4 Chords For Every Song

[Shameka Cretsinger]

Iteach my students to learn the chords for every song they play so that they can actually accompany someone else on the song. I will explain an important first step, i.e., how to acquire the chords in the first place..

Once you have a chord chart or lead sheet, in order to memorize the chords of the song, listen to a recording of the song and play the root note of the chord on the downbeat of every chord.

Give yourself time to do this while reading from the chord chart. Use the chart as an aid. Play the bass line to the song 10-20 times while reading from the chart. Then try remembering it without the visual aid. That is how to memorize the chords to a song.

But let's keep it simple. We're going to do everything in the key of E, which means you'll be needing the chords of E, B, C#mi and A. You won't be able to play ALL of each song with them in most cases, but you should be able to work out the rest.

I, IV, V, and vi are the most common harmonies in pop music, and they can be arranged into several schemas, each with a distinct sound. Each schema can have variations, such as chord substitution or rotation, while still remaining recognizable as that schema.

The progressions discussed in this chapter all have something in common. They use the same four chords: I, IV, V, and vi, which are probably the most common chords in all of pop music. Because of this, they all sound somewhat similar; the difference is in the order of the chords.

Like the 1950s doo-wop, this is a four-chord cyclical progression. It has been around for some time and can be found in a variety of musical styles, but it became increasingly common beginning in the mid-1990s with singer/songwriters such as Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, and Joan Osborne,

Even if you think the real tonic is the minor tonic, listening to the approach to the major tonic will help distinguish among these four-chord schema options. Listening to the approach to the minor tonic may not be helpful, since both the singer/songwriter and the hopscotch schemas approach the minor tonic by step.

Replacing a standard chord (i.e., within a harmonic schema) with a different chord. The substituted chord is typically identical in harmonic function to the standard chord, and often shares at least two notes with the standard chord.

A harmonic function that may either lead toward a dominant-function chord or back to a tonic-function chord. Subdominant function is most typically associated with the IV chord, otherwise known as the subdominant chord, and the II chord, otherwise known as the supertonic chord.

The distance between roots of adjacent chords. For example, "root motion by step" refers to the distance between two chords that are only one step apart, such as I and ii, IV and V, etc. Note that the root is not always in the bass, so this is a separate concept from bass motion.

EXERCISE: Take songs you already know and compare them to the circle of fifths. For example, if the song you know goes from C major to A minor to D minor to G major to C major, then compare where those notes C, A, D, G, C appear on the circle and the type of movement you notice.

EXTRA CREDIT: Invert the chords by taking the current note off the bottom and putting it on the top. Do this again to get the next inversion. If the chord has 4 notes, do this AGAIN to get the final inversion.

The Axis of Awesome were an Australian comedy music act with members Jordan Raskopoulos, Lee Naimo and Benny Davis, active from 2006 to 2018. The trio covered a wide variety of performance styles and performed a combination of original material and pop parodies.

The Axis of Awesome formed in 2006, their name being a play on the phrase "axis of evil" used by United States President George W. Bush. The trio were heavily involved in improv theatre at the University of Sydney and decided to try something different. The band played at a few stand-up comedy nights and improv events in Sydney and performed a fortnightly segment on FBi Radio, but got their first big break when they released a number of rap parodies lampooning the 2007 Australian Federal Election.

The band gained further success performing in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and making television and radio appearances. Their 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, titled "The Axis of Awesome Comeback Spectacular", received a Moosehead Award. They took the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 where it was received with critical and audience acclaim.[1][2]

After the Edinburgh festival, the Axis of Awesome's song "4 Chords", a medley of 36 pop songs that all contain the same basic chord structure, received airplay on BBC Radio 1.[3] This airplay drove listeners to the internet and "4 Chords" went viral, receiving millions of views on YouTube. The success on YouTube prompted increased interest, both home and abroad, and the Axis performed the song on many radio and television programs, including Nova 96.9, Triple M, The Footy Show, Good News Week and 9am with David & Kim.

In April 2009, the Axis of Awesome performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a new show, the Axis of Awesome vs Bee.[4] The show wove the band's songs into a narrative involving a giant bee. The Axis of Awesome vs Bee was also performed at the Sydney Comedy Festival (formerly the Cracker Comedy Festival) in May 2009.

