How to Write Beautiful Guitar Parts… IN FIVE STEPS
How to Write Beautiful Guitar Parts
in Five Steps
Hey guys, I hope you had a fantastic weekend. I want to start this week with an awesome fingerpicking lesson in which I am going to show you how to write beautiful guitar parts in five steps.
First things first, thank you so much to one of my Patron Martin for suggesting this beautiful chord progression (which I am definitely going to use for different videos). I think the intro in this song is truly captivating. Thank you for sharing Martin!
Now, there are five steps that I usually follow when I try to write beautiful guitar parts. These five steps represent the basic structure for my guitar lessons and songwriting and I make sure I follow it all the time.
Obviously, you can use these five steps as a starting point before coming up with your own structure. Depending on your technique and musical background five steps could be too many or too little so don’t be scared to organize things in a different way.
My five steps formula goes like this:
- Step 1: Establish chords
- Step 2: The three notes rule
- Step 3: Melodic approach
- Step 4: Diversify chords
- Step 5: Clear ending
Good luck!
Tab and video with tab on screen available on my Patreon page!
Enjoy this lesson!
Tab Available on Patreon!
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Step 1 – Establish Chords
The first step to write beautiful guitar parts is to establish the chord progression. Chords are the most important aspect of a composition so I always start with that.
In this fingerpicking lesson the chord progression is really simple: C | Am | Em. The C and A minor chord last for two counts only while the E minor is four counts.
Once I decide which chord progression I am working on I quickly check if I can benefit from open strings, basic chords and simple melodies around the chords. Notice that even though the chord progression starts with the C major chord, we are actually playing in E minor key so the chords and scale refer to the E minor key.
After practicing the basic chords for few minutes I then try to find a picking pattern that works with the chords. For this lesson we will be focusing on a pretty simple fingerpicking pattern based on three strings only.
The step 1 should always be as simple as possible. If you start with a complex part you will have no space left to develop the chords and melody as you progress through the different steps.
Step 2 – The Three Notes Rule
Once you have established your chord progression, picking pattern and rhythmic pattern you can then more on to the step two which is called “The Three Notes Rule”.
The goal here is to spice up the chords with only two or three additional notes and maybe a very simple melody. In this beautiful guitar part we will be adding a bass line as well as a simple melody on the E minor chord.
Notice that in order to fit the bass line the fingerpicking pattern has to be changed. Being able to make quick adjustments as you more on to the next steps is crucial because we can’t really add new parts without modifying what we already have.
Step 3 – Melodic Approach
The Step 3 is one of my favorite. So far we’ve established the chord progression and added a picking pattern to it. Then we spiced up the chords with a simple bass line and melody. Now we can finally start developing melodically.
A melody is progression of notes played individually. A melody can only sound beautiful if there is a valid accompaniment supporting each note, therefore we can’t can’t really play a melody without chords.
The awesome thing about fingerpicking guitar is that we can combine chords and melody together.
In this particular lesson we are going to simplify the chords so that we only play the root note (bass note). Once you learn where the root note of each chord is played you can then add a melody around the chords.
One of benefit of playing in E minor is that the majority of the chords have the root note on the open strings. The root note for the A minor chord can be played on the 5th open string. The E minor chord has the root note on the 6th open.
Because this is the first time we are using the melodic approach I like to keep the melody relatively simple.
Step 4 – Diversify Chords
We shouldn’t really play the same chords over an over again. One of the practice I love the most involves experimenting with different chord shape.
In this lesson I am going to play the chord progression in a different position of the neck so that I can benefit form open strings and over-ringing.
If you are a beginner, you should experiment with one chord at a time before trying more difficult once.
Diversify chords is one of the best practice to write beautiful guitar parts.
Step 5 – Clear Ending
The one thing that your audience remember will always be the beginning and ending of your performance.
One of the thing I do a lot is to change at least one chord from the chord progression so that the listener feels that something different is about to happen. In this example I am changing the A minor chord with a Dadd9 chord. This chord sounds really conclusive and does the job beautifully.
This is indeed the most conclusive chord progression I know 🙂 C | Dadd9 | Em
Tab available on Patreon.
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