrations to help you make basic chords more beautiful:
The 6/9 Chord
The concept of adding little melodic lines on top of your chords helps take a static chord and introduce some movement to it. However, you can take it a step further and introduce a new chord called the 6/9 Chord.
A 6/9 Chord consists of notes 1 – 3 – 6 – 9. You can optionally add in the 5 on top if you’d like as well. The image below shows a C 6/9 chord, with the optional 5 on top:
The great thing about this shape is that it’s movable. For example, you could move the C 6/9 shown earlier up two frets to create a D 6/9 instead. If you wanted to get even more complex, you could lift your little finger to the #4 or #11 note. Observe in the image below a C 6/9#11:
The G Major Chord
G Major is another common open chord that beginners learn. It sounds great because it relies largely on open strings to create it’s sound. You can enhance that openness by removing all of your fingers and focusing only on the root note, like so:
This is useful because it allows us to hammer-on and pull-off certain notes as we play the chord. Country and folk music often use this technique. You can hear it in John Mayer’s song “Why Georgia” in which he uses a little riff with a hammer-on to set up the whole tune.
E Major and E Minor
The E Major chord on guitar in it’s original form uses all 6 strings, particularly the lowest one. We can augment this shape to create an E add9 instead, which has a really beautiful, and warm effect – especially if you use a backwards rake to help those open strings shine. Below, you can see E Major on the left and E add9 on the right:
We can then turn the E Major chord into an E Minor chord as follows:
And can even further augment this by adding a 9th note to create an E Min9, which sounds really beautiful, dark and mysterious. Here’s what that chord shape would look like:
A Minor and D Minor
You can also add a 9th to A Minor and D Minor to create A Min9 and D Min9 respectively. Have a look at the image below:
Similarly to the idea with the C Major chord earlier – where you took your first finger off to make a major 7, and then dropped your little finger to create an add9 – you can do the same with a D Minor to create a melodic idea.
These ways of playing chords are useful because they allow songwriters to have chord progressions that aren’t particularly complicated, yet still create a lot of movement, and motion.
The F Chord
Instead of playing F Major in it’s standard form with a mini barre across two strings, you can leave the last string open to form F Maj7. Doing this also frees up your little finger to potentially add a 9th to form F add9. Below you can see F Maj, F Maj7 and F add9:
F Major can also be played in a split voicing form where you take your first finger and come across to the sixth string, then put your third finger on the third note to create a sort of tenth voicing, like so:
This voicing is super useful if you’re not comfortable with barre chords because it can be moved up and down the neck while still providing you opportunities to engage the open strings. However, it should be noted that the chords you form with this technique won’t work in every key.
Experimenting with Bass Notes
So far, the main method we’ve been using to create different chord voicings is to use the fingers we have available to create some melodic movement on top of the chord. Another way we can make these chords interesting is by using bass notes that aren’t the root of the chord.
The basic construction of chords is usually 1-3-5 for major chords and 1-b3-5 for minor chords. We can use either the 3 or 5 as the bass note of the chord, instead of the root as usual.
Let’s use D Major as an example. You could take a finger off to create a D Sus2 or add a finger to create a D Sus4.
The above two forms of D Major sound great but what we’re going to do now is instead put a F# on the top instead of a D, to create a D/ F#. This is a really rich sounding chord and the chord shape would look like this:
You could also use this technique to create smooth transitions between chords. For example, if you went from F/C to C, the C bass note becomes the common note between the two.
Conclusion: Learn to Turn Basic Chords Beautiful
The great thing about guitar is that it has the ability to let open strings ring, and we want to search for those opportunities as often as possible. To help us, we can use techniques such as changing the bass note or adding extra notes on top of our chords. This way, we’ll be able to make the most out of the open chords we know, and create interesting chord progressions for our songs.
If you would like more details, explanations and examples, then be sure to check out the video now
Level up your songwriting with five radically practical exercises used by professional songwriters around the world:
As songwriters, we’re often focused on the details of our songs and the creative process. However, it’s important for us to remember that our audience deserves to feel like they’re a part of our songs as well. Through analysing Queen’s song “We Will Rock You”, we’ll discuss the importance of listening to your audience as a songwriter.
