[MUSIC]. >> We're going to talk about harmonic rhythm for highlighting your lyrics. When I have a harmonic rhythm, and it's the same, and nothing is changing. Let's say my harmonic rhythm is [MUSIC] the first chord is two beats. I have, so I of a C chord for two beats and then I go to G for one beat, and then they go to F for one beat, and I just keep doing that. Nothing's going to catch your attention because you're like, oh yeah, I got that. That's what you're doing. You're just going to be focused on the lyric, the story becomes mesmerizing. [MUSIC] I'm going to play you a song using that exact harmonic rhythm. [MUSIC] Caught in the crossfire as a child [MUSIC] bullet words and a long goodbye [MUSIC] You watch the rain fall on your shoes Read a Bible soaked in booze It gets hard to believe in a smile But I might as a songwriter want something to stand out lyrically in my story. What part of that story, would I want my audience to really think about for a second, caught in the crossfire as a child bullet words and a long goodbye You watch the rain fall on your shoes Read a Bible soaked in booze It gets hard to believe in a smile. There's a lot of things I could choose in that lyric to highlight. But what I want to highlight is probably this kid is reading a Bible that's soaked in booze. That's a complicated image there. That's what I want you to pay attention to. What I'm going to do is I'm going to just extend that moment for an extra three beats. [MUSIC] Caught in the crossfire as a child [MUSIC] bullet words and a long goodbye [MUSIC] You watch the rain fall on your shoes Read a Bible soaked in booze It gets hard to believe in a smile Hopefully that highlighted that moment for you, I held it for an unexpected three beats so you could go oh wait I have a minute to think about. She's reading a Bible soaked in booze. That's a really important part of my story that I want you to think about, and if I just keep the harmonic rhythm the same, I'm not taking advantage of the fact that if I change it, I can really highlight that moment in my song and make you really think about it for a minute. When you're talking and you stop talking, and I say yellow house on a hill, and I don't see anything else. You have to go, I guess I'm going to think about yellow house on a hill for a minute, and it's the same with songwriting. if I leave a space in the lyric, I give you a moment to spend with that idea. So as a songwriter, I really want you to think about the fact that that kid is reading a Bible soaked and booze because it's really complicated. You know, it's her dad a preacher, is an alcoholic preacher, is someone in the house and alcoholic and they've spilled booze on the Bible and she's finding solace in the Bible. It's a really cool image that I might want my listener to think about. So try that out, try maybe spotlighting one of your lyrics by holding that chord in an unexpected way, just like you would if you were in a cafe talking to someone and they were about to leave and you went, wait one more thing and you put your hand on their forearm and held him in place for a second. It's just a really good technique for highlighting your lyrics. So try that out. It's often really a great challenge for songwriters to change meters. Instead of writing a song, and 4:4, you could try to write a song in 3:4. It just gives it a little, something special. Anytime I hear something in 6:8,12:8, any triple meter song is a really great choice just to try something different. But you can also highlight your lyric and a really original way if you're writing a song in 3:4. I'm going to play a couple of bars of a song that uses just one chord per measure. It doesn't change in an unexpected way, so nothing stands out. So we're still talking about highlighting your lyric, using harmonic rhythm in this harmonic rhythm in triple meter, which is 3:4, is one chord per measure, so each chord gets three beats. [MUSIC] This city is a graveyard, memories passing like streetcars, every corner is an altar, where I've held you in my arms. Now what I want to do, is I want to bring in a new chord, and I want to change it on beat two in a really unexpected way. [MUSIC]This city is a graveyard, memories passing like streetcars, every corner is an altar, where I've held you in my arms. So when I change the chord, your ears come with me. When I change the chord on beat two, I'm highlighting words like city, passing, corner, and held. That's the focus of that story, but I'm not really sure that's the story that I want to tell unnecessarily. Maybe there are other words that I want to highlight. Maybe I want to change my chord on beat three and highlight a whole different story. Maybe I want to highlight graveyard, streetcars, altar, and arms. They tell them way more interesting story actually. Now I'm going to play that again and I'm going to change my harmonic rhythm from the first chord for two beats and the second chord on beat three for one beat. [MUSIC]This city is a graveyard, memories passing like streetcars, every corner is an altar, where I've held you in my arms. As a songwriter, you get to decide, you know, what story do I want to tell? What lyric do I want to highlight? Maybe you go back to the second one where it's [MUSIC] I actually really like that one. So it just depends on what you like and what you want to highlight within your lyric. But just notice that when you change your chord, the listener's attention goes with you. You can use that to your advantage as a writer to help you tell your story. Try it out.
