When to drop the chord sequence

Often I'll come up with a chord sequence and write melodies and lyrics above and across it. Many people use this as their only method, but I find I have to be careful to let the melody develop independantly from the chords when the time is right, or the chords can keep bringing me back down into a place that the melody is trying to escape from.

For instance, I'll have an eight bar chord sequence which repeats. I'm singing a melody above the chords, and the tune follows the chords, and makes repeating patterns alongside the chords. Now this is all fine, but I find myself going somewhere else with the melody and the chords aren't following.

When I get to this point and I'm using a sequencer I'll mute the chords from the point that the melody felt like it should go somewhere else and mentally 'jump off the end', seeing where my melody wants to go, almost using the previous chords as a 'run up'. Then, if I manage to find an evolving melody that I'm happy with, I'll work out the chords that fit the melody, put those back in the sequencer, and continue.

When I was starting out with songwriting, I would write chord sequences and simply put words and melodies across them. This lack of freedom with melody can rob your songs of emotion. Many great songs 'evolve' at their own pace, and often leave the rigidity of strict bars and chords. Also chord sequences become much more interesting when they're trying to follow a developing melody.

Melodies can also be very simple, moving only between a few close notes. Sometimes when you have a chord sequence that is going along doing its changes this can force you to create melodies that are just too complicated. When you're writing melodies and working out the chords afterwards you find that quite often the chords are quite happy just sitting on one chord for great lengths of time, something that you would have never made up in a 'chord sequence'

Also, if you have made an elaborate chord sequence up and even gone to the trouble of adding a bass line, dropping out everything but the bass line can also help the melody take on a mind of its own.

Follow the melody and see where it goes. Try not to nail it to the ground before it's had a chance to get anywhere.