The battle between what matters the most in songwriting never ends. Is it the lyrics, or melody? Both of these elements matter, but if you’re a songwriting guitarist there’s one more important thing you should be aware of. It’s the thing that takes your songs to the next level. . . Voicing! Many songwriting guitarists […]
Like many elements of music theory, triads and inversions are concepts that can be understood and applied in various ways, along a whole spectrum of difficulty from the bare bones to more complex ideas.
If you’re playing a bunch of gigs and finding it difficult to remember all those tunes, consider some of these transcription tips from Ken Dow.
Do you know the difference between a rhythm and a beat? Don’t feel bad if you don’t. As simple as it should seem, the truth is that not everyone knows the difference.
Not every bar in an 8- or 16-bar progression needs a different chord; it’s about balancing variety (things that are different) with unity (things that repeat).
A great tool for adding a different color in a chord progression is to include one or more half-diminished seventh chords (sometimes just called half-diminished chords).
Another common way to create more interesting chords by altering the notes of the basic triad is to form what are called suspended fourth chords.
It is entirely possible to have a long, successful guitar career without much musical theory knowledge. But, theory is great to know for a variety of guitar-related tasks and activities, such as songwriting, teaching, and accompanimental playing.
The most common and most useful of these chords is the seventh, which you can use pretty much anywhere just to add a slightly different color to a chord, or in some types of progression to give the sequence of chords some extra thrust, because the added seventh is a mild dissonance, or clash, that makes the chord sound like it wants to move somewhere.
Chromatic alterations, such as sharps and flats, can be used to help create a more interesting chord progression in a piece of music. Ed Bell explains how to use these alterations effectively.