It goes without saying that a good chord progression can be fundamental to a quality song, but when you find yourself staring at a blank screen, how do you get started and string an appropriate set of ...

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 ...

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, ...

It almost goes without saying that a good chord progression is fundamental to a good song, but when you find yourself facing the dreaded blank screen, how do you string a suitable set of chords ...

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 ...

Altered chords are chords that have been changed by having the pitch of one or more notes in the chord sharpened or flattened by a semitone. Altering a chord in this way can have a big effect on its ...