If you study jazz, you start with the standards. But in my opinion standards also exist in the rock guitar lexicon as well — and this Jimi Hendrix gem is definitely one of them. It’s a seemingly simple tune which repeats just one verse progression over and over. Where does its …
So while some songwriters start with lyrics first, others start with the instrumental part first. If you write with a guitar, it’s not uncommon to start by strumming a guitar and stumbling on a cool chord or riff. Or if you are a singer who doesn’t play an instrument, …
So in my last post, I established that you don’t have to think theory, nor do you have to know theory at all, to write good songs. That said, knowing music theory gives you these huge advantages. Music theory helps you troubleshoot your songs. This I went over in detail in …
I received this question multiple times. The short answer is NO. No, you don’t have to. But here’s a longer caveat: you can think about music theory when you’re writing. And if you do, it’ll help you solve songwriting problems faster and steer your song to a direction that you want …
So between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it is commonly thought that John is the more experimental, “out there” one while Paul wrote more traditional pop tunes. While there’s some truth to that, Paul was no stranger to adventurous songwriting, and beneath the sweet façade there are some sophisticated moves going …