Writing A Song From A Chord Progression

 

 

WRITING A SONG FROM A CHORD PROGRESSION Steps For Starting With Just the Chords and Finishing With a Complete Song

Copyright © 2016 by Pantomime Music Publications

All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. This book is protected by Copyright. Permission must be obtained in writing from Pantomime Music Publications for the use of any original text or musical materials contained within this publication. Permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise.

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: The Benefits and Problems of Chords-First Songwriting.............. Songwriting......... ........... ........... .......... ........... ........... ........ ... 3  Introductio Intro duction n ..... .......... ........... ........... ........... ............ ........... ........... ............ ........... ........ ... 4  Songwriting: Songwri ting: Ho How w to Get tthe he Proce Process ss Goin Going g ..... .......... .......... ..... 5  The Three Main Main Ways tto o Start a Song ..... .......... ........... ........... ....... .. 6  Why We Like Startin Starting g With Ch Chords ords ..... ........... ........... ........... ........... ..... 8  We Need a System................................................10  CHAPTER 2: Finding a Melody Within

 

a Chord Progressi Progression on ...... ........... ........... ............ ........... .......12 ..12 Choosing a Good Chord Progression ..... Choosing ........... ........... .......... ........13 ...13  Generating Melodies – What’s a Good One? ..............15  CHAPTER 3: Writing a Good Song Melody, Using  “Stitches”  “Stitch es” (S (Shawn hawn M Mende endes) s) as a Mode Modell ...... ......20 20  About the Melodic Melodic Design of “Stitch “Stitches” es” ...... ........... .......... .........22 ....22  STEP 1: THE VERSE MELODY..................................25   STEP 2: THE PRE-CHORUS PRE-CHORUS MELODY ..... ........... ........... .......... ........26 ...26  STEP 3: THE CHORUS MELODY ..... .......... ........... ........... ........... ..........27 ....27  STEP 4: THE BRIDGE MELODY ..... ........... ............ ........... ........... ..........30 ....30  STEP 5: CREATE A LYRIC .......................................31  CONCLUDING THOUGHTS.........................................32 

 

 

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CHAPTER 1: The Benefits and Problems of Chords-First Songwriting

 

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Introduction

This manual is going to help you to write songs by starting with nothing much more than a chord progression. It’s going to refer to some standard principles of songwriting, and so if you feel that you need a bit b it of a refresher on how songs work, you might want to start by reading re ading a bit of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting”, part of the eBook Bundle that you received receive d with this manual.

But starting right here, in this book, you’ll get a clearer understanding about why we like to start songs with w ith chords, and how to make that work for you. If you get ge t confused about any of the statements you read about verses, choruses, bridges bridge s and so on, that’s when you’ll know that you might want to take a step back and start working through the rest of the bundle.

Good luck, and have fun!

-Gary Ewer

 

 

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Songwriting: How to Get the Songwriting: Process Going Try popping the words, “how to start a song” into a search engine, and the number of people looking for just this information will astound you. And the question is very specific; it’s not “how to write a song”, but more specifically – perhaps you might say, more simply  –   – how to get the process going.

It’s not a silly issue. Wrapped up in that question is the implication that if you start well, you have a better chance of ending well, and there is some truth to that. If you want to, for example, take a good journey, it helps if you at least get started by going in the right direction – preferably to an airport.

Most of the time, starting a song means that you’ve got several musical fragments that you’re tossing about in your mind. Those fragments are usually: ! 

bits of lyric

! 

a phrase or two of melody;

 

6

  ! 

a chord progression.

If you’ve got a bit of all three bouncing around in your musical brain, you’ve got the makings of what could be a hook. From there, you begin the process of working out something longer. Ideas that are good are kept; ideas that are bad get thrown out. You simply hope that you keep more than you throw, and you eventually end up with a song.

The Three Main Ways to Start a Song But if it’s a question of trying to start a song completely from scratch with no particular idea in mind at the outset – well, that’s when songwriting can get tough. You’re pulling ideas out of a vacuum, or at least it seems that way, and it’s not easy. When you’re in that situation, you get the impression that there are three main ways to start a song from a musical vacuum: 1.  Melody first. 2.  Lyrics first.

