unlocking the emotional power of chords Archives

Whether you’re suffering from writer’s block or plagued by TOO MANY song ideas, outlining can help you fill a song’s form and stay on track.

Discover the hidden music theory gem holding together one of the greatest TV theme songs of all time, and who gets the last laugh about it.

Songwriters and producers, ready to get jazzy? Here’s an introductory guide to building and using jazz chords in pop music!

What if part of your practice as a musician, composer, or producer, was to score an imaginary film scene? How would you tackle that challenge?

Making chords from the scale you’re in is fine, but borrowing notes and bringing them in from other scales and modes, now that’s fun!

In this edition of Soundfly Basics, we run down the usefulness and potential applications of utilizing tension in your chord progressions.

What a music theory book at age 13 taught me about how to look at chords, chord progressions and the emotions they’re capable of manifesting.

A sampling of single- and multi-chord progression songs between the 1980s and 2010s reveals a disheartening trend. How to fix it?

In this analysis, pop music theorist Ben Morss shows how The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” is built from four-note scale segments.

A handy guide for using borrowed chords in parallel scales and modes, to make your chord progressions more refreshing and unpredictable.

Tag: unlocking the emotional power of chords