How Do I Write Guitar Music to Go With My Lyrics?

If you have any kind of artistic tendencies, you know that creating a piece of art-be that with paint, clay, stone, music, etc., is a pure joy! But, as is the case with any art form, the artist has to develop his craft. No one is born knowing how to paint like Rembrandt or sculpt like Michelangelo. The God-given talent may be there, but it has to be nurtured and developed. Song writing is no exception.

I write a lot of songs--and like many guitar players, I don't have any formal music theory training. I've just picked up bits and pieces here and there...enough to get by. Along the way, I've learned that there are a lot of ways to approach song writing.

HERE ARE THE TWO MOST POPULAR SONG WRITING METHODS:

1) Begin with a chord progression that you like--and then create a melody and lyrics to sing over it.

This is my favorite way to write a song. I think that's because I'm a guitarist first, and a singer second. I just naturally gravitate toward writing chord progressions that I enjoy. For me, once I have a chord progression - it's very easy to build on that and create a melody and lyrics. I just play the chords and noodle around, humming different melodies over the chords until I discover something I like. Then I write lyrics that work well with the melody and rhythm of the music.

2) Come up with a melody and lyrics and then build a chord progression to accompany it.

This is sort of the mirror image of method number one. I suspect that this would be the method most singers gravitate toward. My wife is singer-and every song she writes begins this way-with a melody and lyrics.

I've written a few songs this way. I just got inspired with a melody that I really liked and decided that I wanted to build a song around it. Here's what I do in these cases.

FIRST: I determine the rhythm and tempo of the song--is it 3/4, 4/4, etc? Is it a fast, medium, slow song?

SECOND: I determine my "starting note"--I.e., I play around with the basic chords A-G (or minor, 7th, etc. forms depending on the kind of feel I'm going for) in order to find THE chord that seems to work best with the starting note of my melody. This is a trial and error process. I just "hum and strum" until I find that "sweet spot" where my first note blends well with a chord.

From there I take my time and feel out what the next chords should be. I just sing (SLOWLY) through the melody and play what I think, the next chord should be, until I have it all worked out. And of course, the whole time I'm doing this I have a pen and paper handy writing all of the lyrics and chord changes down! It's also very helpful to have some kind of recording device handy to record your ideas so that you don't forget them. How quickly that awesome moment of inspiration can fade into oblivion if it's not captured on tape!

IN THE BEGINNING song writing is a lot of trial and error. You just have to work at it until you discover the chords that work best with your melody. But, as you do it more and more--you will get much better and faster at it. You'll develop a sense of what chords work best with each other and how to combine them with melodies. So, the very best advice I can give you is-write lots of songs! And it never hurts to become a student of song writing. There lots of great articles out there on this subject. Type "song composition for guitar" and "song writing for guitar" into a search engine and you will discover a lot of helpful resources.

Guitar - Tuning to Perfection

There's an old and tired joke that "guitars are tuned at the factory" - unfortunately, wood bends and warps, strings lose tension and the forces of nature make sure your guitar needs tuning every time you pick it up. Read that last bit again, because the sooner you get into the habit of assessing your guitar's tuning, the more rewarding your playing will be.

It doesn't matter how dazzling you are on guitar, one strike of an unharmonious string will destroy any charisma you had.

The problem is, too many guitarists neglect tuning as though it is some 5 minute job to "get out the way" before you practice or noodle. Get out of this mindset immediately. You need to spend time tuning your guitar to make sure chords all over the neck sound in tune and harmonious.

Unfortunately, fretted instruments made of wood can never be tuned perfectly (sorry, I mislead you slightly with the title there!), but there are quick methods you can use to accurately tune your guitar to the human ear...these are just for introductory purposes...

1) 5th fret method - the classic tuning method which most beginners favour. This method simply involves fretting a string (at the 5th fret, except for the G string) and matching the note with the next open string. Your ear has to be well trained for this to be accurate, and there is an awkward exception involving the B string, which on most guitars needs to be manually adjusted to be in-tune on most chords.

2) Harmonics - tuning harmonics are a quick and accurate way to tune your guitar to itself. It involves creating a resonating harmonic on two strings at a time, and picking out what sounds like a vibrating effect between them. This "wobbling" effect is created when two naturally harmonious intervals are off-kilter, so all you need to do is tune up or down to resolve the vibration into one, straight resonating harmonic. This is a really accurate way to tune, because you're tuning an open string to another open string, rather than a fretted string to an open string which causes natural inaccuracies. You can learn more about creating the harmonic and this great tuning technique at the end of this article.

Tweaking and double checking

3) Comparing note for note, string for string - this is basically where you find a note on your fretboard, and compare it with the same note, or its octave, on another string at another fret. E.g. comparing the G note on the E string at fret 3 with the octave G note on the D string at fret 5 - these two notes should sound the same (but of course, the octave will be higher in pitch). This is seen as a more practical method of "tweaking" your tuning because you're comparing notes on strings that will likely appear simultaneously within chords - therefore, if they're even slightly out of tune with each other, the chord will be ruined. More obviously...

4) Comparing double tones in chords - chords that use 4 or more strings often include double tones (e.g. the root note appears twice in the chord), and open position chords down at the first few frets (e..g E major, G major, C major etc.) double open tones with fretted tones. Try playing the E major open position chord, one of the first chords you will have learned - the A string at fret 2 should be almost perfectly harmonious with the open B string, because they are the same note, just an octave apart. You may find the notes are slightly off, so adjusting will give you a more practical compromise when it comes to tuning for chords.

General good tuning practice

There are several ways to tune your guitar, but it's important that you tweak after you've tuned up (or think you have anyway!)

What I do is use a few tuning methods, like the ones detailed above, because often you'll find you can reach a good compromise between the few methods to really get well-balanced tuning. By well-balanced, I mean that some chords (e.g. full barre chords vs floated chords that mix open strings and fretted strings) will need to be compromised to ensure any chord you play sounds acceptably harmonious.

At first, you don't notice, but as your ear becomes trained, you begin to pick up on nuances in the tuning of your guitar. The key thing to remember is you must spend time tweaking your tuning, no matter which method you use.

Just don't become too obsessed - remember to leave some practice time to actually play some guitar. ;o)

Brad's Electric Guitar Noodle

Another way to save the guitar! ... one of my all items here www.youtube.com



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