 

 

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3.  Chords first. But in reality, it’s rarely that cut and dried. Because this is closer to reality: 1.  You think of a bit of lyric, but you also likely consider the rhythm of those words. 2.  You think of a bit of melody, but you likely also consider the chords  that are implied by those melodic notes.  

3. You think of a short chord progression, but you also likely consider a rhythmic groove  that will give those chords life.

It’s that last point – the creating of a song starting with nothing more than a short chord progression – that is the focus of this short manual. Because of all the potential ways for starting a song, beginning with a chord progression is the one that can exist with almost nothing else to hold it up. Start strumming a chord progression, and all that will occur to you at first is some sort of syncopated rhythm. And you likely know this already, but you can keep strumming that chord progression for a long time before anything else happens.

 

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And it’s worse than that: it’s possible, after a number of months of strumming the chords, to convince yourself that that’s the song! Yes, the chords become the song. I know this because of the number of songs that get sent to me for my perusal that are nothing more than a series of chords with a bass line and drums. The melody tends to be whatever the top notes of the chord voicings are, to which a weak lyric is added. That’s it  and  and that’s all .

Why We Like Starting With Chords Creating a melody first almost always implies chords and rhythm. Creating lyrics first will also make you think of rhythm and, to a certain degree at least, the melody (if you think of the inflection of the voice as you say the words). Creating chord first comes with the curse of having not much else, and it can leave you feeling frustrated.

So why do so many songwriters find it important to get a good chord progression working first?  Why do we like starting with chords? It probably has to do with the fact

that of all song elements, chords are the least   unique. You can create two completely different songs that use

 

 

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the exact same chord progression. It gives the impression (a true one, I believe) that there aren’t a ton of progressions out there for your use. And so at least getting that part right feels more important. Here’s another way to look at that. There are hundreds or more beaches in Hawaii. The one thing they all have in common is: they’re in Hawaii. If you want to go to the best beach in Hawaii, you have to start by considering the one thing all those beaches have in common: you need to get to Hawaii. Once you’re there, you need to drive down the unique set of roads that gets you to the one beach you’re looking for.

So there’s a feeling in songwriting that you want to start with the musical element that is least unique  (if you’ll permit

the

term)

–

the

chord

progression

and

accompanying rhythms – and then move to the elements that are truly unique – the melodies and lyrics.

There is a problem, however, in starting songs with chords, which is that in chords-first songs, melodies and lyrics tend to get ignored. With lyrics, that’s not an insurmountable

problem.

Lyrics

can

be

constantly

tweaked and shaped until you get something better and

 

10   better. Melodies are harder to tweak, because they’re inextricably linked to the chords you created in the first place. So that limits the notes you can come up with. And then there’s a second problem: The voicings you choose when you play your chords place certain notes as the highest ones. This in turn causes you to hear those highest notes as a kind of melody, and that further limits your musical imagination and stifles your ability to “hear” other (better) melodies. And trust me, the melodies that are implied by the top notes of chords are rarely good ones.

We Need a System So what can we do about this? If you find chords easy to create, but hard to do anything else with, this booklet is meant to help you. And it will help by showing you a way to find possible melodies based on your chosen chord progression, using an existing song as a model. Its great benefit is that you can create songs with little or no initial ideas! Just a chord progression, and away you go!

In reality, it’s not so much a system  as it is a series of potential steps  that will help you get the most out of

 

 

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chords-first songwriting. Done well, you’re going to love what playing around with a chord progression can do for your songwriting. Rather than limiting your ideas, we want to turn chords-first songwriting into a world of possibilities.

 

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CHAPTER 2: Finding a Melody Within a Chord Progression

 

 

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Choosing a Good Chord Progression Starting the songwriting process with chords means: 1.  Finding a good chord progression, or 2.  Creating a good chord progression. Finding  a

chord

progression

shouldn’t

be

a

tricky

problem. There are many published books that feature progressions that you can use. And since chord progressions on their own are not protected by copyright, you’ve got no problem, even if you use a progression from someone else’s song. (You do have a problem if you use a chord progression from someone’s song, and then also borrow the rhythms, the backing guitar riffs, the drumbeat pattern and other components. Don’t get greedy.)

Creating a chord progression is where things can get interesting, but remember this: chord progressions have all been discovered. The only ones that don’t get used are bad ones that don’t work, and I really mean that. There are no chord progressions left to discover. In the same way that someone somewhere has put pickles and

 

14   popcorn in a bowl and covered them with a purée made from Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and strawberry ice cream, it’s very likely that nothing is left undiscovered in the world of chord progressions. That’s bad news for those of you who think that the killer chord progression is still out there waiting to be revealed. So when we talk about creating in this context, we’re simply talking about chords that you’ve put together without having been prompted to do so from a published manual.

That’s not a bad thing, the fact that your chosen progression has been used before. You may have painted your walls blue, and it shouldn’t bother you that someone else has already thought of painting their walls blue. It’s unimportant. Just choose or build a chord progression, and get on with the next step.

You’re not going to find, by the way, lists of chord progressions in this manual. That’s a job for other books, and “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook Bundle contains several books devoted to listing them, and then showing you how to create your own by looking at an existing melody. Let’s go on the assumption that you’ve got a chord progression that you like, but don’t know what to do with it.

 

 

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Generating Melodies – What’s a Good One? The main focus of this manual is to generate ideas for melodies, starting with a chord progression. It

automatically begs the question: What is a good melody? Because we don’t want to turn this manual into a long philosophy text, let’s admit that there is no one good answer to that. But certainly, we have to have at least some idea of what would make an acceptable melody.

Without knowing that, that’s exactly where you’re going to get stuck.

Sometimes, to find the answer to tough questions, it helps to reverse the picture and ask the question in a different way: What is a bad melody? Since we know that a song is good if all the components are partnering well together (that’s a basic songwriting principle), a bad melody is simply one that doesn’t support the other elements within the song. That can mean any of the following:

 

16   1.  A bad melody keeps emotional lyrics from their fullest potential.  This can occur if the

melody

notes

that

happen

on

emotional

words/phrases/thoughts are low in pitch, and do very little to allow those words to shine. For an example, think of the melodies of the following songs, and how they make great use of up and down motion in partnership with the emotional expression of the lyric: “Tears In Heaven” (Eric Clapton,

Will

Jennings);

“My

Love”

(Paul

McCartney, Linda McCartney); “Photograph” (Ed Sheeran, Johnny McDaid). 2.  A

bad

melody

strains

the

relationship

between itself and the chords. Generally, music

is an alternating pattern of strong beats and weak beats. Most of the time, you want melody notes on the strong beats to belong to the chord of the moment. Between beats, and even on weak beats, it’s OK to have the melody visiting notes that don’t belong to the chord. For a good example of this, listen to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” The opening melody features several notes that don’t belong to the C minor chord that’s being played. The same is true of many of the melody notes that happen

 

 

17 afterward as the chords change. But it all sounds effortless and natural.

3.  A

bad

melody

distinctions

fails

between

to

draw

song

important

sections.  This

means that all sections of the song (verse, prechorus, chorus, bridge, and any other optional parts) all feature a melody that sits in the same range – not a good scenario. The audience hears all melodies using the same few notes, with little or nothing to distinguish themselves. If you want an example of what it sounds like when melodies make a good attempt to change from one section to the next, listen to Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’”. The verse and chorus use the same notes, but the chorus places them an octave higher, making a very obvious change from the verse. 4.  A bad melody doesn’t make good use of repetition.  Practically any melody you can name

will use repetition – either exact or approximate.

Repetition taps into the human desire to find patterns.  We feel a sense of musical pleasure

when we hear something exactly like, or similar to, what we’ve heard before. So when we hear  “Heartbrea  “Hear tbreak k Hotel” Hotel”,, there there’s ’s a satisfac satisfaction tion that comes from hearing that opening melodic fragment

 

18   (“Well, since my baby left me”) repeat almost exactly, to form the second line (“Well, I found a new place to dwell”). Even the third line, which is a bit different, has a similar feel to the opening line. Repetition works like musical glue. You can have too much of it, so you have to know when to break away from simply repeating the same thing over and over. That’s one of the skills of songwriting.

As you might gather then, a melody is good not  because   because it follows a set of rules, but rather because it adheres to certain principles. That gives you a very large palette upon which you can design a melody. It also means that what you consider to be good may not sound good to someone else, and that’s music for you!

So before you dive in to the rest of this chapter (or indeed this book), it’s worth the time to sit back and try to vocalize what you  like about melodies. How do you know if you’ve heard a good one? What do you like about your favourite songs? This may seem like a fairly subjective exercise with no correct answer, but that’s only because… it’s a subjective exercise with no correct answer. But what thinking about it does is allows you to pinpoint and describe your own taste in music, and that’s

 

 

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going to be important if you want to be able to write a good tune.

