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Writing Better Songs: Part II - Writing in Minor Keys

By Dan Cross, About.com

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Writing Better Songs: Minor Key Signatures (cont.)

Now, let's look at a slightly more complex song. Most people will recognize the very famous Eagles tune Hotel California. Here are the chords for the intro and verse of the song:

Bmin - F#maj - Amaj - Emaj - Gmaj - Dmaj - Emin - F#maj

By studying the above progression, we'll can surmise that the song is in the key of B minor (which contains the chords Bmin, C#dim, C#min, Dmaj, Daug, Emin, Emaj, F#min, F#maj, Gmaj, G#dim, Amaj, A#dim). Knowing this, we can numerically represent the chord progression of the song as i - v - bVII - IV - bVI - bIII - iv - V in that key. Hotel California is a great illustration of a tune which more fully takes advantage of all the chords available in a minor key.

To more fully comprehend minor keys, and how to write songs in minor keys, I highly recommend analyzing dozens more songs, in the same manner as illustrated above, until you get a better idea of what chord movements sound best to you, etc. Try "borrowing" parts of chord progressions from songs you like, and adapting them into your own songs. Your efforts should pay off in no time, and you'll find yourself writing better and better chord progressions for your original songs. Good luck!

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