Which comes first: chords or meloody? That's the chicken and egg question facing any music maker staring at a blank DAW screen, and there's no right answer as to which you need to nail first. And ...

We kick off the first in a series of music theory tutorials with a look at the very basics of chord construction When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Songwriting can be an arduous process sometimes, and there are occasions when we need all the help we can get. When this situation crops up, nobody will judge you for rummaging around in your ...

A lot of the elements that make pop music successful relate to it being catchy and familiar. As a songwriter, there are many ways to engender this feeling in listeners, to do with song structure, ...

To celebrate the 30th anniversary issue of American Songwriter (Jan/Feb 2015), “Measure for Measure” served up a smorgasbord of 30 handpicked, solid gold chord progressions. This e-book supplements ...

Lo-fi is to audio what black-and-white or sepia-tinted film is to visual. Often lo-fi tracks will loop a sample from an old vinyl record, complete with scratches and crackles, then drop it over a ...

If there’s one thing you can do to take your songwriting to the next level, it’s getting to grips with new chords. Use our acoustic guitar chord charts - from basic open chords to the daddy of altered ...

Almost every song in the pop charts is built around the same four chords. And it's nothing new – they're the same three chords that Pachelbel used in his famous Canon. But why do we keep coming back ...