The story goes that the song came about after Queen had played a show at Bingley Hall in Stafford on 29th May 1977, and at the end of that show the crowd began to sing a classic football anthem known as You’ll Never Walk Alone. Brian May in particular was really moved by this experience.
In an interview with Radio One, he said “We were just completely knocked out and taken aback. It was quite an emotional experience really”. Following this, the band felt inspired to create their own anthem that a crowd could engage with, sing along to, clap along to, and even stomp along to.
If you’re interested in finding some inspiration for you to write great lyrics, then click here to download this free PDF ebook entitled “The 5 Best Exercises for Writing Great Lyrics”:
What We Should Learn from This
What’s important to notice here, is that instead of dismissing his experience as just him having a particularly rowdy and excitable crowd, he took it and sought to create a song where he could give back to his audience. He actively tried to learn from this, and wanted to include the audience and seek more engagement with them to make them feel like they were part of the show.
This is one of the reasons that Queen became one of the most successful live bands of all time. As songwriters and musicians, we often value the creative process over everything else. While this is definitely a crucial part of the process, this doesn’t mean that we should overlook what we can give back to the audience instead. In hindsight, the greatest rock anthem of all time was born out of this very simple idea of giving everyone in the crowd a song that they could perform with the band.
By making it all about the beat and the chanting, everybody in the crowd was able to feel like they were a part of the song and weren’t limited by not being able to play an instrument. Instead, they got to use their feet, hands and voices so that for a very brief moment, they got to feel like they belonged in a rock band.
Conclusion: Songwriting Tip #5 – Listening to Your Audience
In conclusion, it’s important for us to take into account our audience’s or listener’s needs as well when writing a song. This way, our song will be able to capture the attention of our listeners, thus further ensuring that it sticks to their minds and hearts.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them:
Step #3 of Writing Great Melodies – Use Steps and Leaps
A common trap that most songwriters fall into, is not making enough variations to keep a listener’s interest. In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of combining steps and leaps to make melodies more interesting and emotionally resonant.
A step melody is defined as a melody where all of the notes are next to each other in the scale. For example, let’s say that we’re in the key of G Major, and we use a melody with the notes G A B next to each other. This melody is a step melody because all of the notes aren’t more than a 2nd away from each other.
On the other hand, a leap is defined as when you skip over at least one note to reach another note in the scale. As an example, a melody composed of G B D in the key of G Major is one that’s made out of leaps. This is because all of the notes are more than a 3rd away from each other in the scale.
To help you build your melody quickly, click here to download a free PDF eBook containing all the diatonic chords written out in 6 different keys titled “Diatonic Chords in 6 Different Keys”:
Why and How to Combine Steps and Leaps in a Melody?
If we use only steps, then our melody will sound boring and uninteresting, despite being easy to sing. However, if we use only leaps then our melody will sound chaotic and incoherent. Finding a really good balance between steps and leaps is the key to creating great melodies.
One method that we can use is to determine what moment of our song that we’d like to stand out. Leaps are great at shining spotlights on moments in songs. The larger the leap, the more excitement and energy it invokes in your listener. In addition, the placement of your leaps is also an important factor to consider. For instance, placing a large leap at the beginning of a song provides a lot of drama and emotion – almost as if announcing the start of a story.
An Example of Combining Steps and Leaps
The classic tune “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is an amazing example of using steps and leaps to great effect.
At the beginning of the song, there’s a full octave leap on the notes of the word “Somewhere”. Since this is an A A B A song, there isn’t a chorus. So, the large leap on the hook of the song allows it to stand out even further, and be more memorable to our listener.
Through this example, we can see that one of the biggest reasons to use leaps is that it helps create memories for our listeners. Leaps allow listeners to latch on to a song, and it helps provide them excitement.
Conclusion: Step #3 of Writing Great Melodies – Use Steps and Leaps
By combining steps and leaps effectively, you can craft melodies that are not only musically pleasing but also emotionally resonant. Finding the right balance between the two is the key to writing melodies that capture the attention of your audience.
Turn your inspiration into beautiful songs with step-by-step guidance through two professional songwriting methods. By the end of this course, not only will your tool belt be stocked; you’ll have a plan and a method for finishing your songs – all of them:
