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, ...

A normal C major chord is C-E-G, but you can easily change it to E-G-C, called the 'first inversion', or G-C-E, the 'second inversion' - the bass note has changed, but it's still the same chord, with ...

The wonderful world of musical punctuation offers near-endless possibilities. Get to grips with them today... When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s ...

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 ...

Vivek Maddala is an Emmy-winning composer and a regular participant in The Number Ones Comment Section. After reading his takes on the music theory behind several historic hits, we invited him to turn ...