If You Understand Food, You'll Understand This Important Songwriting Tool

Hey there, music makers!

You know what fascinates me almost as much as music? Food.

In fact, if I wasn’t obsessed with music, I’d probably be doing something in the culinary arts. Here’s why I bring this up – I recently realized that understanding key colors in music is a lot like understanding fundamental food types.

Think about this: Just as pizza, tacos, and wings each create distinct experiences and emotional responses when we eat them, different key colors in music create unique emotional environments for our listeners. Pizza needs its essential elements – dough, sauce, and that perfect fire-oven heat. The same applies to key colors - each has its fundamental building blocks that give it its distinct character.

So where am I going with this?

A few years ago, while exploring Berklee's online music curriculum, I stumbled upon two great books:

1. Great Songwriting Techniques by Jack Perricone and

2. The Songwriter's Workshop: Harmony by Jimmy Kachulis.

Perricone's book introduced me to the concept of tonal environments while Kachulis' book highlighted that most popular songs use one of five specific tonal environments (also called key colors).

Let's call them key colors because that sounds more musician-friendly.

The Five Essential Key Colors

Like our favorite foods, each of these key colors creates a distinct emotional environment. Here are the 5 essential ones:

1. Major

2. Minor

3. Mixolydian

4. Dorian

5. Blues

Now, you might be thinking – “This sounds like it’s about to get really theoretical.”

Don’t worry! While we could dive deep into modes and complex theory (trust me, that could be several newsletters on its own), today we’re keeping it practical and accessible.

As Perricone explains in his book:

“Gaining control over your tonal materials will help you become a better musician and a better songwriter. If you know how to establish a key and understand harmonic functions, you will be able to substitute one harmony for another and control the tonal movements within your song.”

How I'm Learning to Hear Key Colors

Let me share the three-step process that is currently helping me understand and internalize these different tonal environments:

1. Association with Songs: Connect each key color with songs you already know and love. For example, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson uses the dorian key color.

2. Learn the Scale: Understand the basic scale structure of each key color. Focus on the scale used in the song that you're studying.

3. Learn the Chords: Familiarize yourself with the diatonic chords used to define each key color. Again, apply this practice to the song that you're studying.

The beauty of this approach?

You’re always connecting theory back to actual music you enjoy. It’s like learning to cook by actually tasting the food, not just reading recipes.

🎯 Challenge for the Week

Here’s something fun to try:

Pick three of your favorite songs and try to identify their key colors. Don’t worry about being “right” – just start training your ears to notice these different tonal environments. What emotions do they evoke? How do they make you feel?

🧠 Quote of the week

“Songwriters often make pre-compositional choices before writing a song. Some of these choices include tonal considerations (scales, chord forms, tonal environment), music style (ballad, dance, etc.) tempo, etc.” - Jack Perricone

❤️ Favorite Things This Week

Here are the books that I am currently reading.

1. The Songwriter Workshops: Harmony by Jimmy Kachulis

2. Great Songwriting Techniques by Jack Perricone

3. The Guide to Going Viral: The Art and Science of Succeeding on Social Media by Brendan Kane

You can find links to these books and more resources that I've been getting great value from on my resources page.

Enjoy your week,

Melvin Darrell