How to use Guitar Chord Progressions to Write Songs

In this lesson, we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of writing your first song, using guitar chord progressions.

There are different places you can start from when writing a song.

The most common three are the words, the melody, and the harmony (that is, guitar chord progressions).

I’ve used all three as starting points for writing songs at different times, as well as combinations of them, such as coming up with a string of words and singing them with a melody at the same time.

Note: (You can skip the part in italics if you’re good at singing)

I don’t know how to sing and you do NOT need to know how to sing to write songs. You need to be able to come up with a good tune, but not be able to sing it well yourself.

Learning how to sing is desirable if you write songs, in fact, I’ve considered taking singing lessons many times myself. This gives you the freedom from depending on someone else to sing your songs, whether it’s your friend, someone in your band, or someone you hire.

However, if you’re a guitar player you don’t need to be able to sing to start writing songs, or even hook up with a singer just yet.

Play chord progressions on guitar as will be described below, write the words, and sing according to whatever abilities you have. If the melodies are good but the singing sounds like crap, it’s not a problem at all. You won’t be the one singing them anyway.

And no one (in his right mind) is going to laugh at your crappy singing (as long as the melody is, at least, recognizable of course) because good singing was not your task. Your job was coming up with a good tune.

As a guitar player, what is usually expected from you, is providing the harmony – guitar chord progressions.

Which, if you know your major and minor chords on the guitar is really easy to do if you’re playing Rock or Pop music.

The basic theory behind guitar chord progressions

For this lesson, I’m going to assume you know what a scale and a chord are as well as have a very basic idea of what playing in a key means.

(If you don’t I suggest you read this lesson on guitar notes, intervals, scales and chords)

Now, if we’re singing a melody, or playing a solo in the key of C major, that means we’ll be using the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B because that is the sequence of notes that makes up the scale of C major.

However, the guitar chord progressions backing those notes, also have to come from the chords that get formed when we harmonize the C major scale.

How each chord is formed goes beyond the purposes of this lesson. What you need to know for now is that each note in the scale has a chord that backs it or, in musical terms, harmonizes it.

Thus, if we’re playing in the key of C major the note G is harmonized by the G major chord, while the note A is harmonized by the A minor chord.

Why is the A harmonized with an A minor while G with a G major?

It all depends on the role that note plays in the key, and since the G is the 5th note in the key of C major, it’s harmonized by its major chord, while A being the 6th note in the key, is harmonized by its minor chord.

This may sound confusing at first, but it’s actually easy to learn and remember since the pattern behind every harmonized major scale is the same for all major keys.

Which is this:

Major – minor – minor – Major – Major – minor – diminished.

Thus, if we’re playing in the key of C, the chords backing the notes in the melody will be:

C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim

If we’re playing in the key of G major, they will be:

G – Am – Bm – C – D – Em – F#dim

Or if we’re in the key of D major:

D – Em – F#m – G – A – Bm – C#dim

So on and so forth.

In popular music, each of these chords is assigned a Roman Numeral to explain its role in the key.

The major chords take the upper numerals while the minor and the diminished chord take the lower numerals.

Thus, the formula for the major scale would be:

I ii iii IV V vi vii-dim

A chord progression is a sequence of two or more of these chords played after each other.

And while the number of combinations may seem huge, in reality, the same few common chord progressions keep finding themselves in the majority of Rock and Pop music.

Thus, we’ll be studying two of the most common guitar chord progressions and discovering ways to use them in our songwriting.

Two Guitar Chord Progressions You Can Use to Write Songs (and how to use them)

  1. I – IV – V – I or I – IV – V – IV

This is a very common chord progression that you’ll find in songs like “Wild Thing” by The Troggs, “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles and “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones.

In the first example, we’ll be playing a simple and very common Punk style riff that uses this progression.

Important to note that in ex. 1 I will be using power chords instead of major chords. This is indicated by the number 5 after the chord letter, ex G5 is the power chord of G)

The power chord is neither a major nor a minor chord and may replace any of them anytime. (Read this article to find out why from a theoretical point of view.)

Ex. 1

Guitar Chord Progressions for songwriting
Tabs created with Guitar Pro

We’re in the key of G, thus the I – IV – V – I in the example above is made of the chord of G, C, and D.

Since a riff is meant to repeat itself, the D (V) in the last bar, leads us back to the G (I)

You may notice that the palm muting gives this riff an edge. Palm muting technique works perfectly with power chords and is a technique you should definitely start developing if you want to create these kinds of guitar riffs.

The next example is also in the key of G but this time I’m using full major chords. Unlike Ex1, which should be played with the distortion on, Ex2 is meant to be played with a clean sound.

Ex. 2

Guitar Chord Progressions for songwriting

The first time I learned that most popular songs use the same chord progressions, and many a time, the same chords, I started wondering:

Why don’t all songs sound the same then?

Yet, though in the two examples above I’m using the exact same guitar chord progression (I – IV – V – I) and in the same key of G, they sound entirely different.

The fact that I’m using power chords instead of major chords is one thing that makes a huge difference, and so does the distortion in Ex 1.

However, apart from these two more obvious ones, there are two other variables that make these two guitar riffs completely different.

a. The rhythm

Rhythm is the single most important variable if you want a different song from the same guitar chord progression.

