Chords & Harmony

Most songwriters need far less theory than they think, and the part they do need is unusually concrete: which chords tend to follow which, how to write them down so the notation survives editing the lyric, and how to find chords that fit a melody already in your head.

These guides stay on that practical ground. They cover notating chords alongside lyrics, the progressions that recur across popular music and why they work, harmonizing a melody after the fact, and the Nashville Number System, which is how working musicians talk about progressions without committing to a key.