Every once and a while I got asked how I write songs by people who want to give it a shot themselves. And while it's pretty impossible to give a step-by-step 'guide' to composition I thought it could be fun for some people if I just give some basic advice on how to write a simple song. None of the rules I'll mention are actually rules, feel more then free to do everything differently. Sticking too much to 'theory' instead of using your ears is not the most creative way to work but it functions to get you started. Don't forget I'm not much of an expert myself so keep a critical mindset. Feel welcome to add more to this if you've got some neat little tricks yourselves. In any case, for this 'instruction' (and take that with a grain of salt!) you'll need to be familiar with the basic open chords and I'll use some basic theory terms as covered by our very own Mr. Hodge in his lessons. Hope anyone likes this! :)
The first thing to do is decide in what key we'll write and what time signature to use. For this song we'll go for A-minor, because that key contains loads of nice open chords, and we'll use standard time, or 4/4, for no other reason that it's simple. For our chord progression we'll take a look at the A-natural minor scale: A B C D E F G. With these notes will form the chords:
A C E = Am (i)
B D F = Bm5b (ii5b)
C E G = C (III)
D F A = Dm (iv)
E G B = Em (v)
F A C = F (VI)
G B D = G (VII)
Of these chords the Bm5b and F aren't the easiest, so we'll just ignore them. That gives us these five chords to work with: Am, C, Dm, Em and G. Now we need to come up with a progression for the verses. Let's try a 8-bar progression consisting of two parts of four bars (called V1 and V2). We'll want to start both parts on our 'home-chord', the A-minor:
V1: Am-?-?-?
V2: Am-?-?-?
Since we want our progression to be played a few times after each other we'll need a 'strong' chord to end both parts. A chord that always works is the 'v', in our case E-minor. You can always use the major version of the 'v' (in this case E-major) if you go back to your home-chord, but to keep it simple we won't. Try out for yourself how the difference sounds.
V1: Am-?-?-Em
V2: Am-?-?-Em
Okay, let's fill up the remaining to slots of the V1 part. We've used the Am and Em chords, so we've got the C, Dm and G left. if you try them you'll see all of these three chords sound very nicely after the Am so we can't really pick a wrong one. Let's just go with the Dm:
V1: Am-Dm-?-Em
V2: Am-?-?-Em
Great, now we need just one chord. The final chord needs to sit between a Dm and Em, let's take a quick look at which notes are used in those chords again:
Dm = D F A
Em = E G B
As you see all notes are different, so we want to find a chord that shares notes with both chords, to serve as a 'link'. Let's look at our five chords again, minus the two we'll be playing before and after it:
A C E = Am (i)
C E G = C (III)
G B D = G (VII)
The Am isn't that nice. It shares one note with Dm (A), one with Em (E) and has one other note that neither chord uses (C). The C chord isn't that usefull either: it shares two notes with the Em (E and G) but no note with the Dm. The final chord, G, looks promising though: it shares one note with Dm (D), two notes with Em (G, D) and has no other notes. Let's try it:
V1: Am-Dm-G-Em
V2: Am-?-?-Em
Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Now we need just to fill the two remaining blank spots in V2 and we've got the progression done. For the V1 we used four different chords. That's possible, but you can also use chords multiple times. Let's just use only the Am and Em chords for the second bit:
V1 Am-Dm-G-Em
V2: Am-Em-Am-Em
Nothing too fancy, but it does sound kinda nice. So now we've got our 8-bar progression done:
Verse: Am-Dm-G-Em-Am-Em-Am-Em
Great. Let's just skip the verse a bit and take a look at the chorus. We can't just play these chords over and over again, so for the chorus we want something different. We're ending our verses on an Em, so what should we start the chorus with? A trick that often works is to take the parallel major/minor of the final chord. In this case G (because the E-natural minor and G-major scale share the same notes). We'll go for the 8 bars again, divided in two parts. Again, we'll begin on our home-chord, which is G for the chorus:
C1: G-?-?-?
C2: G-?-?-?
As with the verses, we'll want to end the first part on the V. But what exactly *is* the V when G is our home-chord? Let's write the G-major scale down: G A B C D E F#. This gives us these chords
G B D = G (I)
A C E = Am (ii)
B D F# = Bm (iii)
C E G = C (IV)
D F# A = D (V)
E G B = Em (vi)
F# A C = F#m5b (vii5b)
Okay, so this time we drop the Bm and F#m5b because they can be a bit tricky. That gives us these chords to work with: G, Am, C, D and Em. Hey, isn't that very much like what we did when we played in Am? Yup. Since only the F changed to F# and we kicked two chords out that use that note we only changed one chord, de Dm is now D. And talking about D, that happens to be V we were looking for:
C1: G-?-?-D
C2: G-?-?-?
Okay, in V1 we used four chords, in V2 we used only two chords. Lets use three chors for C1 to keep some artificial variation going. ;) As we saw in V2 both I-V and V-I sound very nice, so let's use our D again:
C1: G-D-?-D
C2: G-?-?-?
Fine, so what's going in between? Well, in the verses we use lots of minor chords so let's stay with major chords for the chorus. As you can see the only major chords we have at our disposal are the G, C and D. We already used the G and D so let's try the C and hope it fits.
