Customer Reviews

Money Chords: A Songwriter's Sourcebook of Popular Chord Progressions

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Just got my copy. Wish I had taken a look at the book before I bought it. Sure, it's a hefty 450 pages but once you scan through the book you come away with the same thought you do as a guitarist thumbing through a book promising 20000 guitar chords (realizing that there are, at most, 20 different chord forms that are mechanically and unnecessarily incarnated in every key): What's the point?

Here, the author does a similar thing by presenting all of the progressions with respect to specific keys (E for _half_ of the book and then a retelling of a subset of those progressions in the other keys). What's the point? It would have been MUCH more useful -- and, frankly, obvious -- to present each chord progression in the key-independent numeric form (e.g., "I-ii-V-I"). The publisher would have killed 50% less trees going that route and would have produced a book with immediate and lasting value.

And if not purely that approach, the author could have at least accompanied each progression with the key-independent equivalent. That's a no-brainer. And given that each page is 80% white-space it's not like the publisher was scrambling for content space!

Had I known that I could have charged [for] a book for reading off and reprinting the exact verse and chorus chord progressions from a bunch of different songs (granted, hundreds) I would have gone to the library and done so myself.

I had very high hopes for this book but it falls way short of what a songwriter/composer REALLY needs--of what I need. I wanted a book that facilitates spontenaity and fuels the creative spark. That's what the book promised, but not what I received.

Despite the sheer volume, it's a lazy effort. The book lacks the level of exposition, analysis, and insights that 450 pages would seem to indicate. And, content aside, the book's design, presentation, typography, and organization are EXTREMELY poor (I'll go so far as to say stark, ugly, sophomoric, and unusable as well considering the powerful desktop publishing tools available to anybody with a computer; one would think by this book that Writers Club Press only has a single manual typerwriter at its disposal). Bottomline is these deficits successfully short-circuit the promised usefulness of this book. The book is a disappointing effort and I cannot recommend it to anyone.

Money Chords is the book to turn to when the other Songwriting Books tell you to study the chord structures of the best songs. Money Chords is the first comprehensive popular chord progression dictionary that I have come across and it is sure to become an essential companion to a Rhyming Dictionary and Lyric Book in every songwriter's library.

Money Chords introduces the 80 most popular chord progressions (plus all common variations) and the 12 tools used to create them without resorting to confusing and complicated discussions of music theory.

The book includes thousands of examples which are arranged in a manner that allows you to identify progressions common to a specific time period and the evolution of various progression types. It also allows the reader to study and compare how the best songwriters and performers have used the same or similar progressions to create different hit songs.

Money Chords is the real deal and gets my Five Star rating.

Say you're working on a new song or arranging an old one that uses a Basic I-IV (E-A) progression and you want to see how the best songwriters have used and dressed up this progression, the "Money Chords" book is your place to find out. There are at least forty examples of chord embellishments including E-A6; E-Amaj7; E-A11; Emaj7-Amaj7; Emaj7-A13; etc. The book shows you variations on the most popular progressions including the Folk (I-V7); Rock (I-IV-V7); Rock Ballad (I-VIm-IV-V7); Standard (I-VIm-IIm-V7); Ragtime (I-VI7-II7-V7); Classic Rock (I-bVII-IV); Blues progressions as well as Ascending, Descending and Static (Pedal Point) progressions. This book should help you create more interesting chord progressions for your new songs but also breath new life into other songs as well. I rate "Money Chords" a solid Four Stars.

Chord Progressions cannot be copyrighted which is a fact well-known by jazz and blues songwriters over the past hundred years. This book takes you beyond Blues and Rhythm Changes progressions to reveal popular progressions used in Rock as well as the Standards.

This book not only shows you the basic progression such as E-A-B Rock progression but gives numerous examples of how the world's best songwriters have embellished and changed it to create a new song. In the above example, it shows many possibilities such as "With A Little Luck" where Paul McCartney transforms the basic E-A-B progression into the following great ascending bass line progression: E-E/G#-A-B11.

If you're looking to move to the next level, this is a good place study the chord progressions that have gone before.

Take your lyrics and put them in time-proven chord progressions, or take chart topping chord progressions and put your own spin on them. An awesome, must-have text for songwriters.

The Money Chords book opened my eyes to the importance of Descending, Ascending, and Static/Pedal-Point Bass Lines in constructing interesting chord progressions for my songs. Great job, keep up the good work. Also, ... that has even more useful information on Popular Chord Progressions that is of interest to songwriters.

This book is the best source of information on popular chord progressions that I have found. You don't need to have any music theory knowledge in order to gain useful insights into chord progressions to help improve your songwriting skills. This book has thousands of examples all transposed to the guitar-friendly key of E so that the reader can easily see commonalities instead of the complicated Roman Numeral or Nashville System. Progressions are logically organized and presented in a dictionary-like format. If you're looking to advance your knowledge of popular chord progressions, this is your one sourcebook.

Great title, but no real "money chords" here. I was extremely disappointed. My impression was it was equivalent to some music graduate student's thesis on the statistical analysis of how often chord progressions are used - in the author's sampling of about 2000 songs.

I was expecting more of an evaluative examination, some insight, some relative importances, and some categorization. Maybe I was expecting too much.

It doesn't separate the chord progressions into any useful categories such as pop, rock, country, gospel, etc., it just lists out chord progressions and how often they appeared in this sampling of about 2000 songs. How is this useful?

It's collecting dust on my bookshelf - Virtually zero usefulness, and I have about 10 books on songwriting, and another 15 or so on music theory and composition.

The introduction alone was worth the price of admission. What separartes this book from others I've seen is the discussion of descending, ascending, and static (pedal point) progressions. The appendix included nine pages of common and uncommon descending bass lines alone. These were categorized by bass note runs so any budding songwriter can review what has been and can be done with this type of progression that is used to create romantic moods. Good Stuff.

I LOVE this book. I even bought a copy for a singer friend. I was able to write ten all original songs for my first album thanks to this bible. All you really have to do is thumb through it and let your creativity lead the way. The author gave us a labor of love here. I can't praise it enough. All I ask is the publisher make it available as an ebook for kindle and my ipad. [...]