Transcripts
1. Lesson 1: Introduction: Hey guys and welcome to
picking the perfect codes. Were so excited that
you're here and ready to level up your songwriting. There is so much more to writing great chords and just
picking random coolants and hoping that they
work or just playing the same full chords
over and over again. In this course, Ben, he's gonna take you
step-by-step through how to understand
the relationship between chords and make meaningful choices
that are actually going to create a
musical journey, create sole
structure, and create really impactful
contrast between the sections of your song. Before you dive into the course, I want to direct you to
a free downloadable PDF that we've created just for you. This PDF is a
beautiful illustration that clearly shows the
relationships between chords inside a key
and also includes 1016 Bob progressions
in both major keys and minor keys are having those chord progressions
right there for you is going to get you writing
sooner and writing better. The link to download that
free PDF is included in the course description as well as in the
project description. So head there right now, download that PDF and then dive in to picking
the perfect codes
2. Lesson 2: The Basics and Common Questions: One of the most
important aspects of songwriting is riding
chord progressions. And we solve and start
with a chord progression, using it as a
framework to then add our lyrics are melodies and
textures are embellishments. And yet one of the biggest
challenges we face with writing chord
progressions is knowing what chords to use. And so today I want to
talk to you about picking the perfect chords for
whatever song you're writing. In this video, I'm going to talk about how courts fit together. I'm going to talk about
the relationships between the chords
in your songs. I'm going to talk about
the functionality of the chords that
you're choosing. Most importantly, I want to show you a process for writing chord progressions that
doesn't feel random, that doesn't get repetitive. And that gives you total control over the direction you'd
like to take your song. Now when writing a song and starting with a
chord progression, it's very natural for a bunch of questions to be
going through your head. And we all experienced this and some of these
questions might be, now that I've started, where do I go next with
this chord progression? What options do I
have in this key? Why isn't my chord progression working or sounding
the way I want it to? What kind of mood am I
trying to create and how can I find the right chords
to create that mood? Which chords are going
to work best to deliver my message and
support my lyrics? And how can I stop my chord progressions
from sounding repetitive, possibly boring, or predictable?
3. Lesson 3: An Insight Into Diatonic Systems: In this video,
we're going to talk about diatonic
chord progression. I'll explain a little bit
more what that means. But essentially,
we're talking about a system where all the chords
belong in the same key. They all fit together
beautifully. In order to understand
the diatomic system, it's best if we use the number system
that's commonly used. So let's look at the
key of C and talk about the chords that are
diatonic to this key. We start with our home core, one that are homebase. We then move to our D minor, which we then move to a three
chord, which is E minor. We then move to our four chord, which is our F. We moved to a five chord,
which is our gene. We moved to our six chord, which is our a minor. We move to our seven core, which is our B diminished. And then we come back home to see those seven chords are
diatonic to the key of C. Those are the seven. And you'll notice that when we're analyzing a
diatonic system, we have our one chord. We have our four core, and we have our five core. As major. We then have our two chord. That's three chord,
six chord as minor. And finally we have, our
seven chord has a diminished. And this is important
because the 145 is a staple of
so many genres, blues, rock, roots,
you name it, folk. They're all built on that. 145. It's such a big part of
our musical language. But what I want to talk
to you about today is the function of those chords and then the function of the minor chords in
relation to the home cord. The home cord really
is so crucial because really when we're
running a chord progression, what we're doing is
we're establishing a home-base and then
we're leaving home, and then we're finding
ways to come back home. You're only ever
on the home cord, or you're on a chord
that's not the home cord. So you are either at home
or your departed from home. And so this idea of playing around with
harmony and coming up with interesting and dynamic
chord progressions really is a process of deciding
when you want to be at home and when you
want to be away from home and finding interesting ways of working your way
back to the home key
4. Lesson 4: Functions of Chords - Home and Away: So let's break down the
functions of these courts. Functionally. We know
one to be solid, it is stable, it is home-base. So we start there. Now. If we got about four chord, four chord represents departure. We've left home. It's moved away in a way that feels satisfying
and hopeful. But then we have the five chord. And the five chord
in western harmony represents this sense
of returning home, getting ready to return. So by playing a
1451 progression, what you're really
saying is where at home? With departed, we're getting ready to come back
home. And we return. That's the functionality of those chords in
relation to each other. And this is hugely helpful when you're running a
particular kind of song where you want that feeling
of departure and return. But as you're going
to see when we break down some well-known songs. All songs, chord progressions
