suspended chords : sus4 : sus2 : chord

Songwriting thought of the Day

Uneven Lyric Length

Have you thought about your lyric phrase lengths? The Golden rule- Keep things EVEN. Ninety percent of mainstream commercial pop music is written with four beats to each bar (4/4) time, meaning the music is divisible by 4. This needs to be considered when writing commercial pop lyrics. If you write consistent song sections-verses, chorus, bridges, etc, that are grouped into 4 or 8 lines, you are on the right track. If you write lyrics with sections containing odd phrase lengths, e.g., 3 lines,  5 lines,  7 lines, or phrases with notable uneven syllable lengths, etc,  they will not work well rhythmically, and will almost always be overlooked by composers looking for lyrics. Here is a great article on this very subject >>


suspended chords : sus4 : sus2 : chord

A suspended chord, or “sus chord”, is a chord in which the third has been displaced by either of its dissonant neighbouring notes, forming intervals of a major second or (more commonly), a perfect fourth with the root. This results in two distinct chord types: the suspended second (sus2) and the suspended fourth (sus4). The chords, Csus2 and C sus4 consist of the notes C D G and C F G, respectively. Extended versions are also possible, such as the Continue