Learning Harmony for Songwriting

[GuitarTutorHelp]

Knowing about harmony is very helpful when writing songs.

In this post, I will talk about harmonizing the major scale.
You can think of a harmonized scale as a scale played in terms
of chords.

The harmonized major scale follows this order:

maj min min maj maj min dim

Note:
maj = major
min = minor
dim = diminished

So, for example, in the key of C major (CDEFGABC),
the chords that are diatonic, or belonging to the key are:

Cmaj Dmin Emin Fmaj Gmaj Amin Bdim

Cool? Using these chords would be a good starting
point for the key of C.

This may seem confusing but we can talk about this more!

[GuitarTutorHelp]

hope this category is ok. Just noticed the theory category,
but this is very important for songwriting

[olly]

No this is great stuff and look forward to hearing more about your approach to songwriting.

Thanks for taking the effort!

[Instructor]

The dim chord is a rarely used chord in songwriting for example.

Harmony is more than knowing what diatonic chords to use, and knowing those isn't necessarily "harmony". Also important is the understanding of a chord's function to the scale it came out of, and cadences. Theres lots of ways of harmonizing lines, 3rds, 4ths (sus) and 5ths. For others 3rds and 7ths are used. In country, 6ths are common. Even more than that is the study of counterpoint, where you learn the rules and motions of intervals, steps and directions across a melody line, and then learn how to free counterpoint.

Any of these can serve as melodic aspects.

By the way, instead of the dim, for most intents and purposes, its better to use a bVII.

Take Freebird for example.

If it were diatonic the song would have been ruined.


G - D/F# - Em - F#7b5 - C and D. This would be diatonic, and sound terrible. There would be no Freebird.

G D/F# Em *F* C and D sound great because the quirky dim (m7b5) is removed and the much more pleasant F (bVII) is introduced, which gives it the flavor.

Instructor