Instant Chord Upgrade
If you write songs on guitar, it’s probably happened that at some time you have felt bored by the chords you had available to you. It may even have happened that you felt somehow strangely bored or unsatisfied by the sound even though your song or section had quite a few chords.
Sometimes our sense of what sounds good is as much about the way the chords are played as it is about which chords.
In the video, acoustic guitar expert Simon Candy is my guest to show us some easy ways to get great sounds out of the guitar by making small modifications to how we’re playing chords. He demonstrates:
How triads (3-note chord shapes) give you more options without necessarily being harder to play than open chords
How adding or sustaining open strings creates resonance, contrast and a melodic thread
Why letting one note repeat or ‘anchor’ across chords can make a progression instantly more recognizable
How sometimes you don’t need a new chord at all — you just need to hear the same chord in a new way
Although he’s demonstrating on guitar, the ideas are easily transferable to the keyboard too, and useful for arranging whether you’re playing solo or with others.
If that sparks your curiosity, and you want more approaches to composing with chords, my extremely affordable $7 e-guide 21 Ways to Write Great Chord Progressions has you covered with:
21 practical techniques you can reuse endlessly to generate all kinds of musical sections
30+ copyright-free progressions in three keys you can use in your songs right away
Templates to help you get writing.
It also helps you structure how to think about what your particular song might need next in a way that extends beyond just chord choices.
https://songwritinglessonsonline.com/21-ways-to-write-great-chord-progressions