Gian Learns Songwriting

Here's a funny meme I found on the internet. When I began to play, I was drawn to tablature, not using a metronome, not learning the bare essentials to become a good guitar player. It was fun for awhile. But then when I started to write, it was almost too hard for me. I didn't know what do do, or where to start! It was agony. I wish I got into music theory the moment I began playing my first instrument.  To make it easier for you to write songs, even more than you may already think, learning music theory allows you to do that, and here are a couple reasons why! 1. Music theory helps you learn the rules of songwriting. Learning scales, modes, progressions, notation, all sorts of things helps you learn the rules of songwriting. How are you going to write a good chord progression if you don't even know what chords are in the key you want to write in? How do you know what key you're going to write your guitar licks in if you don't know what a key is? Lear...

After writing for a little while, I have a nice guideline on how to start writing a song. Now, don't get me wrong, you can write your song however you like. I'm not going to judge you harshly for that! But I do like some structure when it comes to things as difficult as this. I'm also assuming you guys know not much music theory, because I barely knew any when starting out to write, too. You should learn some; in my experience, learning some music theory made this journey a lot easier. First, we need to figure out the feel of the song. It's hard to figure the rest out if you don't. If you don't have a good feel/topic to write about, then how are you going to write? Will your song have a: happy feeling? angry feeling? sad feeling? We have to identify these things first before starting to write. Otherwise, we'll get nowhere. This is a chart of the major scale, and the chords that go along with it. Once we have the feel established, then w...