Do you associate minor chords with sad music and major chords with happy music? If you do, you probably grew up surrounded by music that follows the basic rules of Western music theory. But not ...

Guitar skills: Welcome to the world of bright-sounding major chords; simply add a handful of new notes to create lush, spacious sounds When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

There are two basic types of chords: major and minor. In their most simple form they have three notes called a triad. Because we’re lucky enough to have six strings on our guitars these three notes ...

A study suggests that minor and major seventh chords are the happiest sounds in music, but today’s songwriters are ditching them in favour of simple minor chords. But why does this matter? We all love ...

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, ...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts Why does music played in ...

Guitar skills: If there's one thing you'll need to do to take your songwriting to the next level, it's getting to grips with new chords. Use our acoustic guitar chord charts - from basic open chords ...