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Why and How to Write Songs on Guitar – Complete Guide!

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Why would you want to write a song?

Songwriting is both an art and a craft where you can express your musical creativity, your heart and soul into the ultimate form of a song.

It’s a great learning process for guitar players and all musicians. You’ll discover music on so many new levels and learn to think differently on how to approach your instrument. When you write your own songs you will also learn to transcribe songs faster, and understand and play music in a more proficient way.

I’ve got a lot of guitar students who started writing their own songs and many of them were surprised with how much they enjoyed it and found they could actually write a song. Try it and you might find yourself on a new path you never expected. There is only something to win here.

How to write a song

There are many ways to approach songwriting. You can write a personal story and sing about the struggles and challenges you go through in life. The side effect is highly therapeutic. Many artists do this.

You can also write in a narrative style and bring your own concepts and characters to life through your lyrics. Think about the message you want to get across.

To learn a certain style of songwriting study the professionals. Listen and read the lyrics of your favorite artists, learn how they approach their song writing and convey their stories. Watch interviews on Youtube on their songwriting process. The same goes for the use of chords, chord progressions, melody, rhythm playing, and other musical arrangements. Study, analyze, hear and feel them.

Song Structure

For writing a song you can use different components like an intro, verse, chorus, bridge, instrumental solo and outro. These components or sections are then repeated in some way. The most common forms are:

ABAB : Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus
AABA: Verse – Verse – Chorus – Verse
ABABCB: Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus

Around these sections you can create an intro, a guitar solo or an outro.

Tip: Listen to your favorite song writers and figure out what song structure they use and which ones you prefer.

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Building Chords and Progressions of The Minor Scale

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Once I learned how to build chords of a major or minor scale, the logic of chord progressions made much more sense.

I became more efficient in analyzing and memorizing chord progressions and it was also a helpful tool for song writing and understanding how to improvise over these chords.

As a young kid I underestimated the knowledge of music theory.

It don’t matter how musically gifted you are as a person, music theory makes the life of a musician a lot easier. So benefit and enjoy!

In this post you’ll learn how to build chords of the minor scale, create your own chord progressions and analyze the chord progressions of famous songs in a minor key.

For building chords of the natural minor scale we can use the same approach as building chords of the major scale

Like the major scale we can also build 7 chords of the minor scale. In fact the minor scale is relative to the major scale. When you play the major scale starting on the 6th degree and play seven notes ascending (going up) in the scale you are actually playing a minor scale.Continue Reading

10 Effective Ways to Memorize Song Lyrics Much Faster

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memorize song lyricsIn my early twenties I went backpacking in Australia with my girlfriend. During that trip we spent three days on a catamaran sailing the Great Barrier Reef with a group of pe˜ople. One of the best times of my life.

When I first entered the catamaran the hosts asked me if I could play guitar. I was dumbfounded and said “huh, yes I do” and thought to myself, “how did they know that?” Later I would find out they asked everyone the same question.

In the evening we would all come together for a drink and a laugh. And then suddenly one of the hosts came out with a guitar and started playing and singing songs to entertain everyone.

Then after a while they handed the guitar over to me and said “Now it’s your turn!”. I thought, okay I’ll play a couple of tunes (I had been playing for about ten years by then) and suddenly I realized I could play a whole bunch of songs and some pretty cool solos, but I couldn’t sing the lyrics to the songs because I didn’t got them memorized.

Luckily my girlfriend was with me who is a singer and it turned out to be a great evening. Everyone sang along and was really enthusiastic.

I was saved! I realized what a shame it was that I couldn’t sing a few songs myself. A missed opportunity, but also a lesson learned. I would focus on memorizing song lyrics!

Here are 10 effective ways to get the job done:
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Building Chords and Progressions of The Major Scale

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Knowing how to build chords and chord progressions is a really great tool for writing your own songs and communicating with your fellow musicians on how to play a certain piece of music, “Let’s play a 1 4 5 progression in the key of…”

You can create the most beautiful chord progressions and songs by ear and you don’t necessarily need to know music theory for that, but it makes the life of a musician a lot easier if you do know some music theory on this part.

It’s nice to know what other musicians are talking about and how you can create chord progressions in a more effective and efficient way.

Adding music theory knowledge will reveal a lot of secrets you wish you had known before, so don’t wait for later or you’ll miss out on all the good stuff. Music theory will definitely make you a better musician!

Now let’s dive in:

From the major scale you can build 7 diatonic chords. The major scale consists of 7 notes, so that’s one chord of each note.

Let’s take the C major scale for example.Continue Reading