Reharmonizing a chorus - Sibelius Tutorial

- [Instructor] Another way to bring additional excitement to your song is by reharmonizing your chorus. This is a technique you don't see often but it can be a very effective way to surprise your listener. It's especially useful at the end of a song as a way to make your chorus feel fresh when people have already heard it multiple times. Some great examples of songs that use this technique are Chris Brown's, "Forever," Madonna's, "Crazy for you" and the Replacement's "Can't Hardly Wait." Let me show you how this works for our example; "The Only one for Me." Here it is again in its original state; ♪ Take me as I am, ♪ ♪ cause I do the best I can, ♪ ♪ And I know you are the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me I will make you see. ♪ Now let's assume you've heard the chorus of the song several times already. Changing any aspect of a chorus once the listener has already heard it a couple times runs counter to the chorus. The chorus is there to ground the listener, ideally it's the moment of the song they get to sing along with. That said, there are couple simple ways to change the chords of a chorus to make it feel new again. One way is to shift the base note of the chords. Have a listen to the chorus of Only One For Me again, where I've changed the base notes to a couple chords; ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ Can you hear the subtle difference from the original version? The rest of the harmony is exactly the same, I just changed the base notes of what was the E-flat major and B-flat major in bars one, two, five and six to G and C. This turns the chord of E-flat and B-flat into C minor seven and G minor seven. When you hear this change in context it has a dramatic effect on the song. Here's a version of Only One For Me where I use this Harmonic shift on the double chorus you typically find at the end of songs. So I'm gonna play the chorus followed by a double chorus. In the first chorus you're gonna hear the harmony how it was, in the double chorus you're gonna hear the new harmony with the new base notes and hear how the change really affects the song in a cool way. ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ Did you hear the drama those shifted base notes created the second time around. They play upon the hearers expectation to hear the chorus the same way again. There's another subtle way we can shift the harmony of a final chorus and that's by changing the basic core progression. The original core progression of Only One For Me is one five two four or in our key of E-flat major it's E-flat major followed by B-flat major followed by F minor seven followed by A flat major. Now for the double chorus here, I'm gonna try another chord sequence from the same key that fits with the melody, you'll see it has an even more dramatic effect than just changing the baselines, have a listen. We'll start with the chorus the way it is normally in the harmony and then we're gonna do the new harmony at the double chorus. ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ Pretty cool right? I just reharmonized the double chorus with chords all from E-flat with one special exception at the end of bar 12. All of these chords I just played are still in E-flat, so even though the harmony shifted we still feel like we're in the key of the song. Have a listen again; ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ And that we were meant to be ♪ ♪ You're the only one for me ♪ ♪ I will make you see ♪ It's important that we don't shift the core progression of a chorus too drastically, we don't want this change to be distracting. Remember it's still the chorus. Just a subtle change in the harmony at the end of a song will go a long way in making the chorus feel brand new even though we've heard it before. This is a great unexpected way to bring new excitement to your song