Chosing chords for a song?

There are as many ways to choose chords as there are composers.

However, there are a few basic guidelines that help.

As you note, you should have a key that the song is in. However, that doesn't always matter as much as you might think. Jazz, for example, is famous for having a "key of the moment" that is frequently different from the song's key signature. So it is important to be conversant with the harmonic conventions of your choosen musical genre.

One you know the genre's expectations, then you can look at the chord choices a bit more concretely.

First, decide on the role of the chord relative to the other instruments. If the base and piano are carrying the bottom of the chord, often the guitar chord will be some upper partial or polychord.

Now, take a look at your melody, and decide how you want that to move within the harmonic structure. For each measure, or part of a measure, decide what note is the prominent tonal center of that part of hte melody. It might be the longest note value, it might be the starting tone, it might be the ending tone, it might be a tone mid-way between the melodic notes played, it might be the base of a 3, 5, 7 arpeggio that doesn't even appear in the score. Whatever, this is all about what tone you "hear" as being the most important tone in the section of music you're looking at.

Once you have those tones, you can start buildnig a chord progression that highlights those tones. There are lots of things to consider here -- how do the tones move through the chord voicing progression? How do the chords highlight the tones -- are they the base note? the fifths? extentions in the upper register? Again, lots of choices.

It is very much a creative process. It's about 10% knowledge of chords and harmonic conventions and 90% inspiration. The only way to learn to do it well is to do it often and be very critical (in the good sense of the word) of your own work.

I really agree with being critical. If you don't like your work, why should anyone else? It's far too easy for me to get impressed with myself and be like, "hey this is way cool!" but it's actually not.

For me the biggest problem in songwriting is consistency. I have a hard time fleshing out an idea fully. So my pieces will kind of skip around in ideas and not have a lot of cohesion.

As for chords, I guess just mess around a lot. I would recommend just fretting almost randomly to find neat chords. Basic 3 note chords are important of course, but without tritones (in the key of C, the notes F and B are your tritone interval. You would usually want to resolve F and B to E and C) and half-step dissonance, or any kind of dissonance things get boring.

I IV V (C F G) is a common chordal pattern that you can mess with. It's so ridiculously common that you might just end up with a relatively cookie cutter song at first. Of course, when beginning to write songs you don't want to try super elaborate things anyway. It's too easy to make a big mess of things.

Just experiment a lot and write a lot, it just takes time.

Thanks for the replies, and the help. My chosen genre is Blues/Rock and Folk which all tend to be relatively simple in set up. I just have to keep working at it. I try to disect songs and figure them out, but my theory is in the infancy stages. i am just coming to grasp with major scales and relative minors. As far as adding in pentatonic, blues and other scales into a song, well that just is not something that I can do yet. I guess I just have a ways to go knowlege wise before I can take something and really make it sing. For now, I'll try jus to keep things simple and see if I can come up with an interesting rhythm pattern.

What typically comes first the melody/music or the song lyrics and structue?

Thanks Again,

I guess I just have a ways to go knowlege wise before I can take something and really make it sing. For now, I'll try jus to keep things simple and see if I can come up with an interesting rhythm pattern.

What typically comes first the melody/music or the song lyrics and structue?

More theory may help, but in my limited experience, theory has nothing to do with how soulful you will sound, or how well you can make something sing as you put it. You just have to play your heart out when you play. You can play a simple boring scale, and if you play from your heart it will sound awesome.

What part comes first depends a lot on the songwriter and what you already have in mind for the song. If you are starting with nothing I would suggest getting the chords first, and then going from there. It is hard for me to write lyrics that I am satisfied with, so I haven't written any songs with words. It's also hard for me to write a song, then try and put words to it. It feels so fake and forced. I think if I was a better poet I would begin with writing the words, because once you have the words you kind of have a feeling and an idea in mind for the song. It's sooooo hard to glue lyrics onto chords and end up with something that fits and is meaningful.

I would just start writing (both music and words) a lot and revise things over and over and over.

Things like rhythm and feeling will become more refined and begin to take shape after you have your basic ideas down, and you know where the song is going.

I used this lesson here to help me get chord progressions:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/article.php?id=11

That whole resolving dissonance thing. How much dissonance you have would vary based on if you're using distortion or not wouldn't it?

It's also hard for me to write a song, then try and put words to it. It feels so fake and forced. I think if I was a better poet I would begin with writing the words, because once you have the words you kind of have a feeling and an idea in mind for the song. It's sooooo hard to glue lyrics onto chords and end up with something that fits and is meaningful.

That is exactly how I feel. Glad to know it's not just me.
Thanks

Thanks for the link Angel, I'll check it out.

How much dissonance you have would vary based on if you're using distortion or not wouldn't it?

No, dissonance is like the wavering of two notes sounding together that don't quite fit. Even though they may sound quite cool and nice/stable, certain intervals are dissonant. For example, the intervals of a second (A, B), a fourth (A, D), diminished fifth (A, Eb), seventh (A, G) are dissonant when played together. You can hear the wavering much easier with the distortion cranked, but they are no more or less dissonant.

Play A and Eb together on your guitar, then play A and E. Hear how they kind of melt together into one sound (even though it's 2 notes)? That's the difference between dissonance and consonance.

So distortion doesn't make it more dissonant, it just brings it out more. I understand now. Does that mean the root, third, and fifth have dissonance since the third is removed for power chords?

Btw, I'm getting my information from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_chord

no if you play 1,3,5 it'sd a major chord and that doesn't sound dissonant, i think the third is rather removed because it sound more direct and rougher at high distortion.

According to Wikipedia it is. The clashes in sound are what make them sound happy or dark and moody.

"Normally such clashes, which are barely audible, are a desirable feature, serving, as they do, to subtly colour the interval and impart such subjective qualities as sweetness, joy, sadness, etc. normally associated with major and minor chords." - Wikipedia

It could be wrong but I have tried major and minor chords with high distortion, it didn't work too well.

Both viewpoints are correct.

What distortion does is strengthen the harmonics or extra wavelengths of a note at the expense of the primary.

Now, the primary harmonics of a single note ( http://www.redshift.com/~dcanright/harmser/ ) are (in decreasing order of strength):

1 - 1, the fundamental
2 - 8, it's octave
3 - 5, the perfect 5th.
4 - 1 again
5 - 3 (major 3rd, that's why a powerchord sounds more major-y than minor-y)
6 - 5
7 - b7 (actually in between b7 and maj7)
8 - 1 once again
9 - maj2 (9th)

We could go further, but let's not.

Anyway, that's a lot of notes. Now in a full chord, we have 3 notes, each with its harmonic series, all fighting for attention. Let's just look at the 5 strongest harmonics in a C chord for a moment:

1 - C - C - G - C - E
3 - E - E - B - E - G#
5 - G - G - D - G - B

Note who the 5th harmonic of the 3rd, the G# will rub nastily against the G when strengthened by distortion. The B's will also interfere with the Cs. That's why distorted full chords sound muddy and why people began dropping the 3rd when amplifiers became capable of it.

The situation gets even worse with more extended chords, which is why rock bands use them less then jazz players. Also why jazz players tend to use clean settings on their amps.

I hope this helps.