Tom Petty once said that the Traveling Wilburys felt like old friends hanging out and showing each other different chords. And music is all about pushing our boundaries and learning new ways to use our instruments to communicate. How can we continue to challenge ourselves and grow as musicians?
Admittedly, most of the prompts for the Seven Day Challenge have been about lyrical content. However, great lyrics alone won’t make a great song—songwriting requires fusing lyricism with a rhythm and melody to create something that is meaningful to you. Jazz Guitar Online offers some content that highlights ten of the most popular progressions in Jazz. Additionally, they have created small audio snippets that show you how to properly use each progression. In general, Jazz songs are structured differently from the verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus structure of most contemporary songs. Instead they use a verse verse chorus verse (or AABA) progression. The textbook example is to look at the structure of the Christmas Carol “Deck The Halls”. A) Deck the halls with boughs of holly A) Tis the season to be jolly B) Don we now our gay apparel A) Troll the ancient Yuletide carol, This form requires two melodic repetitions, followed by a new variation that returns back to the original melodic repetition. Today I want to challenge you to use the chords on Jazz Guitar Online to create your own song. These chord progressions are all in the same key and fit together like Lego pieces. So, in theory you could write an original song using these patterns because they are all in the same key. For example you could write a song that: A) Progression 4 - “Dim7 Passing Chords” A) Repeat progression 4 - “Dim7 Passing Chords” B) Progression 8 - “Rhythm Changes Bridge” A) Progression 4 - “Dim7 Passing Chords” Of course, Jazz music has a deeper history than “learn some chords and put them in a random order,” but there’s a lot of validity in learning how to use something through play. Try it out and share your songs with us!
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The Sound Connector is an online magazine for songwriters. We feature songwriting challenges, monthly interviews, and the opportunity to discover new songwriters. We are interested in all things related to the craft of songwriting. Do you want to be featured on The Sound Connector? Send us your songs!
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