Chord "substitution"

by Philip Quintas
(Fort Worth, TX)

Using the methods described in "The Songwriting Genius Within You" has had a profound effect on my creativity.

My most recently finished song was written by first hearing an idea (melody and lyric) in my head early one morning. I recognized it as a song"seed" idea and immediately notated it (that's what I do, I love writing standard notation - it's never exactly what the final song melodies are, but it help me to remember and expand on inspired ideas).

Then I began singing and playing the idea on my guitar over and over again allowing my subconscious mind to expand it and soon I had written a complete "verse" which lead me right into another section of music that eventually became the "chorus" (again after playing it and "riffing off" the original harmonic and melodic idea).

Here's where your technique really came into play - I knew i wanted to say what the concept was that had generated the first idea (it came from a sermon i had heard early that month), and I knew I wanted the melody to ascend (this was a conscious choice a.k.a. my editing process) so as I lay in bed at night I imagined how the melody who go up as the bass line descended.

The very next morning I instantly wrote the "bridge" just I had imagined it using major and minor chords but as I played it in my mind I heard a series of diminished and half diminished chords over the first part of the newest section (instead of the major and minor I was playing.

So I picked them out on my guitar and there it was - my latest song. It's called "Grateful and Humble" and I've performed it twice, once at the church where I heard the inspirational sermon that sparked my creative effort and then again at my local Christian songwriters meeting.
Thanks Geoff!