#10

easy guide to songwriting

Composition expert Dave draws us away from our samey diatonic chord choices and into a parallel key dimension…

When writing a song, whether you intend to or not, you’ll work in a particular key. You might start out by saying “right, this will be in C minor”, or you might just string together a seemingly random set of chords that, when analysed, happen to conform, to a particular key. Each key has its own set of seven chords that belong to it, from the seven notes of the parent scale of that key. These are known as the diatonic chords for that key.

Although already a proven recipe for success for hundreds of thousands of songs, sticking to just seven diatonic chords runs the risk of becoming a bit limiting. What if you wanted to pep up your progression by straying off the beaten track and throwing in some chords from elsewhere? One way to achieve this is by using what are known as borrowed chords.

Borrowed chords are usually taken, or ‘borrowed’ from the key parallel to the one you’re working in. Parallel keys simply have the same root note, or tonic, as each other – for instance, C major and C minor are parallel scales, as they both start from the note C.