During last week’s Fearless Songwriter Challenge, I created the song prompts using lyrics from Brandi Carlile's songs. I figured for this week, I’d stick with the theme and take a look at one of her most popular and powerful songs, The Joke. https://youtu.be/5r6A2NexF88 The Joke is a power ballad. Lots of power ballads are built … Continue reading Looking at The Joke by Brandi Carlile

This past Sunday was the first day of a new Fearless Challenge. I usually put the blog on pause during the challenge, but I happened to write this for a group I belong to. Sunday, I woke up early-ish, sat down, and did some writing. As I was working, I put together this sheet, a … Continue reading Chord Flow Keys, Mirrored

Last week I talked about Diminished Chords. I called them the rebels of the major scale. In a sense, it’s true. They don't appear to follow the same rules as major and minor chords. This causes music teachers, myself included, to put them in a corner while teaching how major and minor chords work. But, on … Continue reading The Leading Tone and the Gravity of Chords

Diminished chords are the rebels of the major scale. They can be beautiful and mysterious. They can also cause a lot of trouble. Music teachers don't like to deal with them. (Some may not understand them). They don't follow 'the rules,' or they don't seem to. And it's easy to get lost in rabbit holes … Continue reading Diminished Chords: Rebels of the Major Scale

Ask a typical music or guitar teacher what chords are in a given scale and they'll start by showing you the chords in the key of C. Which looks like this: I'm just kidding. They'll probably begin by explaining the steps and half-steps in the C major scale, then talk about how to build chords, and then … Continue reading Chord Flow, The Skeleton of a Key