When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images In theory, the name of a chord should describe its content, ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. We can make our chords more interesting by adding extra notes… but not just any. So far in this ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. In music theory, an extension is similar in concept to a house extension, except that, rather ...

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, ...

A study suggests that minor and major seventh chords are the happiest sounds in music, but today’s songwriters are ditching them in favour of simple minor chords. But why does this matter? We all love ...

To celebrate the 30th anniversary issue of American Songwriter (Jan/Feb 2015), “Measure for Measure” served up a smorgasbord of 30 handpicked, solid gold chord progressions. This e-book supplements ...

All the chords built on other notes in the scale of C are minor, except chord VII - the notes B – D – F, which is diminished. When a seventh is added to a chord this is known as a seventh chord. The ...

In theory, the name of a chord should describe its content, especially if it differs from the root-3rd-5th of a standard major chord. In guitar circles, describing a chord as ‘G’ without any other ...