Chords for Songwriting Success: The Explosive Chorus Melody

_ _ _ _ _ _ Hey, this is Clay from the Songtown Studios and welcome to another episode of the Music Lab.
Over the course of my career, I've been blessed to have songs recorded by artists as diverse as Babyface in the pop and R&B world
to a Reba McEntire, a traditional country artist, or maybe
a contemporary country band like Lady Antebellum.
And I think there's a couple of reasons why that's happened,
but I think the biggest reason is that I love to write songs with big, explosive choruses.
Songs that when you hit that chorus, the melody just jumps out of the speaker.
And I think that translates well.
You can produce a song in a lot of different styles,
but you can never cover up the fact that maybe that song doesn't have a memorable melody.
Maybe that song doesn't have an exciting chorus melody.
And so it's those big choruses, I think, that are something that if you learn to do,
they're really going to lead to much success in your songwriting.
So I just want to take a look at one of my songs.
This song was [B] originally a song recorded by Clay Walker, and he had a top-five country hit.
And then later, a couple years later, it was recorded by Kimberly Locke, who sang it on American Idol.
It became a _ AC hit, and then a number one dance hit, of all things.
So I just wanted to play a little bit of that, and I'm going to demonstrate _ some _ things that
that song could have gone in a different direction, and it would have totally killed the chorus. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
Oh, look, there you go again, _ [E] _
looking [G#m] on that smile again. _
[F#] Even though I know you've had a [E]
hard day, _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
doing this and doing that.
_ [E] _
Always putting yourself [G#m] last. _
A [F#] whole lot of giving, not [E]
enough take.
_ [B] _ _ But you can only be strong so long [E] before you break.
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _
Go on, go [F#] on [G#m] and fall apart.
_ _ [F#] Strum to these arms of mine, and [E] I'll catch you _ every [B] time you fall.
_ _ _ Go [F#] on [G#m] and _ lose [B] it all.
_ [E] Every doubt, _ [F#] every fear, _ [E] every worry, [Bm] every tear.
_ _ [E] _
I'm right here, _ _ [B] leave it all.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Okay, as you can see, the melody in that chorus really exploded.
It went up to some higher notes, it held the notes, so it had this big, explosive chorus.
You really knew, okay, we've left that verse behind, and now we've hit the chorus, and it's time to sing along.
And you know, over the course of the last couple years, I've been fortunate to have taught a six-week masterclass.
It's an intensive class on melody writing for Songtown.
We do it every January.
And I'm amazed at how good some of the choruses are, but you don't notice they're good choruses
because they haven't been set up by writing a great verse.
And so I wanted to talk about a couple of the pitfalls.
There's two main pitfalls that I've found.
The first one is writing your verse melody too big.
So you don't have any room when you get to the chorus for the chorus to stand out.
So I'm going to play my song, Fall, and I'm going to do an example of, okay, if I write my melody too big in the verse,
then I've got nowhere to go in your chorus.
So _ _ the chorus starts on this note, so I'm going to start the melody off in that same register.
Don't look back when you come again
_ [E]
Let me know my smile [G#m] again _
Even though I [F#] know you've had a [E]
hard day
_ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
Doing this and doing that
[E] _
Always putting yourself _ [G#m] last
_ All [F#] I can give, [E] and not enough to hate
You _ [B]
can only be strong so long [E] before you break
_ [A#m] _ _ [B] _
Go _ _ _ _ [F#] on [G#m] and fall apart _ _ _
[F#] Into these arms of _ mine
And I'll [E] get you _ _ every time you
[D#] [B] So you can hear that even though it's still a nice chorus melody,
I've created such a high melody in my verse that when I get to the chorus, I don't kick up, I don't explode.
It's just the same verse, chorus.
It's a flat line all the way across.
And what happens is by the time I get to the second verse, and then the second chorus, people are going, oh gosh, give me some dynamics.
_ So that's the first common mistake.
The other mistake I found is that you'll notice in the original version of this song, the verse is pretty busy, _ rhythmic wise.
Oh look there you go again
_ [E] _ Putting on that smile again
[G#m] _ Even though [F#] I know you've had a [E] hard day
[B]
So it's pretty much da la la la la la.
It's pretty much constant rhythm, constant notes.
But then when I get to the chorus, it's
Fall, _ _ go [F#] on [G#m] and fall apart
_ [N] I'm holding notes out.
Fall, go on and fall apart _
So I go from these short choppy rhythms to long legato rhythms.
That creates contrast.
And so _ not only do we want to have different melody registers for contrast,
but we also want to look a lot of times at rhythmic contrast.
If we've got a busy verse, well let's try to do some longer notes in the chorus.
If we've got longer notes in the verse and more space in the verse, maybe we get more aggressive in the chorus and get busier in the chorus.
So those are two ways that I have found that people kill songs.
And a lot of times, like I said, they'll write a great chorus melody, but they haven't set up the chorus with the proper verse.
So it's real important that you have contrast between the verse and your chorus.
So this week when you're writing, I really would like you to go back after you've written and go,
Okay, have I got enough contrast?
Is my melody flatlining?
Or is my melody kind of building and then exploding in the chorus?
That's real important stuff.
And then check your rhythmic _ scansion.
So you want to see that if I've got a busy chorus, maybe I'll take my verse and make it less busy or vice versa.
And just kind of play around with that.
The main thing is to experiment.
_ Okay, y'all.
We'll see y'all next week and write on. _ _