When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Getty Images Conventional wisdom dictates that a well-written song will stand up even ...

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 ...

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 ...

The most important aspect to study in melody writing is probably your intervals. In Western music, we use 12 notes in semitone intervals, in other cultures they have quarter tones and microtonal ...

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, ...

Utilising open strings can add new dimensions to basic chord progressions. This simple and effective technique has been used to great effect by players as diverse as Alex Lifeson, Jeff Buckley, The ...

It's very simple to join one chord to the next in the context of a chord progression, and one of the tools in your armoury ...