How To Write Rock Chord Progressions On Guitar

Above is a video that I have up there on youtube that looks at a great and simple way to get guitar students into writing their own original music. In a nutshell if you want to write an effective "Rock" (as opposed to pop) chord progression all you need to do is hang Major chords onto each degree of a pentatonic minor scale and move between them. The video looks at the best keys to do it in and provides a simple theoretical framework for the whole thing

What about other styles?

Below I look at the "diatonic" system of harmony (where you can build a specific chord on each degree of any major scale and then move freely between them). This material on this page covers almost all Rock, Pop, Country, Funk, Punk, Blues, Souls and Disco tunes and if developed further is the basis for Jazz too. It provides guitar students with a framework for understanding how the same chord progressions turn up time and time again in popular music (just in loads of different keys so you don't really realise that they are the same) and this material can provide a great "jumping off point" for guitar players looking to create their own songs and progressions

Do you want to know how to write songs?

A song is composed of a number of elements including the lyrical and melodic content but we are concerning ourselves as guitar teachers with perhaps the most basic question. How to come up with chord sequences that will "work"? The wonderful thing about introducing this concept at this stage is that it gives our students a practical reason to study music theory because the knowledge derived from that study will give them a "foolproof" sytem for writing chord sequences that will sound "right" without them floundering around the neck until they accidentally come up with something that conforms to the "rules" that they are as yet unaware of

"Meet the New Boss" (the brain takes over)

Now is a good time to mention to your student that up until this point their progress has been based upon developing skills and capabilities in their hands and fingers An almost purely physical skill based around becoming capable of pressing some wires down onto a long piece of wood with the fingers of one hand in time with rhythmical movement (strumming patterns) carried out by the other hand (arm) Thats all they have really been doing for the last few months The brain has been largely absent from proceedings and now it is time for the brain to step in and tell the hands what to do

The objectives of this period of study are to enable our students to properly identify the notes of any major scale and from there to assign the "correct" chord type (major, minor or diminished) to that root note This will allow them to work out (and eventually know) the diatonic chords that can be found in any key "Diatonic" chords are those chords which can be constructed from (only) the notes of any parent Major Scale

It is important to realise (and to stress to your student) that this material is not designed to be covered in a single session before you move onto something else but rather that it is the beginning of a process by which you transfer the control of the guitar from the hands (where it has been up to this point) to the brain Once a little way into this period of study it will be perfectly possible for your student to compose chord sequences that function at the first time of asking without there even being a guitar in the room as well as to understand the chord sequences and songs that they can already play they will develop the ability to look at a set of chords and identify the "key" that the progression is in and from there make decisions about chords that may be used alongside the chords identified and scales that can be used to construct melodies or solo lines Up until this point learning to play the guitar has (hopefully?) been absorbing and satisfying This new phase can be looked upon as the point at which learning to play the guitar gets "interesting" as it is not just about playing the guitar but about "understanding" it

• Click to find out more about the music theory behind songwriting skills

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