Though the rhythm in Bar one is the same in both examples above, while in Ex 1 I keep repeating more or less the same rhythm, in Ex 2 it changes entirely, especially with the introduction of rests.

b. The number of notes struck in each chord.

If you look at the tab in Ex 1, you will notice I’m striking 3 strings every time I hit a chord throughout the whole riff.

In Ex 2, the number of notes I hit each time I strike a chord keeps changing all the time. In the first crotchet, I only hit the lower three strings while in the coming four quavers I hit the higher four strings. Then I strum all six strings at the end of the first bar.

So on and so forth.

The number of strings you hit is another variable that makes your guitar chord progressions sound different, and you can play around with hitting a different number of strings at will when songwriting.

You don’t need to hit all the strings all the time.

  1. I – V – vi – IV and vi –IV – I – V

These chord progressions on the guitar use the same chords and are the same except that they start from a different chord.

Songs that use this chord progression include “Africa” by Toto, “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift, “21 Guns” by Green Day, and “Alone” by Heart.

The next example is an I – V – vi – IV guitar chord progression in the key of C.

Ex. 3

Guitar Chord Progressions for songwriting

Here I’m using open chords to play the C (I), G (V), Am (vi), and a barre chord for the F (IV)

It’s a simple rhythm made interesting through the use of the quaver rests, and you can easily find a tune to sing over it.

Another thing you can do when you’re writing songs with guitar chord progressions is to play some or all of the notes individually.

Who said you need to strum chords all the time?

The next example is another I – V – vi – IV (I) progression in C major, but this time, while some chords are strummed, others have their notes played individually in arpeggio style.

Ex.4

Guitar Chord Progressions for songwriting

In this chord progression above you may also note how I used the opening motif in different forms and variations throughout the riff. Read this lesson about guitar phrasing to learn more about the topic of motif and variation.

Common guitar chord progressions

The main aim of this lesson was to show you how to use chord progressions for songwriting, rather than explore a lot of different chord progressions. This lesson on diatonic chord progressions will show you how to create chord progressions.

If you want to experiment further, here are a few cool chord progressions on the guitar that are quite common in Rock and Pop music.

  1. ii – V – I
  2. I – vi – IV – V
  3. vi –IV – I – V
  4. ii – I – V
  5. ii – IV – V

Music theory

If you’re a songwriter who shies away from learning music theory, the above guitar chord progressions should give you some shortcuts.

Yet, it cannot be emphasized enough how important music theory is for songwriters.

If, you know the theory behind how each chord is built and the reasons why chords move to one another the way they do, the options on your palette of choices will increase dramatically when writing songs.

What this does not mean though, is that songwriting should be done by numbers. It’s still about inspiration, creativity, and flow.

What background in music theory gives you is a foundation that will remove obstacles to your creativity. Not a set of rules you have to abide by all the time.

In fact, the rules are broken all the time.

When I started learning some intermediate music theory and tried to analyze my favorite (Rock) songs, at first I got confused.

Why is there a Bb if the song is in the key of C?

I tried to find an answer in the books, but the real answer wouldn’t be there.

In most instances, the songwriter just felt like putting a Bb there, it sounded right, and he didn’t go checking with the theory books to see if he broke any law.

If it sounds good, it is good!

Learn the theory, use it as your guide, but never consider it as your master.

Guitar Improvisation

Another guitar-playing ability songwriters should start developing is improvisation.

Start training yourself to make things on the spot, no matter how simple they are at first.

Once again, a background in music theory would be very helpful here.

This lesson on guitar improvisation will give you the basic tools to get started in making things up on the spot.

Application

If you’ve understood how chord progressions can be used for songwriting, the fun actually starts now.

Pick up your guitar, grab a pen and paper, and start writing. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

And if you write songs using guitar chords progressions while also learning music theory as well as improvising on your instrument, your songwriting skills will start improving in a very short time.

Write, learn, write more, learn more.

Repeat the above until greatness!


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2 thoughts on “How to use Guitar Chord Progressions to Write Songs”

  1. stephen givens

    the part about the chord being used in rock being all the same would be more relevant if you gave a more full explanation in writing and song material like showing the chords in song and how they appear in them and how they will perform in each song showing the context of the use. like this chord is used here to base a song while being augmented in all these song and so on set of four of each and just indicate the chord position with color. i think i am to new but multiple chords in position could be the reason for three guitars with two run some type of chord like the bass chord running with the drums and the two leads running alternating chords and arpeggios…

  2. stephen givens

    Hey this is one thing i have noticed and that is chord chart differ in what people believe is the correct note for a song. i have found like three way to play a bdim and i would like more then anything to do stuff right. that is all that matters to me. that i do it right. so can you paste in your chords so i do it right please.??? right at the beginning as i was really making a song until i got to bdim and now i just a guy who is not sure anymore so i tabled my song until i know which one is real. if they are all real and that is why it is not included can you please tell me that too. I guarantee that i will use them all if i get a chance as long as it doesn’t save no no no your are playing country now. otherwise how do i get the right chords by genre so i can literally play everything.??? starting with rock, blues,.

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