The Axis toured regional Queensland and New South Wales as part of the Melbourne Comedy festival roadshow and performed at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival[5] in May and June. They returned to the Edinburgh fringe in August with a new sell-out show "The Axis of Awesome: Infinity Rock Explosion" and appeared at the World's Funniest Island festival in Sydney in October.

In February 2010, the Axis of Awesome released their second album, Infinity Rock Explosion!, and performed sold out seasons at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Sydney Comedy Festival and the Singapore Flipside Festival. They received the Time Out award for best local talent at the Sydney comedy festival and recorded their first DVD, The Axis of Awesome Live, which was released in Australia on 6 October 2010 by Punchline and Beyond Entertainment.

In February 2016, Raskopoulos publicly came out as transgender in a video called "What's happened to Jordan's beard".[6] She was pleasantly surprised by the "overwhelmingly positive" public reaction. Their album released that year, Viva La Vida Loca Las Vegas, features a cover of Against Me!'s "Transgender Dysphoria Blues".

In August 2018, the band announced on Facebook that they would no longer be performing together as the Axis of Awesome.[7] The group had taken a break the year prior and later decided to make the break permanent.

The band continually varied the songs comprising the medley, often incorporating new releases. The Axis' song "Birdplane" (itself a parody of the Five for Fighting song "Superman") was always included, as well as "Down Under" by the Australian band Men at Work. The medley usually started with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". The song always concluded with the chorus of "Scar" (by Missy Higgins), except with the final line changed from "Could you leave me with a scar?" to "That's all it takes to be a star" (referring to the four chords themselves).

Oh, Colin... this is magnificent. Magnificent in it's absolute awfulness. You have struggled mightily with it and the best moments are (as others have said) when you added your own sound to the basics provided by the AI.

I couldn't stop laughing from the moment I read the lyrics (rhyming 'sought' and 'not' doesn't work for a Brit, and that was just the start of the absurdities for me) right through to hearing you struggle with making it work as a recording.

Imagine a future, if you will, in which us songwriters don\u2019t have to sit around in our drafty garrets, plumbing the depths of our pain and misery for the public\u2019s entertainment and enjoyment. A future where creative inspiration is at our very fingertips, right past our keyboards on our laptop screens, where we creatives can sit back and let robots do all the heavy emotional lifting for us.

As you\u2019re probably aware, this thing called ChatGPT was unveiled recently \u2014 it\u2019s what they call a \u201Cconversational AI\u201D and I imagine that, very soon, it will be finding its way into our every daily interaction with the internet. On a lark, I signed up for access to ChatGPT a few weeks ago. I dabbled, I asked it a few questions. It was funny. You could ask it to tell you a story; you could ask it if Sanyo ductless mini-splits are compatible with other line sets other than its own. It will happily oblige on both accounts.

It went on. There were two verses, a chorus, a bridge and an outro. I\u2019m not sure how it decided this was Decemberist-y, but I get it. It\u2019s like what someone might think a Decemberists song sounded like if they\u2019d skimmed a few reviews, observed some fairly skin-deep Twitter hot takes. It\u2019s got sailors and lighthouses and battles at sea. I get it. Fine.

So that\u2019s kind of wild. Not only can this AI write out a convincing-looking song lyric, but it can put together chords that, at least at first glance, kind of work. I mean, the verse progression\u2019s got the classic pattern: the root chord, the 4 and the 5. It\u2019s got the minor fall and the major lift. It pleases the Lord.

The AI knows that the chorus needs to have a change \u2014 so it just rearranges the four chords from the verse. And then it knows that the bridge should be a further tweak \u2014 it introduces the minor as the first chord.

It was a bit of a headscratcher. It wasn\u2019t able to format it in such a way that it was clear when the chords changed, so I had to guess. The verses were particularly baffling, with four of the eight chord changes happening on the first line, the second four happening over the next three lines. I thought it was maybe a mistake; I asked it to write them out a few more times, but each time they came back the same. That was how the song went, goddamn it.

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