Canadian Musician - November/December 2017 | Page 58
WRITING
James Linderman teaches guitar and piano, coaches songwriting to students and songwriters all over
the world, and is an academic ambassador to the Berklee School of Music. For more information,
contact him at [email protected] or visit www.jameslinderman.com.
By James Linderman
The Sad Story of How Chord
Displacement Tried to Save the
Poor Little Box Pattern
T
here is a trend in songwriting
that I do not hear a lot about
from music academics, but is a
central talking point for a lot of
“boots on the ground” songwrit-
ers who make songwriting their work, or are
working hard to make it more than a hobby.
This trend is the reduction of song form
down to what we call the 4x4 box pattern.
Box patterns use three to four chords (one
per bar) in four-bar phrase lines and then re-
peat that pattern four times (thus the term 4x4).
Sometimes there is a chord swapped out in the
last bar of this 16-bar frame and sometimes the
last two bars will show a different ending (also
called a resolution, or cadence), but often not.
This 16-bar frame is then used to write a verse.
Sometimes there is a second, slightly al-
tered box pattern and it might be a chorus
or a bridge. If there is a second pattern, then
what writers often do now is merely change
the order of the same chords used in the verse.
That compositional technique is referred to as
“displacement.”
Ex. 1 is what that might look like: Many songwriters use displacement to try
and squeeze another few songs out of the box
patterns they love most. It is also used in an
attempt to build some amount of variance into
the chord system without introducing any new
harmonic sounds that the listener might find
distracting or challenging.
So, here is how to write a less repetitive box
pattern progression that will still not seem dis-
tracting to a listener in the middle of studying
for an algebra midterm, but can also stand up
to high rotation play.
Let’s use the same verse progression but
use the flatted 7 th chord (F) to replace the D
chord in line three. Let’s also use the last four
bars in this 16-bar verse frame to create some
tension with a very conventional Dsus4 to D
chord.
Ex. 2 is what that will look like:
Ex.1 This still has much of the simplicity of
the initial progression but it now actually
progresses.
The chorus displacement is now made
more interesting as it comes out of the tension
and the break in the “one different chord per
bar” pattern we have used.
We can apply a similar upgrade to the cho-
rus that might look like this. We swap out the
back half of line three with another flatted 7 th
(F) and have it resolve to a C chord. We also add
the same Dsus 4 to D feature.
Verse:
G/D/Em/C
G/D/Em/C
G/D/Em/C
G/D/Em/C
Chorus or Bridge:
Em/C/D/G
Em/C/D/G
Em/C/D/G
Em/C/D/G
58 • C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N
Ex. 2
G/D/Em/C
G/D/Em/C
G/F/Em/C
Dsus4/Dsus4/D/D
That would look like Ex. 3:
Ex.3
Em/C/D/G
Em/C/D/G
Em/C/F/C
Dsus4/Dsus4/D/D
The whole progression could then resolve
on a two-bar tag of a G chord and that would
complete the pattern and resolve the tension
created by the D chords in the closing bars of
each section.
This is an excellent way to give contempo-
rary listeners what they want, which is a reason-
ably transparent box pattern progression, but
it will make just enough of a statement to still
be engaging months or even years from now.
It is also very likely to inspire a more en-
gaging melody and lyric and hold your own
interest as well, as you record it and then per-
form it over and over again, perhaps over the
course of your whole career.
Maybe this will help displacement save the
sad little box pattern after all…
This column is
inspired by James
Linderman’s ac-
claimed book, Song
Forms for Song-
writers. For more
information or to
purchase, visit
MusicBooksPlus.com.