The million dollar question.

I spent a very pleasant forty five minutes yesterday evening at the ABC-Coast FM studios here on the Gold Coast of Australia, with presenter and pal Nadia Sunde, who had asked me to come in to chat about my five favorite songs. The job wasn't all that difficult. Great songs leave an imprint on the mind, a time stamp. All I did was think back and search my memory banks using "time freeze" as keywords. Some songs stop time, no matter how often you hear them. I picked five out of the many that came to mind. I won't itemize them here, but Ray Charles' "Georgia on my mind" has to be the King of them all, so we ended with it.

Naturally, I thought about songs and songwriting on the long drive home, about this quality that music can have when all the ingredients come together in exactly the right way; how one of the very ingredients of music -- time -- can disappear altogether. I remember the first time I heard Police's "Every breath you take". I was driving and it was like Scotty had beamed me three minutes up the road when the song finished and I came to.

For most of us, writing songs doesn't come naturally. For me, it's like pulling teeth. I'm way too picky, and I reject almost everything that I come up with for one reason or the other. I can sit on a half finished song for a decade with no problem at all, and unless I hear at least the potential of that time-freezing quality, I won't bother. But just what is quality? That IS the million dollar question because, no doubt about it, writing a great song is the surest and easiest way of earning a fortune in the music business. One great song can keep you in a very nice lifestyle for all of your life if you do it right. I know the writer of one such song. It's been covered by scores of artists in a dozen languages and will earn him AND his kids royalties forever more.

The guitar is a great instrument to write with. It's portable, and it can play chords. Chords are the basis of any piece of music, and I bet that 90% of great songs started out being a chord progression that the composer had come up with just fooling around. I know this is how it happens for me. One good chord progression can generate thousands of great melodies. What is a great chord progression? To my mind, one that takes you on a pleasant journey through a chunk of time. There are no set rules, but there are certain "soundscapes" that seem to please the human ear more than others. I refer, of course, to "the key".

The key is that family of seven notes and seven chords generated by the major scale. Three of the chords are major, three minor, one is half diminished. Those key-related chords have been the backbone of almost all the great songs ever written, in fact most may have used only three. When looking for that next chord in your progression, look first to the chords of the key. They will always offer up good, strong options -- platforms for the next part of the song.

Try turning the minors into majors. Many, many writers use this trick. It turns a familiar but tame chord change into one that perks your ears up, and forces whatever melody is evolving into an ear catching twist. "Georgia", "Dock of the Bay", "Desperado" are examples.

The hierarchy of chords within the key is:

The 3 major chords rule the roost -- the 1, 4 and 5 chords. They are the "12 bar blues" chords, or the traditional country music chords. No fuss, no bother. They always work. The 1 leads to the 4, the 5 leads back to the 1. Make the 5 a seventh chord, and all is well.

Of the minor chords, the 6 is the most important. How many great songs stem from the 1 - 6 - 2 - 5 progression? The other minors -- the 2 and 3 chords -- are less active but always there to be used.

But, of course, there is much more to writing a great song than coming up with a chord progression. The lyric, although not essential, must work; It must compliment the feel of the music; the melody, timing, tempo, attitude... all are factors. Arrangements and production can turn great songs into hit records, but great songs stand alone. Listen to Jimmy Webb's voice/piano versions of his many hit songs for a taste of that.

My tunes can be heard at http://www.mp3.com/kirklorange if you're interested. There's a mixture there of finished album tracks and instrumental demos. Some of them I like to think freeze time. Canadian Suzie Vinnick just recorded a time freezing version of one of my songs, as I mentioned last week... froze mine, anyway. Check out "Affairs of the heart" at the CD page of http://www.suzievinnick.com if you're interested.

PlaneTalk -- The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book continues to go out all over the World, teaching the simple visualization "trick" to keeping track of all things musical on the fretboard. The Slide Rule which comes with it will show you instantly all related chords for all keys, so if you are a budding writer looking for the for that next chord, check it out at http://www.lorange.kirk.net There's a free membership to the PlaneTalk Online contest happening too.

Oh yeah, check out my gorgeous new guitar.

All the best,

Kirk
http://www.lorange.kirk.net
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com
http://www.mp3.com/kirklorange