have this movement of home, departing, coming back home, departing, coming back home. It's the way all chord
progressions work. And what gets interesting is
when you start looking at some substitutions for
those common 145 maneuvers
5. Lesson 5: Example Time - 12 Bar Blues: One of the great ways to here this functionality in action
is to look at a blues. Blues. Let's play it in the key of G. If we go back to the ones. So we've gone away from home, then we'll come back
now we get into part again. Come back. Now we go into the five. Get ready to come home, and get ready to come back
around to the beginning. And that is the 12 bar blues form that we all know and love, laid out functionally
this idea of the one chord very much
being the tonal center. The four chord
taking us away from that tonal center before
we come back home. Heating the five chord, getting ready to return via the four chord this time
and then coming back home. So again, you are choosing with your chord progressions rather than randomly selecting chords. You're choosing when
you want to be at home and when you want to
be departing from home. And what's great about this technique is you
get to choose how long you delay the
resolution back to home. Because sometimes we
do want to create a little bit more
tension by keeping the progression from resolving
back to that home key
6. Lesson 6: A Deeper Look into Chord Functions: The first thing that we
need to understand is that within a diatonic system, which means the seven chords
that are inside a key, codes have functions and there are really two basic functions. There are more than
that realistically. But in order to
understand this concept, we only need to
understand two functions. There is the home function, the code that feels
like it is landing, that it is resolving, that it is stable and sturdy. That has a lot of grunt and
a lot of assertiveness. It is our home cord. Then there are away chords. Away codes are the codes that
really create the sense of journey and a sense of
movement in a song. Sorry, Beni, do you
mind grabbing your tab? And we will demonstrate
this in any key, in any major key that
we write a song in. We have seven chords. And in any case, the pattern of those
seven chords is the same. Major, minor, minor, major,
major, minor, diminished. That is the patent in
every single major key. So now that we have the pattern, we can talk about
this idea of being at home or being away from home. These are really the two
ways we want to think about all the chords
in a diatonic system. So clearly, in the
key of C, r, C chord, our one chord is home-base, and the stability of that
chord is very powerful. You can hear it,
you can feel it. There is no need for
that cord to move. Now instability, by definition, then all the other chords in the sequence are going
to be not at home. They're gonna be away from home. What we want to now consider is the way that we're
away from home, the kind of journey that we
want to take away from home, then think about how we
want to come back home. So a lot of this discussion
is going to be really How would you like to
leave or how would you like to depart from home-based? And how would you like to
come back to home base? So a quick example would
be for code takes us away. Five chord feels like
it wants to come back. We finally have that return. Everything up until that point
was being away from home. We could do that with a set
of minor chords as well. Away, away, away, away. And you can really hear in those very
simple combinations of chords that anything that's
not C major is a way. It's creating tension. It's on a journey, but that journey comes to
an end or feels like it resolves when we get
back to that one chord. And that one chord
has a special name in the diatonic system. Its name is the tonic chord. So we call that chord
the tonic chord. And we say that it
has a tonic function, which really means that it
is the strongest point. Resolution. A metaphor
that I like to use when thinking and talking
about chords in the key. And this relationship
between home and away is the metaphor
of a solar system. And I think that this
explains and describe why we care that we're
in a key and why. It's great to actually
use codes that have the relationship of
being inside the same key. If we use the image
of a solar system, that tonic chord is really the sun at the center
of the solar system. All the other chords are like planets orbiting
around that sun. But the image is nice because it shows us that all the planets are drawn towards that
central point of gravity. They are caught in a position of tension around that
central point. And part of this metaphor is explaining that in
a diatonic system, not all the chords are the same. It's not a democracy. Of course, there is one chord that dominates that
has the heaviest, most intense pull towards it, and it is the tonic chord. If we understand that
they're not all equal code, we really have the sun
and then all the planets. We can use that difference in weight intention to construct really effective
contrast between our sections with
nothing more than a basic understanding that
we have the home chord that has this huge
gravitational pull and all these other away chords that are orbiting like planets. I'm gonna take three core data, the key of C,
avoiding the tonic, and those chords will
be the four chord. A minor, the six chord. G is the five chord. I'm going to play
those chords in a cycle and create
a verse structure. Kept. He's got a set of
lyrics but no melody, because she doesn't know what chords I'm going to
choose Up until this moment. And so you're going to
have to respond with a melody that matches those chords and just
make it up as you go. Okay, Let's see how it goes. I'm driving. My eyes. Hobby, Lobby see as much. But I can take my mind off. So I've gotten to the
end of the verse. Now what happens? Now
