What are the common elements of a great song?

[chicagodannyd]

On Youtube, check out Andrea Bocelli singing "Vivo Per Lei" or "The Warrior is a child" by Twilla Paris, or John Lennon's "Imagine all the People."

What is striking about these songs is the beautiful chord progressions. Great chord progressions make great melodies.

Is it easy to create a captivating, addictive chord progression? No! If it was, there would be many great songs written daily, which there are not!

Constructing a beautiful song with a haunting chord progression can be exhausting. In my humble opinion, it takes an awful lot of tenacity and sweat equity, and some inspiration. My theory is that this type of exhausting, demanding music composition is the key reason why most composers will never write a great song, or why many commercial composers write only one or two great songs in a life time. So, we listen to mostly trash songs on the radio, and go to mediocre movies, because only the special ones have the internal strength and stamina to tough out their work until true magic happens, like John Lennon or Bethhoven.

[Ogg Vorbis]

I never "got" john lennon. Not sure what's so great about him. Perhaps he had a gift of being provocative. He'd say, "yeah now the beatles are bigger than jesus," which was very calculated to cause a stir with the religious powers. Then too he writes 'imagine' which was cause for alarm from the political powers.

If you had the original mix for imagine, and you just muted the vocal tracks, would it be a great song? Hmm....

[ras.s]

Aside from chords, there has to be something the listener can relate to. Most likely lyrically but otherwise as well.

Think about that John Lennon song. First there's a imperative in the song title, like "Imagine!". Okay, I'm imagining now... no heaven? Ok.. no hell? Only sky? True. Now all the people.. living for today? No countries, yeah I can imagine that. No religions.. 'imagine all the people living life in peace'. The song is a three minute poem everyone can remember the lyrics to while the song is playing and the song is about a very basic human need -- the yearning for peace of life.

Add to that the history and charisma of John Lennon, the silent Yoko Ono and the bird tweets at the end. It's just great. It doesn't harm either, if there's a melody the listener can whistle.


And the same thing for a dance track at the local club, with a stupid one liner off from a sample cd, a voice commanding 'now people come dance on the dancefloor'. The people have been preparing for that all day, their minds are set, now they're at the club, the beat is thumping and the voice commands them. Sure they will dance.


I'm coming from a reggae point of view. The chord structures are usually relatively simple, a great tune can be made out of even one (one!!) or two chords. But every tune has a melody with the bass line that anyone can hum. Or a melodic phrase that people can whistle. And lyrics are always about people's lives. Chords are often almost omnipresent with organ, piano and guitar all playing the same thing.


So for me a track to be catchy, there has to be something I can personally relate to. And even through the presence of chords, I most likely relate to melodies, lyrics, moods and danceability.

[sammy24]

a lot of things can make a great song. An incredibly catchy groove-- this doesn't have to be a fancy chord progression, but rather the rhythmic blend of the rhythm section instruments. And great melodies can be written over very simple chord progressions, too, sometimes.

[A.M. Gold]

The best songs, MO, have great melody and harmony that work together. A great chord progression will make a nice song but you still have to have strength in the melody for it to be truly great.

[chicagodannyd]

The best songs, MO, have great melody and harmony that work together. A great chord progression will make a nice song but you still have to have strength in the melody for it to be truly great.

Great melodies/harmonies are almost self generated by great chord progressions. The two go together. Great composers write great chord progressions. They hunt them down relentlessly in pursuit of the inspiring melodies that come from the hypnotic chord progressions.

Also, LYRICAL CONTENT, I agree, is extremely important. But great lyrics will be forgettable without a great melody and chord progressons. And great melodies/chord progressions can be very memorable without super lyrics. Listen to Bocelli singing in Italian, but the song I pointed out is so fantastic, it easily survives most people's lack of any understanding of the Italian lyrics.

[tomg]

If you had the original mix for imagine, and you just muted the vocal tracks, would it be a great song? Hmm....

No it'd be an instrumental. Vocals are what makes a song a song. The idea is what makes a song great. Whether it causes you to think or just shake your ass, does it make a connection? is the important thing. I'm not a huge Lennon fan but Imagine despite whatever, whoever, including me, thinks of the content, IMO is a great song that connected with a lot of people.

Starting over is my favorite Lennon tune.. It's starts out low and slow to draw you in and then softly rocks with a great production, slowly building up with background vocals. The lyric idea means something to everyone. Almost everyone would like to start over at least once in their life.

John Lennon - Starting Over

[A.M. Gold]

The best songs, MO, have great melody and harmony that work together. A great chord progression will make a nice song but you still have to have strength in the melody for it to be truly great.

Great melodies/harmonies are almost self generated by great chord progressions. The two go together. Great composers write great chord progressions. They hunt them down relentlessly in pursuit of the inspiring melodies that come from the hypnotic chord progressions.

I guess I half agree with this. I personally think good melodies are self generated by great chord progressions, but I don't agree a great melody is guaranteed by a great chord progression. However, if it was a truly stunning progression, the piece would be impressive with just about any melody, as long as it has some coherence. Nothing is automatic in music, though; everything requires effort and craft, even if you start with a great progression.

[generalstargazer]

I don't think it's the chord progression at all. Everyone uses the same chords in everything and even the same progressions. You can't copyright the chord progression but you can the melody.

The melody is everything to a song. That's the part most non-musician people hum and remember.

