Someone once told me that there is no such thing as a wrong chord.
Which I believe is true…I believe there are many different ways to harmonise a song, some better than others.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about harmony and how it can totally change the complexion of a song.
Now harmony is something I have always been weak in.
I tend to use too many “straight chords”, whereas I feel that the thing that adds colour to a song is the use of “colourful chords” (for want of a better term).
In my own personal lexicon, “straight chords” are your C, F, G, Am, Em, etc. (Basically the run-of-the-mill type of chords.)
“Colourful chords” are the fancy stuff, from Eb/D to Dmaj7 to Fsus4 to Cadd9 and so on.
When used well, these stuff really make the song stand out like nothing else can.
Sometimes all it takes is that ingenious little twist, via the use of that perfect chord at the perfect place.
So anyway, recently I gave myself an exercise: I was to re-harmonise the classic song “White Christmas” using the most exotic and colourful chords I could come up with.
After some time of experimentation, here were my results:
(Click to view larger image)
You can hear what it roughly sounds like here:
Jeremy – I sang along with White Christmas. Really lovely! Thanks for sharing.