I’m one of those songwriters who writes melodies from chord progressions. It’s almost always the case: I’ll strum my guitar, cruising through different chord progressions, and suddenly a melody will start to form. It can take a while for the lyrics to come after that, but once I find that great melody, I feel like I’ve got it.
I know there are other songwriters who start humming a great melody, and then build a chord progression around that. But for me, I love learning all I can about how to put chords together into the right progression that inspires me. What I know about chord progressions, in the larger scheme of music theory, is very little. So I welcome comments about this endlessly fascinating topic that I hope to return to regularly!
In the meantime, I have some links to share:
1. These are free chord progression lessons that you can try to get your songwriting juices flowing: http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/lesson.html
2. This Wikipedia article has some great basic information about chord progressions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_progression
3. A good article about chord progressions:
http://www.easy-song-writing.com/articles/chordProgressions.asp
For me, the trouble is that I get stuck using my favorite chord progressions that I know all the time…I know it would be great if I branched out and was a bit more adventurous sometimes! I enjoy checking out the chord progressions used in some of my favorite songs — and start playing around with those to see what happens.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I kind of work backwards. I'll come up with a melody and then try different chords around it. I love that you can sing the same melody with so many different chords.
I usually start with the melody. But every once in a while I'll think of a riff first and have to work my melody around that. I don't think I've ever tried it with a chord progression.