This video shows a common 4 chord progression present in many many pop songs:



I-V-vi-IV chord progression

and lyrics... yeah melody and lyrics make a great song.

[eDrummist]

chicagodannyd,

Most great songwriters usually start with a melody, not a chord progression. In the case of Imagine and The Warrior is a Child, both have simple chord progressions (with Imagine being the more simple of the two) and Imagine has a very simple melody line and the chord progression is so simple, it is quite boring and repetitious if played without the melody (and don't take that wrong, I am a huge Beatles, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison fan and Imagine is one of my favorite Lennon songs of all). Both songs have lyrics that resonate with people (granted, Twilla's music reaches a very different, religious audience that is typically offended by Lennon's anti-religion message -- so these two songs present strong examples of how lyrics can resonate with one audience and alienate another).

But it is the marriage of lyric and melody (AKA prosody) -- not the chord progressions -- that make these songs so powerful to the listener. Most songwriters will agree on this. The chord progression provides support, drives the song and compliments the melody, but the melody and lyric are king.

- eDrummist

[wrench45us]

I love a great chord progression. At one time I played a tenor banjo playing unconventional songs like Motown and Grateful Dead as well as Dixieland a few rock anthems. I was intrigued by the fact that some songs could work on a chording instrument and some songs couldn't. This is what initially sparked my interest in theory many years ago

But I'll admit there are a lot of great songs of melody or lyric that don't work very well as a set of chords. I don't think melodies generally arise from chord progression -- though I have made that happen. I think most songwriters work from melody and lyric and find the chords that fit -- usually that's a conventional fit, but it can be an unconventional fit or it can be a very tight fit ala Gershwin or Cole Porter or Tin Pan Alley where every twist is accompanied by a chord change.

But there are a lot of great songs with 3 chords. I would mention the Kinks entire 1st album. I think some brilliant songwriting.
and why has no one mentioned rhythm
melody lyric rhythm -- I would say chords actually come in last behind some sort of churning mix of the 1st 3

[generalstargazer]

I love a great chord progression. At one time I played a tenor banjo playing unconventional songs like Motown and Grateful Dead as well as Dixieland a few rock anthems. I was intrigued by the fact that some songs could work on a chording instrument and some songs couldn't. This is what initially sparked my interest in theory many years ago

But I'll admit there are a lot of great songs of melody or lyric that don't work very well as a set of chords. I don't think melodies generally arise from chord progression -- though I have made that happen. I think most songwriters work from melody and lyric and find the chords that fit -- usually that's a conventional fit, but it can be an unconventional fit or it can be a very tight fit ala Gershwin or Cole Porter or Tin Pan Alley where every twist is accompanied by a chord change.

But there are a lot of great songs with 3 chords. I would mention the Kinks entire 1st album. I think some brilliant songwriting.
and why has no one mentioned rhythm
melody lyric rhythm -- I would say chords actually come in last behind some sort of churning mix of the 1st 3

yes melody lyric rhythm > chord progression

[chicagodannyd]

As they say, a man convinced against his will, is a man of his opinion still.
On a site like this there is little way to convince others of one's opinion. In my case, I would have to literally sit at the piano with the unbelievers and demonstrate how a haunting, captivating melody and its harmony, spring from a beautiful, original, ingenius, chord progression - how one can make a song come alive emotionally with the right chord progression, especially ballads. The chord progression is the anchor to a song and its arrangement.

Here's an experiment: Write a beginning idea for 4 or 8 measure melody. Now begin your relentless search for every combination of chords you can think up or search. Experiment how the melody begins to sound very different with each subtle chord change and how is effects the emotional impact of the simple melody. Now if you happen to strike that haunting chord progression, now adjust your melody, to make it even more compelling. Now add the harmony and other instruments in your arrangement. Take your time. Play with it. Experiment and search until you walk away from your keyboard jumping with the excitement of writing that special song that worms its way into your mind. Come back the next day and work on the song again. If the song is good, it should inspire lyrics. An experienced lyricist can listen to it and marvel and feel, "I would love to write the lyrics for it. I've got ideas already!" Of course all of this assumes you already understand and can write music.

CHECK OUT THE CHORD PROGRESSION OF VIVO PER LEI by Andrea Bocelli:
http://www.e-chords.com/chords/andrea-b ... vo-per-lei

This demonstrates my point. No beginner could ever write this chord progression, or this beutiful song.

I feel those who master chord progressions in every way have a huge advantage, and from these composers will come the great musicals, great songs, concertos, and stunning works of art. Just my opinion.

[BONES]

Of course, there are those of us who don't rate melody much, if at all, instead looking for great rhythm in a song. I would certainly not rate any of the songs listed in the top post as great songs, by any measure. In fact, I have never understood the popularity of Lennon's post-Beatles stuff; it always seemed like a hollow shell of his work with McCartney. OTOH, McCartney continued to write good material with Wings for many years after the Beatles.

[Colonel Flashback]

Of course, there are those of us who don't rate melody much, if at all, instead looking for great rhythm in a song. I would certainly not rate any of the songs listed in the top post as great songs, by any measure. In fact, I have never understood the popularity of Lennon's post-Beatles stuff; it always seemed like a hollow shell of his work with McCartney. OTOH, McCartney continued to write good material with Wings for many years after the Beatles.

oooh, i smell a Novakill cover of ebony&ivory