we move on to step two. So the whole thing here
is that we have very deliberately avoided the tonic. We've avoided the C chord. So now we're going to move into what we're thinking
of as the chorus section. Because we're going to
start with the tonic chord, that C major chord. And you are going to feel that the course feels
like it is landing, it feels like it is coming home. We're going to introduce
that central point of gravity and you're
going to see how much it feels contrasting. But also like we are coming to the place of the
central idea of this song. And we might just
play the last line of the verse as a way to
transition into that course. To know what I was thinking when I can. It's not God. Mine. Mine. Mine mine
7. Lesson 7: The ABC’s of Chord Substitution: So let's talk about
the substitutions. Let's talk about where
these other chords fit in functionally. If we were to break
down the one chord. Every harm key or every home cord has what
we call a relative minor. And in this case,
it's the a minor. This so closely related that we can think of them as
substitutions for each other. In the sense that city is
very much a major tonality, San, and it's bright, it's happy, it's stable. The a minor is darker. It's got that minor third in it, but essentially they share
two of the same three notes. So you have C comprised of C, E, G, and you have a minor
comprised of AAC. So two out of the three
notes are exactly the same. It will see this happen a lot as we move through the
other substitutions. So your first big alternative to the one chord is
the relative minor. There is another alternative
to the one chord, and that is the three
chord, E minor. Now the E minor is
interesting because again, if we break down
an E minor chord, we have E, G, B. And if we go back to
our C major chord, we have seen EEG. So again, E minor, C major **** two of the three, the same three notes. And what this means
is that functionally we have these two alternatives
to the home cord. So we don't have to
always keep going back to the home code because
the thing about the one is it's very, very stable, incredibly stuck. And we don't always want to
go back to that stability. Sometimes we want to create
a sense of returning home, but not with the stability that comes with
choosing the one chord. And this is where I am on. The E minor might be
perfect substitutions are other substitutions
functionally. Or if we look at our code and we now go
through to the D minor, which is a to the D minor and the F are relatives
of each other. The D minor is the
relative minor of F-major. Then we have the five. And the five chord has the B diminished as the
perfect substitute again because they share two
of the same three notes. But what we really care about
here is the fact that we have three primary
functions in operation. We have home. We have departure
with the four chord. We have getting
ready to return with the five chord and we have
coming home with a one. And now that we see that we have these other
substitutions for those chords, we get to sub those other
chords in and out as we like. So for example, instead
of playing 1451, let's substitute
that final one chord for the relative minor, 1456. If we wanted to return home
or get ready to return home, instead of going
to the five chord, we choose the
substitution for that, which is the B diminished. And we return home
from that corner. This is really interesting
when you start looking at the diatonic
system this way, because you realize that
as you walk up scale, you actually get the sequence of home departure, home departure. And I'll show you what I mean. We have C, which is home, D minor, which is departure. D minor, which is a version of home leading into the
four, which is departure. Five, getting ready to return. Six, which is a home. Or an alternative times seven, which is getting ready to
come back home to the final. Which is say, anytime we play one of those
diatonic chords, it is fitting into one of
the three functions of home departure or returning, getting ready to return. So consider that if
you're running a song, you have the same four chords
moving through a section. You may want to start to play around with some of
these substitutions. If we start with the one chord and we go to the four chord, that's got a particular
sound and a particular mood. The next time I go, I might want to go
to the two chord. It's still performing the
same function of departure, but it's giving us
a different sound. It's creating that
variety so that we don't become predictable with
our chord movements. When you start to play
around with these, you realize that you can really spice up a chord
progression quite easily. Take a chord progression that sounds quite predictable
or repetitive. Just substitute a
few of the cords, even just one or two
at the right moment. And it's going to give
new life to the song. It's gonna give a freshness
and a sense of movement. But you want to be in control of the court you're choosing. And you want to really
consider the mood of the chords you're
choosing because each of these chords does create
a different mood. And it does create a different momentum with
the sun that you're writing. If you Google most used
chord progressions, one of the ones that's
on every list is the 15641564 in this case would
be the C to the five, g to the a minor, which is the six to the f, which is, we've all heard
that means at a time
8. Lesson 8: Song Analysis Alert - Let It Be: One song that famously uses that sequence in this
k is the Beatles. Let it be self in
times of trouble. She is standard error. From there you can see very much that
1564 progression in action and the sound of it. But this idea of
understanding where you want the chord progression
To Go is really important because in this case, Paul McCartney starts
with the route. He moves to the font.
