Songwriting UK — Winter 2017

(Axel Boer) #1
James Linderman
teaches guitar
and piano
and coaches
songwriting
over Skype
to students
all over the
world. He
teaches songwriting for film and
film composition at the Canada
Film Centre and is an Academic
Ambassador to Berklee College of
Music. James has recently released
a new book, Song Forms for
Songwriters available at his site at
jameslinderman.com

DIMINISHED
RESPONSIBILITY
Hopefully, these two examples will free
you up to start to use some diminished and
augmented harmony in your next songs.
If you would like me to send you a chart
of diminished and augmented options
in various keys, require a more detailed
explanation and want to book a Skype
session, or if you want to send me an mp
of your new song with a diminished or
augmented chord in it, feel free to email me
at [email protected]

JAMES LINDERMAN

them slower and faster and see how easily
they can be extracted from this source song
and made adaptable to another songwriting
opportunity. Of course Danny O’Keefe did
not invent this chord change and so, just like
you, he has come across it and found a new
use for it back when he wrote The Road.
He follows this six bars of vamp with two
bars of a dropping bass movement that walks
through chords from the key (key of C) and
it is interesting to note that O’Keefe alters his
chord system substantially for the refrain bars
at the end of the verse. So, just as he moves
towards the title of the song he adds this new
chord system and larger chord movement to
get the listeners attention pulling the listener
out of the kind of hypnotic tunnel vision
effect that a two chord vamp has created.


11


TECHNIQUE

Free download pdf