 

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CHAPTER 3: Writing a Good Song Melody, Using “Stitches” (Shawn Mendes) as a Model

 

 

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So here’s a set of steps that can help you do the thing you might have found difficult in the past: writing a melody using a chord progression as a starting point. It helps if you have a song in mind that you can use as a model to help you work through the process. That’s because there are many ways to write melodies, and we can’t cover them all, at least not in this manual.

So for this process, let’s use “Stitches”  (Danny Parker, Teddy Geiger, Daniel Kyriakides, recorded by Shawn Mendes) as a kind of template for how you’re going to

write your own melody. It’s going to help if you give that song a few listens to get as familiar with it as possible.

 “Stitches”  “Stitch es” uses a verse verse/pre /pre-chor -chorus/chor us/chorus/br us/bridge idge forma formall design. What makes it a good choice as a song model is the simplicity of the melodies, as well as the simplicity of the chord progression and the clear and obvious song form. It’s a great reminder that pop songs that work are rarely

complex.

Almost

always,

simplicity

trumps

complexity. “Stitches” uses a short 4-chord progression (Bbm

Ab

Db

Gb ) in the verse, and modifies it only

slightly in the chorus. In fact, the entire song is built on various arrangements of just those four chords.

 

22   Let’s create a simple progression – something nice and short:

Am C F G Play that progression over and over, and get as familiar with it as you can.

Now before we use it, let’s see what we can learn about the melodies we find in “Stitches”.

About the Melodic Design of “Stitches”  “Stitch es” uses what we call an ABA  “Stitches” ABAB B desig design n for the verse, which means that you get a first phrase (“I thought that I'd been hurt before”), followed by a second phrase that moves lower in pitch  (“But no one's ever left me quite this sore”). Then the two melodic phrases repeat. Those four phrases form the complete verse. That idea of starting higher, and then moving lower, is something we want to replicate in this exercise.

 

 

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First phrase:

Second phrase:

 “I thought that tha t I'd  “But no one's been hurt before” ever left me quite this sore”

Third phrase:

 “Your words cut deeper than a knife”

Fourth phrase:

 “Now I need someone to breathe me back to life”

And as you can hear, the second phrase of the melody acts as a kind of answer to the first phrase, so phrase 1 and phrase 2 operate as melodic “partners”. The same goes for phrases 3 and 4.

You’ll also hear that for each phrase, most of the rhythmic activity happens in the first half of the phrase. So it’s during Bbm and Ab that Mendes sings

most of his words. The last two chords of the first phrase (Db

Gb) just has Mendes ho holding lding a note, or resting.

That’s a common trait in most songs’ lyrics: the singing rarely goes non-stop. In good music, silence from the singer can be as important imp ortant as the actual singing.

 

24   The pre-chorus is constructed in much the same way as the verse, in the sense that it consists of four short phrases, over a very simple chord progression (Gb

Ab

Bbm ) .

The chorus is also four short phrases long, but it works a little differently from the verse. First, you’ll notice that each phrase is very short: half the length of each verse phrase. Second, notice that the first short phrase is repeated, then a 3rd  different phrase happens, and then repeats. You get this as a form: AABB. That gives you something half the length of the verse, so the entire thing is repeated to give you a chorus that’s the same length as the verse:

AABBAABB

This is followed by a bridge section, but let’s leave that for now and come back to it.

So let’s create a verse, pre-chorus and chorus section that uses the same formal design elements as “Stitches,” but with (of course) new melodies of your own creation. It helps at this stage if you have a sense of what this song is going to be about, so you may want to take some

 

 

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time to work that out, as well as perhaps come up with a few lyrical phrases, and perhaps a title. But when it comes to dealing with melody, you can still do these steps even if you haven’t an idea yet what you’ll be singing about.

STEP 1: THE VERSE MELODY 1.  Play your chord progression (Am

C F G) several times, and try to work in a rhythmic pattern.  Start by strumming each chord for 4

beats. What you’re trying to do is get a sense of the basic feel of your song. Don’t move on from this step until you’re sure that you’ve got the feel of the song firmly in your mind and under your fingers.

