There are three main strategies songwriters use when they are choosing a chord progression for their next song. This article will go over some tried-and-true formulas in songwriting, a bit of music theory that can serve as a guiding light, and how to approach writing a chord progression when you already have a melody. Combine these three ideas and your next songwriting session will be a breeze.
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The DNA of a hit song
There’s a lot that goes into writing a hit song, of course, but one of the ingredients is a group of four chords that seem to spell success, every time. In the key of C, those chords would be C-G-Am-F—and this is also one of the most common orders they appear in. Research suggests that these chords activate our brain’s reward system. Listening to this chord progression, a staple of popular Western music, simply makes us feel good.
The basic melody of “Let It Be” by The Beatles is constructed over exactly those chords. Taylor Swift uses the same progression in a different key in the verse of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Another wildly popular way to combine the four chords is C-Am-F-G, which is the foundation for “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King and “Baby” by Justin Bieber.
How to repurpose a chord progression
There are countless other songs that were written using the same combination of chords. The Aussie comedy band Axis of Awesome created a video to illustrate this four chord magic. The video is one giant medley of popular songs that all use the same progression. They had to change the key of some songs, but the relation of the chords to each other is the same for every example.
4 Chords | Music Videos | The Axis of Awesome
The proof is in the pudding. These four chords obviously work together extremely well, and so there is no reason not to use them for one of your own songs. The key to making any chord progression your own is putting a unique spin on it. This includes creating your own lyrics, melody, song form, groove, and arrangement.
It’s not an easy task, but know that you won’t be the only one struggling to create something original. In May 2023, Ed Sheeran won a copyright lawsuit. He had been accused of stealing a chord progression from another hit song to write “Thinking Out Loud.” After the trial ended in his favor, he made a statement explaining that “these chords are common building blocks” and added that “they are a songwriter’s ‘alphabet,’ our tool kit and should be there for us all to use. No one owns them, or the way they are played, in the same way nobody owns the color blue.”
Basic music theory for songwriters
Instead of using popular chord progressions as a starting point or trying out chords randomly, music theory can help songwriters make informed choices. Knowing a bit of music theory is particularly helpful when you get stuck while writing a song, or you are looking for potential alternative progressions.
[RELATED: 9 Songwriting Tips, According to A.I.]
The simplest way to write a song is to use chords that all derive from the same major scale. The major scale is the building block of Western music. It’s a group of seven notes where the first note determines the key. The rest of the notes are named after the alphabet and follow this pattern of whole and half steps: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. On a piano, a whole step up means playing the note two keys to the right, while a half step is one key. On the guitar, a whole step is two frets up, a half step is one fret.
In the key of C, then, we get these notes:
C, D, E, F, G, A, B
To build chords out of a scale, we pick a note, skip a note, pick a note, skip a note, pick a note.
The most basic chords—chords are made up of at least three notes each—that naturally occur in the C major scale follow this pattern:
Major (I)
Minor (ii)
Minor (iii)
Major (IV)
Major (V)
Minor (vi)
Diminished (viio)
In pop and rock music, songwriters often stick to the first six chords. So in the key of C, we’re looking at:
C major (I)
D minor (ii)
E minor (iii)
F major (IV)
G major (V)
A minor (vi)
At this point, you’ll recognize our famous four chords from “Let It Be.” Every chord is derived from the C major scale: C, G, Am, and F. Roman numerals help to generalize chord progressions so that songwriters can apply them to any key. That’s why some people call this progression a I-V-vi-IV.
You can translate all this knowledge to any key by starting the pattern from a different note. For folks who don’t want to dive too deep, a simple Google search for “all chords in the key of [insert note name here]” can speed things up.
If you’re looking for even more choices, there are always seventh chords to explore, or you can combine the chords of a major key with the chords of a minor key. Music theory can certainly be a rabbit hole, but once you start understanding the basic building blocks, you’ll see how everything is connected and it can give your songwriting chops a boost.
Use your song’s melody to find a chord progression
Some musicians have a great ear and successfully experiment until they find some chords that fit together. One of the best ways to go about this is to write your melody first. Think of each note in your melody as the highest note of a chord. Among all the chord voicings you know, find the ones that sound good together with your melody.
This method works best if you know a lot of chords, are patient enough to experiment, and you know—at least in a basic sense—how chords are constructed.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
