Terms such as ‘altered’ and ‘extended’ chords are relatively simple to explain. Extended chords add other notes from the scale to the existing root-3rd-5th triad (for example, C-E-G), so if we add a ...

A good song is the sum of its parts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a song’s quality comes down to how much instrumentation is packed into it. These four famous songs in country and rock prove that ...

If there’s one thing you can do to take your songwriting to the next level, it’s getting to grips with new chords. Use our acoustic guitar chord charts - from basic open chords to the daddy of altered ...

Lo-fi is to audio what black-and-white or sepia-tinted film is to visual. Often lo-fi tracks will loop a sample from an old vinyl record, complete with scratches and crackles, then drop it over a ...

In music, an interval is the distance between two notes. In the example below, count up from and including the lowest note up to the highest pitched note to identify the interval. This interval is ...

This post is in partnership with NME. Perhaps nothing epitomized the accessible DIY nature of punk more than what iconic fanzine Sideburns quipped in its first issue back in 1977: ‘This is a chord.

Blues, 50s, pop-punk, jazz and the cycle of 5ths are great for songwriting inspiration or looping your own backing tracks When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

What is important when composing is the `` chord progression '' that determines the atmosphere of the song along with the melody (melody), but many people think that it is difficult to learn from 1 ...

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 ...