Now the five says, we're getting ready
to return home, at which point he
could have gone back to the one when I find
myself in trouble. The Mary, totally different. So instead of going
back to the root, he's chosen the
relative minor as the place he wants to
go because it elevates. It goes with the
lyrics, mother Mary, it's got this idea of
spirituality exaltation. The melody is naturally rising and he rises
with that melody. To use the relative minor chord. There it is. And then he
comes back to the one, speaking words of wisdom. And you can hear getting
ready to return. In this case, it's going the
1541 with that second line, which is just another
way of doing it. It's getting ready to return. It goes via the four, like we heard with the
blues example before. We could rearrange that it be
with some alternate chords. We could say instead
of the G major, we could say B
diminished in the first, in the first call, we could
go now often times a. Then to the D minor. We could do them. These substitutions aren't going to always be perfectly
appropriate. What I'm trying to do
is talk you through a system of knowing
what options you have, knowing how these
courts function, and then giving
yourselves the options of using different chords so that your lines don't get repetitive.
9. Lesson 9: Song Analysis Alert - Hallelujah: The great song that does this beautifully is a
lawyer, Leonard Cohen. And again, we're in the
key of C. Keep it simple. You have it starting with the one and then moving
down to the relative minor. David Hume. Music goes like this, the force of the
metaphor. Imagine them. Here we have again a beautiful
Santa chord progression. It's completely diatonic,
except for the E7, which we'll come
back to in a second. We start with the home cord. We got to the relative minor, back-and-forth between the headquarter and
a relative minor, which is a lovely
way of staying put. You've created movement,
but functionally, there isn't that sense
of departure that comes with using the
four or the two chord. So while liver,
we're going back and forth between these two, It's like we've
got a brother and sister having a conversation. And then the four core
comes in with the F. That's the first departure. Quick go to the G chord, which gets us raise
your return home. Moves back up to the G, and we come around again. But this time, let it Cowen, Historically outlining
the chord progression. Well, it goes like this. The fourth, the fifth, the minor for referring to the relative minor,
the major lips. Because the full code does
have this lifting quality, this beautiful, hopeful quality. And then he moves round to the baffled king
on the G chord, getting ready to return home. But before returning home, he moves to an A7 chord. And the A7 chord is
technically a borrowed chord. And the reason we kind of
think of it in a diatonic way, because it's so often used to pull us back to the a minor. Because if, say is
our home chord, an, a minor is our relative. They're in partnership
together throughout the song. And this is seven, creates a beautiful 51
pull towards the a minor
10. Lesson 10: Time to Wrap-Up: This is what being in control of your chord
progressions and picking the perfect chords
really means it's about choosing the chords that
serve a particular function. Create a particular mood, carry the melody you're trying to create in a particular way. And lyrically, you want your chord progression
to support your lyrics. This is where the substitutions
ID become so crucial. So it's important to remember that when we're writing a song, the first version of our chord progression may
not be the final version. We may write a chord progression that sounds pretty good in the moment and does its job while we're crafting the song. But as we start
writing lyrics and as the message of the song and the narrative becomes clearer, we may want to substitute
out some chords to match the mood of the lyrics
or the intent of the lyrics. And those chords substitutions
are a perfect way to do that and still maintain the
function that you require. So in picking the perfect chords for your chord progression, couple of key things you
want to think about. Number one, consider it which points you want your
song to be home, at which moments you'd
like to be away from home. Number to consider what
function you would like the chords of a form in relation to the story
you're telling. And number three, consider what mood you're
trying to create throughout this section and which substitutions
can deliver that move. Hope this helps and
good luck writing
Keppie And Benny, Helping you write your best songs
