Guitar Songwriting Lessons
Technique and theory for songwriting on guitar

Welcome. This section is devoted to helping you master songwriting on guitar. If you've learned some chords, but don't know how to string them together into something meaningful, or harmonise over them, these guitar songwriting lessons will help.

A good songwriter has the intuition to turn inspiration into an expressive piece of music when it hits them, capturing its raw essence and building on it intelligently. However, there are certain foundations in music theory that will give you the framework of reference you need to explore your ideas more efficiently. Foundations that have been referenced in music for centuries.

Obviously, I don't want to tell you what to play, but I hope this series of lessons will leave you feeling more confident with songwriting on guitar.

Note: this section is still expanding. Songwriting is a huge subject and I intend to make this the most comprehensive course available... anywhere!

Guitar Songwriting Basics - Quickstart

Part 1 shows you how to use those basic open position chords you learn as a beginner to craft meaningful chord progressions based on a few important relationships.

Part 2 introduces us to minor key relationships and the concept of relative key, switching between major and minor key to change the mood of your song.

Part 3 looks at modifying and enhancing the relationships we learned in the first two parts, giving you more options for adding depth and variation to your songwriting.

Songwriting Using The Diatonic Chord Scale

Watch the video below for a great introduction to the theory behind the chord scale...

This chord scale is by no means the limits of your songwriting, as we'll be expanding out of this scale in later stages. However, this scale has been the backbone of many chord progressions and music in general for hundreds of years.

Major Key

I	ii	iii	IV	V	vi	vii
Tonic	Supertonic	Mediant	Subdominant	Dominant	Submediant	Subtonic

V	Tonic Dominant Relationship introduces us to one of the most important relationships in music - the tonic (I) and dominant (V). Dominant Variation looks at modifying dominant chords to make them work more effectively as natural tension chords.
IV	Subdominant introduces us to subdominant chords (IV), to add to that tonic-dominant relationship. Subdominant Variation looks at the different ways you can enhance the subdominant chord.
ii	Supertonic adds the supertonic chord (ii) to the scale, immediately showing us just how easily many of those "hit" songs you hear on the radio have been formulated - just from 4 simple chords. Supertonic Variation shows us how we can modify the ii chord for some interesting variation.
vi	Submediant adds the submediant chord (vi) to the scale. Now we have a 5 chord scale with a new minor chord function. Later, you'll see how the submediant becomes the natural tonic chord (i) of minor key progressions. Submediant Variation gives us some ideas for modifying/enhancing the submediant chord.
iii	Mediant adds the mediant (iii) chord to the progression, a commonly used link between the tonic chord and other chords in the scale. Mediant Variation shows us how to modify the iii chord by using major, dominant 7th and augmented variants.
vii	Subtonic introduces the final chord in the scale, the subtonic (vii) which makes use of those tense sounding diminished chords.
I	Tonic Variation looks at enhancing the major key tonic chord (I), and which types of major chord work well in the tonic position, including using the tonic as an "ending chord".

Minor Key

i	ii	III	iv	v	VI	VII
Tonic	Supertonic	Mediant	Subdominant	Dominant	Submediant	Subtonic

i	Minor Tonic introduces us to minor key relationships, establishing a new minor tonic chord (i) using the same chord scale as before.

Guitar Songwriting Function

Chord Resolution - Learn about the use of tension-resolution in chord progressions.

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Online Guitar Lessons

Guitar Songwriting Lessons Technique and theory for songwriting on guitar

Guitar Songwriting Basics - Quickstart

Songwriting Using The Diatonic Chord Scale

Guitar Songwriting Function

Guitar Songwriting Lessons
Technique and theory for songwriting on guitar