Sometimes the greatest songwriting secrets are hidden in plain sight. A lead sheet, for example, freezes all the elements of songwriting success in black and white for all to see. Yet that stark simplicity conceals something big: the mountain of decisions that preceded the notes on the page.
Videos by American Songwriter
This lays bare a tantalizing mystery: You, too, know a lot of guitar chords, and you, too, have studied at the University of Life. So what accounts for the gulf between you and, say, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Gordon Lightfoot, or Buddy Holly?
Talent, certainly. But how to cultivate talent? Not easy, so let me suggest cultivating something else: sensitivity.
Where you or I often hear only one way a melody might go, master songwriters hear dozens, and they home in on the best of them. This is a hallmark of talent, but sensitivity to the subtle connotations of intervals and scale tones can help us do the same, a proposition we will now prove in our first-ever sensitivity workshop.
Just listen to the following songs: “Numb” (Gary Clark Jr.), “Strange Brew” (Cream), and the Soprano’s theme, “Woke Up This Mornin’” (Alabama 3).
These, along with thousands of blues songs, highlight the boundless fertility of the minor 3rd interval, which lies between tone 1 and tone 3 of the blues scale, as clearly heard in “Got yourself a gun …”
One little interval, ten thousand blues songs — something of a miracle, isn’t it? We’re going to limit this workshop to the study of the minor 3rd, just to reveal the motherlode of possibilities it contains.
Creative challenge #1: Play two notes a minor 3rd apart on your instrument, such as A-C on the white keys or fret 0 to fret 3 on the guitar, and improvise 15 or so one- or two-word lyrics to fit them. Repeat either tone all you want, but limit the tones to two for now. Experience the difference between singing up the interval, as in “Numb,” versus down, as in the Sopranos theme.
Did your chosen words sound blue? Excellent! Anywhere it appears, the minor 3rd sounds bluish, even in major scales, which have four minor 3rds inside. All four are tinted blue in differing degree.
Creative challenge #2: Sing a C major scale: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C’. Now sing ascending minor 3rds from the scale, as follows: D-F, E-G, A-C, B-D. Then sing them descending: C-A, G-E, F-D, D-B. Finally, make up one- to two-word lyrics for each minor 3rd, ascending and descending. This “shape in the clouds” game forces you to get deep inside the sound.
Challenge #2 introduces a new twist on the minor 3rd: scale-tone mood. Scale tone 2 (D), for example, feels “floaty,” while tone 7 (B) has a yearning sound, plus they are a minor 3rd apart. Scale-tone mood mixes with interval color to give each of these “melodic words” a distinctive emotional feel.
Ten melodic words so far. Are there more?
Indeed. Harmony provides 16 additional words. For example, one of the least bluish minor 3rds ever is found in the first four measures of “Good Day Sunshine” by the Beatles. This minor 3rd is made up of the upper two notes of a B major triad, which is itself “elevated” harmonically over the home key of A major. This lift melts the minor-3rd melancholy down to a passively pleasurable feeling of basking in the sun. Lennon & McCartney displayed the utmost sensitivity to melodic connotations.
Maren Morris’ “My Church” begins with a descending major 3rd on “I’ve cussed on a Sun – day.” Later, she echoes this with a descending minor 3rd on “Can I get a hal-le – lu-jah.” Here, tonic harmony suggests fulfillment, scale-tone mood (La) suggests joy, and interval color suggests spiritual devotion. Spot-on choices like this may not always be conscious, but they are never accidental.
Creative challenge #3: Expand your vocabulary by singing ascending anddescending minor 3rds over chords in C major: Sing D-F over Dm and G7; E-G over C and Em; A-C over F and Am; B-D over G, G7, and Emin7. Add lyrics, as before.
Minor 3rds are packed with emotion, but they seldom stand alone. “I’ve cussed on a Sun-day” fills in the descending major 3rd with scale steps and appends chord tone 5 on “-day.” A pickup beat based on a minor 3rd precedes the exultant minor 3rds on “Hal-le-lu-jah.”
Creative challenge #4: Revisit all three creative challenges above, but experiment with lead-in notes, tail notes, and connecting scale steps. Add more words to your lyrics.
One little interval yielded 26 melodic words, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. But alas, we’re out of room. Point is, you were right if you felt that a score concealed secrets, and now you know one of the most profound. Time and again, great songwriters find their way to meaningful melody via sensitivity to interval color, scale-tone mood, and harmony. And you can, too. The nice thing is, sensitivity is indistinguishable from talent.
