Four chords aren’t a crime
Why simple harmony doesn’t make a song simplistic, and when four chords really do start getting lazy.
There’s a particular kind of conversation: someone hears a good pop track, recognizes the familiar harmony, and announces that it’s “only four chords.” As if they’ve cracked the case.
Quantity isn’t complexity
A song lives on several layers. Harmony is one of them. There’s melody, rhythm, texture, dynamics, lyrics, pauses, arrangement, tone. Four chords can support some very complex work on top.
Where the work happens
A single chord feels new when the vocal changes its target notes and rhythm.
A different note underneath changes the direction of the loop.
A quiet verse and the same loop in a huge chorus are two different events.
Open strings, muting, octaves, noise, stops.
When it really is boring
When every instrument repeats the loop from the first second to the last. Bass on the roots, guitar on the same rhythm, vocals sticking to safe notes. The problem isn’t the “four.” Nobody brought a second idea.
Repetition gets boring when nothing around it changes.
Five cheap tricks
Its return will become an event.
Half a second of silence can hit harder than a new chord.
The same loop played higher on the guitar can open up the chorus.
It doesn’t have to live on the root notes.
A shortened transition wakes the progression up.
If four chords hold the song together, leave them alone and work on the chorus.