How to See Your Guitar & Gear On a Dark Stage
Whether there’s no stage lights because it’s a dingy dive bar or they are turned off briefly as part of the light show, it can be a pain not being able to see your guitar’s fretboard during a show. This can cause you to miss…
How to Use the Circle of Fifths for Songwriting
Believe it or not the Circle of Fifths is actually a tool to simplify your life even though it may look really technical at first glance. It’s particularly helpful for people who are very visual and like seeing diagrams rather than learning through reading. Many…
What Music Theory Should Guitar Players Know?
If you’re learning to play guitar or you’ve played guitar for years and have never dove into music theory, you might be wondering what you should learn and what an experienced guitar player is expected to know. Let me start off by saying that there…
Does Music Theory Ruin Creativity? (And How To Avoid That)
This is such a great question and a topic of debate between musicians, especially those that have had a formal musical education and those who have not. In general, knowing music theory does not ruin your creativity in songwriting. In many ways it can actually…
How to Choose a Backup Guitar (with Recommendations)
So you’re getting out there and playing the songs you wrote, or maybe you’re playing guitar in a band. You’re going to notice that sometimes, shows won’t go as planned. You might break a string or a pickup might give out or something else could…
How to Write an Instrumental Song
Being a huge prog head, I do love me a good instrumental song. Some of my favorite artists/ bands/musicians that make instrumental music include a lot of Jazz fusion guys (Bill Bruford, Alan Holdsworth, Jean Luc Ponty come to mind right away). I also listen…
Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Movement
Melodies are one of the core building blocks in music and are the element that gets stuck in your head the most. A catchy melody can be instantly recognizable. Just think of twinkle twinkle little star, or the happy birthday melody. Once you memorize these…
How to be Objective When Songwriting
I would say one of the most unspoken skills of a great songwriter is learning how to be objective about your own songs. This can be hard because when you are creating any piece of work it can feel like it’s your baby. You can…
How to Use Chord Extensions in Songwriting
So following up on my last post about what chord extensions are (read it here if you need a refresher What are Chord Extensions?). I wanted to expand more on how to use them practically in songwriting. In general, chord extensions can be used to…
What are Chord Extensions?
Chords can be very simple or can become very complex. Technically, a chord only needs two notes (if you count a powerchord as a chord), but usually you need 3 notes to call it a chord in the traditional sense. Triads and 7th chords are…
