Writing Melodies Over Cinematic Chords [Music Theory Secrets]

Tommaso Zillio

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Are you up for an experiment, dear reader?

Take your guitar and play these two chords:

Am C#m

This is one of the most used chord progression in movie soundtracks. 98.3% of action/science fiction/superhero/adventure movies uses this chord progression in the first minute of the movie.

(“98.3% Where did you find this number?” “It’s written in this email” “Yes, but who wrote the email?” “I did”)

So here comes the experiment. Can you write a melody over this chord progression?

I found that most guitar players have problems in doing this…

… meaning that most guitar players will try to write a melody, get frustrated, smash the guitar on the wall, burn the broken pieces, scatter the ashes to the wind, then go buy another guitar because the previous one clearly was not working.

So if you can not write a melody on this chord progression, you are in good company.

Curiously - and annoyingly - piano players do not seem to have this problem at all.

… probably because piano players also frown on burning pianos, and so they are forced to practice rather than smash & burn.

So my thinking is… we do not want the piano players to win, do we?

I mean, if we leave things this way we are never going to hear the end of it - I’ve had my share of smug pianists lording their supposed harmonic superiority upon us guitar players.

“Nya nya, I can play 10 notes with my 10 fingers, and you? Only 6 strings? Poor dear, how does it feel to be so limited?” (*)

(*) You guys realize I’m joking, right?

So here’s what we can do to stick it to them: we can learn how to write a melody over that chord progression.

THAT will show them!

So here’s my little contribution to the eternal struggle between pianists and guitarists… and it’s fun too:

May this be useful to you the next time you are fighting jamming with a overly smug competent pianist.

You can learn more about this chord progression and how to make it work for your music here:

But why stop here when you can have much more?

See, the chord progression is only the first part of the secret.

The other part is HOW you use this chord progression, and a true pro knows probably hundred of ways to do that…

… and I show you all of them and much more directly on your guitar in the Complete Chord Mastery guitar course