Music Theory for Songwriters Masterclass

Compare score, lead sheet, and chart formats, then see how staves, clefs, piano reduction, and chords with tempo and endings guide vocal entry and form.

This lecture explains two main pitch naming systems—letter names and solfege—regional differences, and shows how treble and bass clefs anchor notes like C, G, and F, with mnemonic aids.

Explore octaves and registers; notes like C, D, E, and F repeat across the keyboard and sound harmonious when shifted by an octave. Learn to read octave numbers like C5.

Create and practice songwriter oriented worksheets in pdf form to identify pitches and learn pitch notation, with answers at the bottom to check your work, no grade.

Explore how time is notated in music, from note shapes and beams to rhythmic values, and compare the US quarter-eighth-half note system with global naming variants.

Learn how dots extend note durations by half their value, from dotted quarter to dotted eighth notes, and how rests and beat-based groupings shape rhythm reading.

Master how rests represent silence to fill each measure, with whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth rests and dotted variations, and learn how bar lines and time signatures shape rhythm.

Learn how time signatures set beats per measure and define the beat, with examples in 4/4, 6/8, and 3/4, noting most pop songs stay in 4/4.

Learn how ties extend rhythmic value across bar lines by holding, not reattacking, notes, and distinguish ties from slurs in common meter contexts.

Practice note identification using musictheory.net exercises, turn off accidentals, and compare note positions to build rhythm awareness and understand symbols and conventions for music notation and writing music.

Learn how sharps raise a note by a half step, identify accidentals, and read the sharp symbol, with examples like C sharp, G sharp, and A sharp on the piano.

Flats lower a note by a half step, as in b flat or d flat, and black keys have names like c sharp or d flat, guided by the key.

Discover practical ways to practice reading music using imslp.org scores, see handwritten and typeset Mozart scores, and use landmarks to count notes and improve note literacy.

Two great ways to practice: play the music on your instrument to improve reading, or print the score and write in the notes to strengthen note recognition.

Explore how to listen to a song, identify what works, and apply it to your own writing through scales, notes, and chords, beginning with staff familiarity.

Explore chromatic and diatonic concepts by contrasting chromatic 'all notes' with diatonic 'subset of notes' within a key. See how songwriters use notes to sound harmonious.

Discover scales as ordered pitch class collections that span all octaves and move from low to high. Compare chromatic and diatonic patterns and see how a practical scale omits notes.

Explore half steps and whole steps, including semitone and whole tone, to understand major scales and underpin chords and harmony for songwriting.

Identify the tonic as the scale's home base, the note that feels like a stop or beginning point, such as C in C major and E-flat in E-flat major chords.

Practice scales by identifying whole steps and half steps in bass and treble clef notation, spotting scale fragments and major scales, and using this knowledge to write melodies.

Explore how major scales guide melody writing, from writing melodies first to adding chords and words later, using step skips and leaps to analyze melodies.

Compose a melody using the C major scale with steps, skips, and leaps. Start on the tonic and end on it to establish the key and explore scale notes.

Analyze a pop melody from the flowers lead sheet by Miley Cyrus, identify the a minor tonic, and map steps, skips, and leaps to inform your own melodic writing.

Discover multiple clues to identify a key: key signature, last sharp, first and last chords, title cues, a sustained pitch, and how a melody starts and ends.

Define chords as groups of notes, focus on triads as core guitar chords, and explain major and minor chords. Explore how different triads sound on open strummed chords.

Learn to build a major triad from a scale by selecting the first, third, and fifth notes, using C major and F major examples; seventh chords are noted for later.