Songwriting For Beginners: ‘Just Enough’ Music TheoryBy Jeff
Oxenford • Category: How To Write Songs, Songwriting Articles
(This is an article in the series “Songwriting For Beginners”.
We are filing the series under the Songwriting Basics category.)
Question: How do you stop a guitarist from playing? Answer: Put
music in front of him. That’s me. I can’t read music and I doubt
I ever will. However, over the last three years, I’ve learned
just enough about music theory to be dangerous. What I’ve found
is that by understanding some basic concepts, I’ve been able to
find that next chord I was always searching for. The first step
in understanding is that most songs are played in a single key
and that the chords in the come from that key. The formula (i.e.
what order) you use for the chords is what make up the song. For
example, blues often uses the 1, 4, and 5 chords. If you’re
playing blues in E, the chords are E, A, B (or B7). The blues
progression in the key of C, uses C, F, and G. If you can
understand the ta