Stop 6 of 6
Your first song
An original progression that ties chords, strumming and form together.
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Stop 6 of 6
An original progression that ties chords, strumming and form together.
It's time to put it all together. You have six chords, you can change without stopping and you strum in time with the metronome. That's enough to play a whole song, start to finish. In this stop you play "Leaf Trail", an original song written for this journey, and learn how a song is organised inside: its sections, its map and its chord chart.
Hardly any song is a single idea repeated over and over. It's made of sections that alternate, like legs of a trip. The order of those sections is the . The most common ones in popular music are:
Each section has its own . This is the map of "Leaf Trail":
Before you play, listen to the whole song with the backing and follow the map with your eyes. Count the bars: each highlighted box is one bar of four beats.
Notice the contrast: the verse sounds inward and thoughtful, and when the chorus arrives the song suddenly opens up, like stepping out of the shade of the trees into a clearing. That's no accident: the verse mostly uses minor chords and the chorus only major ones.
The verse lasts eight bars, one chord per bar:
The verse changes, one by one:
| Change | Trick |
|---|---|
| Am → Em | Fingers 2 and 3 shift together one string towards the low strings; finger 1 lifts |
| Em → Dm | Air change; remember to strum from string 4 |
| Dm → Am | Air change; the bass goes back to string 5 |
| Dm → E | The whole hand travels to the low strings: the hardest one |
| E → A | Into the chorus: air change, bass first |
The chorus also lasts eight bars:
Here the 2-1-3 fingering of A shines: between A and D finger 1 is the anchor and finger 3 the guide, and that change happens four times in each chorus.
Play E and stop. You'll feel the music left hanging, like a question. Now play A: there's the answer. In the key of A, the E chord's job is to create tension and the A chord's job is to release it. That relationship (where the chord built on the fifth note of the scale leads to the chord on the first) is one of the strongest engines of tonal music, and you'll study it in Harmony City. That's why E closes the verse (setting up the chorus) and appears in the second-to-last bar of the chorus (setting up the final rest on A).
Musicians rarely read songs in full notation; they use a : the chords written bar by bar, separated by bar lines. This is "Leaf Trail":
| Section | Bar 1 | Bar 2 | Bar 3 | Bar 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | Am | Am | ||
| Verse | Am | Em | Dm | Am |
| Am | Em | Dm | E | |
| Chorus | A | D | A | E |
| A | D | E | A | |
| Verse 2 | same as verse | |||
| Chorus | same as chorus | |||
| Outro | A (one strum, let it ring) |
How to read it:
The intro is two bars of Am. It sets the tempo and the mood, and gives you time to settle in. Give yourself a out loud ("1, 2, 3, 4") and go.
The outro is a single strum of A that you let ring until it fades, or at least for four beats (a whole note). It's coming home after the trail:
Choose the level you can play without stopping from start to finish. Playing level 1 all the way through beats playing level 3 with gaps.
Strum once on the 1 of each bar and let the chord ring for four beats (a whole note), counting. That gives you three full beats for each change: ideal for learning the map.
Goal: Play the whole song (35 bars) over the backing with a single strum on the 1 of each bar, without getting lost.
The pattern of the whole stage: one strum on every beat. Use the open strum on beat 4 if a change resists (especially Dm → E).
Goal: Play the whole song at 72 BPM with four down-strums per bar, without stopping the strum.
For contrast, play the verse with the long, short, short pattern (calmer) and the chorus with four quarter notes (more energy). For an extra challenge, add the up-strum on the "&" of 4 in the chorus.
Goal: Play the whole song at 76 BPM with pattern 2 in the verse and pattern 1 in the chorus.
Play over the full backing:
A song without words is an invitation. "Leaf Trail" has no lyrics on purpose: write your own. It doesn't need to be poetry; something that tells a small story in the verse and a line that repeats in the chorus is enough.
Ideas to personalise it:
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