Guitar Songwriting: How to Create Interesting Chords

Tired of the same old D-G-A songs?  Here’s an easy method for creating a brand new chord and using it in a chord progression. Basically, you take a traditional chord, move one finger by one fret.  Go back and forth between the regular chord and its one-note-altered variation.  Then slide the variation to somewhere else…

Riffy Seedlings still

I Started Planting “Riffy Seedlings”

I’m sure you can relate.  You are noodling on your guitar and come up with a cool new riff.  You scramble around for something to record, for if you don’t capture it now you’ll soon forget.  Inspirations are fleeting. I first used Quicktime and built-in mic on my Mac, but these days I mostly use…

4 Roles Guitars Play in a Band Context

I didn’t mean to turn this blog into just a bunch of pedal reviews, though that’s most of what I’ve been doing lately.  So here’s a thought piece from a songwriting/arranging point of view — 4 roles guitars play in a band context.  The 4 roles are: Rhythmic Melodic Harmonic Textural/Timbre Rhythmic Assuming the guitar…

3 Ways to Spice Up Your Power Chords

Power chords are the foundation of rock guitar.  But — after serving well for millions (I imagine) of songs, I can’t help but feel like “been there, done that.”  There is nothing wrong with it, but as a guitar-based songwriter I am always looking for fresher sounds — and these 3 simple variations help me…