2.  Create a first phrase that comprises the four chords. And as with “Stitches”, try to have most of

your melodic activity happening on the Am and C chords; use the F and G as a place to rest the melody. Even if you don’t know what words you’re going to be singing here, try to come up with a catchy rhythm. That rhythm will likely change once

 

26   you

add

lyrics.

(Paul

McCartney

made

up

 “Scramble  “Scra mbled d eggs eggs”” as kind of “place “placeholde holderr words words”” when

he

came

up

with

the

melody

for

 “Yesterday”  “Yeste rday”.) .) 3.  Create a second phrase that also comprises the four chords. Since we’re patterning this after

 “Stitches”,  “Stitch es”,

have

your

second

phras phrase e

move

downward. Again, keep the rhythmic activity to the first two chords, and use the last two as a place to rest the melody. 4.  Join the first and second phrase together.  Do you like what you hear? Does the first phrase lead naturally and easily into the second phrase? It might help to make up some placeholder lyrics to help you remember and shape what you’re doing.

STEP 2: THE PRE-CHORUS MELODY 1.  Take your four chords and rearrange them to give you something different for your prechorus. So you might try: F

G

Am

G. In this

case, I decided to drop the C chord, but you can choose any three.

 

 

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2.  Create a first phrase that moves upward over the four chords. It might be a good idea to start

low in pitch, because you want to keep the melody from getting too high or out of your vocal range. In  “Stitches”,  “Stitch es”, there’ there’s s melod melodic ic activity over all four chords, so you will want to create a melody that keeps your voice moving.  3.  Repeat

that

melody

to

create

a

second

phrase. But this time, end the phrase differently,

setting up the chorus. In “Stitches”, his voice  jumps up (“Mo (“Move ve on”) to creat create e a unique ending to the pre-chorus. When you create your ending to the pre-chorus, you may want to change what you do

with

the

chord

progression.

It

might

be

something like playing 3 instead of 4 chords, or you might again change the order orde r of the chords. 

STEP 3: THE CHORUS MELODY 1.  Switch back to using Am C F G as your progression,

and

create

a

short,

4-beat

melodic fragment that lasts for the first two chords (Am C).  This is something that you’re

going to repeat, so it’s good if that 2-bar melody

 

28   will work with Am and C, and then work with F and G. It’s OK if it doesn’t; an approximate repeat may be all you need. Be sure to create something that differs considerably from your verse melody. Don’t  just create someth something ing that sound sounds s like a variati variation on on what you’ve already done. Contrast   is an important requirement for making song sections sound suitably different from each other. Chorus melodies

usually

sit

higher

than

verse

melodies, so the melody you create here should

be near the upper limit of your vocal range. 2.  Sing that melodic fragment the final two chords (F G), and modify it if necessary to work with the chords. 3.  Repeat those 2 instructions, and you’ve got an entire chorus.

At this point, you’ve written a verse, pre-chorus and chorus. It’s up to you now how you proceed from here. I might recommend figuring out a bridge. Bridge sections are great for songs like this. Why? The melodies you’re creating

are

purposely

of

simple

construction,

and

relatively short. Bridges will allow you to do several things:

 

 

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1.  It will give you an opportunity to change temporarily the harmonic direction of the song. This song has been using Am as a kind of

tonic. So you might consider writing a bridge that moves strongly into the key of C major, and that provides a nice musical variation to the constant Am. 2.  It will give you an opportunity to modify the musical energy of the music. So if your song up

to this point has been energetic with a driving tempo, you can use a bridge to calm the music down and build it again as it approaches the return of the chorus. The contrast will strengthen the structure of your music. 3.  With short verses and choruses, you may need a bridge to finish the lyric. In other words,

whatever your verse is describing may need more time to finish, and the bridge can provide a final opportunity for you to do that. 4.  Pop songs typically come in at 3-4 minutes in length these days, and so a bridge will help you achieve that format. 

