“One of my go-to things to spice up a progression is to apply a lot of 7 chords co it–major 7s, minor 7s, and dominant
7s. A lot of my favorite records from the ’60s and ’70s did that. but
we lost that somewhere along the way. Another thing is to switch from
major to minor on the same chord to resolve a phrase. That’s a Beatles
trick, and it really helps me melodically.
“Throwing in key changes for the chorus is another thing I’ll do. I
might modulate up a full step, but only for the chorus, and then come
back down for the verse. It’s pretty cliche to just wait for the end of
the song to jump up a full step. It’s very Celine Dion. Desmond Child
was also guilty of that in the ’80s. I worked with Desmond on the very
first record I ever did. I was trying to explain a lyric about love,
and he lashed out at me and said, ‘What do you know about love? You’re
not even a person yet.’ I was offended at the time butte was right. In
order to speak from your experiences, you need to have those
experiences first.”
(Via)
photo by flickr user jnewland