Listen up: scales aren’t just torture devices invented by guitar teachers... When you use a scale, say, C major, you are playing ‘in the key of C’. The word ‘diatonic’ simply means ‘within a key’, so ...

Give your chord progressions colour and flair by introducing a handful of ‘out of key’ notes. We’ve previously looked at diatonic chords, ie, chords belonging to a scale or key. As their name suggests ...

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 ...

Here are 10 iconic ’90s songs that are totally easy to learn on the guitar, even if you’re just starting out.

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, ...

Have you ever wondered how jazz musicians can play along to a new song that they have never heard? It is all thanks to chord progressions. And there are only about 10-20 of those that musicians use ...

It's very simple to join one chord to the next in the context of a chord progression, and one of the tools in your armoury for achieving a polished musical effect is to use what we call, 'inverted ...