Music Theory for Songwriters: The Fundamentals

Professional musician Julian Velard covers the basics of music theory through the lens of songwriting. Explore intervals, chord progressions, voice leading, song forms, and more.

Introduction

• Music theory fundamentals can help your songwriting
• What you should know before watching this course
• Why is music theory important and useful?

1. The Building Blocks of Harmony

• The octave
• Seven white notes and five black notes
• The diatonic scale and the major scale
• Intervals: Perfect and major
• Intervals: Minor, augmented, and diminished
• The concept of key
• The circle of fourths and fifths
• Figuring out intervals

2. Triads and Chord Progressions

• Triads: The basics of chords
• Triad inversions
• Chord voicing
• Common major scale chord progressions
• Authentic cadences
• Plagal, half, and deceptive cadences
• Triads, chord progressions, and cadences in a song

3. Chord Progressions and Voice Leading

• What is voice leading?
• Voice leading one note between triads
• The suspended chord
• Voice leading two notes and three notes with major triads
• Voice leading two notes and three notes with minor triads
• Changing the bass note of a chord
• Voice leading chord progressions in a song

4. Song Forms

• The importance of song form
• Beats, bars, and phrases
• The elements of song form
• The intro
• The verse
• The chorus
• The hook
• The refrain
• The bridge or middle 8
• The pre-chorus
• Familiar pop song forms
• Verse, chorus, and bridge forms
• Simple verse form
• Verse without chorus form
• AABA 32-bar form
• Through-composed song forms
• Looking at a song's form

Conclusion

• What comes next?