 

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STEP 4: THE BRIDGE MELODY  

1. Rearrange

your chord progression, and consider adding a new chord.  Adding a new

chord can help to breathe new life into the progression. So you might change the focus to C, and then perhaps add a Dm somewhere, just for variety. Something like this: C F Dm G. Using a non-diatonic chord (one that doesn’t naturally occur in your song’s key) is also a nice choice for a bridge. Flat-VII chords can be very good additions to progressions. So you might see about working in a Bb chord.  2.  Think of your bridge as a chance to wander a bit.  There really are no rules to how you might

construct a bridge melody. In “Stitches”, a short melody is created and then repeated over and over, jumping up an octave with the addition of backing vocals. This bridge works well because it starts quieter and then uses the octave jump to help build energy back to where it was for the return of the chorus. 3.  Remember that the end of your bridge needs to connect back to the chorus. And that means

 

 

31 that you need to have the last chord of your bridge move nicely to the first chord of the chorus.

STEP 5: CREATE A LYRIC

Now you need to get an idea of what you’re writing about! You may have found yourself blurting out words of lyric as you get a feeling for what direction your song is taking. It might be beneficial to sketch out words and phrases as they occur to you. At some point, a more complete idea will start to form, and you’ll find that it may be best to move your focus toward writing lyrics and less

toward

melodic

ideas.

But

that’s

normal

for

songwriting. It’s not too often that you’ll follow a complete set of steps that give you an entire song without having any   idea what you’re going to be singing about. So don’t be surprised if you find yourself moving back and forth from writing melodies to writing lyrics. That’s normal.

Also, you may find that once you start to add lyrics, you may feel the need to modify the melodies you’ve created. That

might

happen

in

order

to

place

emotionally

 

32   significant words higher in pitch. It will also more likely mean that you’ll be adjusting the rhythms of your melodies to fit the natural rhythm and pulse of the words. All of these changes are a normal part of the songwriting process.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS As this is just a short manual and not a full book, we’ve  just looked at one song as a dem demonstrat onstration ion of how you might start with a chord progression and create a complete song. To be sure you feel comfortable with this method, why not go back and try again with a new chord progression.

Once you’re familiar with writing a song this way, try using a different song as a template. Or if you want to explore the method described in this manual and see what you can do with it, take the following 6 chords, and create unique verse, pre-chorus and chorus progressions:

C Dm F G Am Bb

 

 

33

This time, don’t use all 6 chords in each section. You may choose to create a verse progression that uses 5 or 6, but then limit your progression to 4 chords for your chorus. (Chorus progressions are typically shorter and stronger than verse progressions.)

When

you

progression,

create the

songs danger

by is

starting that

the

with

a

melody

chord gets

neglected. So be sure that as you create melodies you’re paying attention to the important characteristics of good melodies. Some songs may benefit from using a lot of single repeated notes (“Like a Rolling Stone”), but you’ll find that most move the voice up and down, using repetition of phrases and recognizable patterns. Good melodies place emotionally significant words higher in range, and, when all is said and done, are relatively easy to sing.

And one last piece of advice: don’t start every song you write by working out a chord progression first. Any time to stick to one particular formula for solving a songwriting problem, you’ll find that there’s a tendency for all your songs to get an unpleasant sameness about them.

 

34   So if you’d like some ideas for other ways you might start songs, think about the following two possibilities:

1.  Try thinking of melodic shapes first. It will amaze you that most of the time, when you simply try to generate a melody completely from your imagination,

without

even

the

help

of

an

instrument, you can actually do it! And what you come up with often sounds reasonably good. You’ll also notice that the melodic shapes start to imply certain chords. Try it – I think you’ll enjoy improvising melodies as a first step. 2.  Create a lyric (or part of a lyric) first . Come up with a title, and then say that title over and over to yourself. Try to create phrases that partner with that title as you put a chorus lyric together. Once you’ve got a chorus working, think of descriptions of people and circumstances that can serve as a verse lyric. Before you get too far into that process, you’ll find that the way you say   the words will start to imply melodic shapes.

On some days, songwriting seems to happen easily, with ideas popping into your mind at will. On other days, it will feel frustrating and stilted. If that’s the case for you,

 

 

35

remember that frustration can be dealt with by simply putting your guitar and pencil down, and taking a break. I hope that if you’ve been finding chords-first writing to be tricky that the steps in this manual might offer a way through the frustrations.

Many frustrations come from technical problems: you’re missing some vital piece of information about how musical composition works, and how good songs are constructed. I hope you’ll take time to read through the entire songwriting eBook Bundle. It was written to help you put a magnifying glass on your own songwriting process, and to help you become better.

I wish you great success with all of your songwriting projects!

-Gary Ewer