C1: G-D-C-D
C2: G-?-?-?
We'll, not all that bad, isn't it? Okay, let's finish the second part. Let's try to keep it somewhat similar but change only one chord. Since we'll go from C2 back to V1 we'll need some kind of link again. Remember how we went for the paralel major/minor chord to go from V2 to C1 (Em->G)? Let's do the same again. We'll go to the Am, so we'll need the paralel major of it, which is C-major.
C1: G-D-C-D
C2: G-?-?-C
Okay, that should hopefully work, and if not we can always change it. :) We wanted to keep a somewhat similar progression and we already changed a chord, so let's leave the rest the same:
C1: G-D-C-D
C2: G-D-C-C
Great, that shouldn't be too hard to play, plus it sounds good. We now have the progressions for both the chorus and the verses.
Verses: Am-Dm-G-Em-Am-Em-Am-Em
Chori: G-D-C-D-G-D-C-C
Okay, so how do we structure this? Let's just stick with a basic pattern:
Intro (same chords as the chorus or verse, you pick)
Verse
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Solo (same chords as the verse)
Chorus
Outro (same chords as chorus)
Next up would be the melody and lyrics, plus figuring out what to do with these chords, but let's just wait and see if someone actually cares about tese ramblings of mine. Hope somebody finds some use for this, don't forget there is a hear-here subforum on these GN boards were you can post yoru songs and ask for specific suggestions and comments. Good luck!
Neat stuff! I personally am not a big songwriter (Although I would say I have come up with some catchy riffs and licks, just not entire songs) but I think alot of what you're talking about is really useful stuff, there's even stuff I wouldn't of thought of (usaully I just play a riff and figure out a nice sounding chord progression), so it's interesting to see a different perspective.
Steve-0
Great 'rambling', Sleu. :)
Copied, pasted and saved out.
I'm going to follow it through. I'll post something on Hear Here in the not so distant future. Promise.
Much appreciated.
:)
Don
I think you should get this together and ask the powers that be around here if you can write a series of songwriting articles for the front page.
I think you should get this together and ask the powers that be around here if you can write a series of songwriting articles for the front page.
I thought the same thing, pearl. :)
My first thought was, "This belongs on the home page'.
Don
Very interesting, especially as I approach songwriting from a diametrically opposing viewpoint! I usually start with a phrase that's going to be the hook, or in some cases, the title. I'll write the lyrics first, but I'll have some idea of the melody as well - then when I've finished the lyrics, I'll start thinking about instrumentation. Rhythm guitar first - that's my foundation to work from. Find the chords to go with the melody, then experiment - change them round, mess about with the timing etc. Of course, when I start messing around with the chords, the melody often has to change, and perhaps the lyrics. It's all a bit hit-and-miss....but when it works, I'm usually pleased with the end results.
This seems very scientific and precise - almost like painting by numbers. I'm not knocking it, it shows the value of being fairly well versed in music theory. I think the main difference between us is, with me the lyrics are most important and the music has to fit the mood of the lyrics....you're a more accomplished all-round musician, and to you the music is most important, lyrics a secondary consideration. Again, that's not a criticism - just pointing out that everyone writes in different ways.
Thanks for a well-written article, Arjen - plenty of food for thought in there. I never thought of songwriting quite so analytically before! And of course, nothing's written in stone.....there are no rules, only guidelines!
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Front page with a bullet!
This is a great example of why we are all here!
Great job of rambling! :shock: :D :D :D
When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming......
like the passengers in his car.
Thanks people, glad it was appreciated. :) I'll say what can be done with this from here.
This seems very scientific and precise - almost like painting by numbers. I'm not knocking it, it shows the value of being fairly well versed in music theory. I think the main difference between us is, with me the lyrics are most important and the music has to fit the mood of the lyrics....you're a more accomplished all-round musician, and to you the music is most important, lyrics a secondary consideration. Again, that's not a criticism - just pointing out that everyone writes in different ways.
Well, not really. I've got a bunch of songs where lyrics were the center, some where the melody came first, some where everything was improvised etc. However, of all ways to write a song this one is the easiest to explain on a forum. It's not easy to tell a beginner to just 'write a melody', and giving 'rules' for a plain melody ain't that easy. After that I'd had to expect people to idenity the core notes, combine those into chords and pick those options where the movement of the chords work as well without messing up the melody. It's one of those things that's easier done then said. :D
A second advantage is that this method allows you to explore sounds that you are not yet experienced with. For example, writing progressions in the harmonic minor scale gives much more interesting chords, and freewheeling through it doesn't work that well at first. Trying this method first will be like a 'tour' of sounds in a particular scale after which you can take a more freestyle approach. A final advantage is when you start using new chords, like 7s if you only used triads and 9s if you only used 7s. With major/minor chords it's fairly easy to find the right one for each part of the melody. But when you extend the chords you end up with so many possibilities it's nice to be able to filter out the most prospective ones without having to try a gazillion chords.
And of course, nothing's written in stone.....there are no rules, only guidelines!
Absolutely! I really hope some people will read this and use it as a stepping stone to their own style. If things like these become someone's personal Bible then something went wrong somewhere.
Absolutely! I really hope some people will read this and use it as a stepping stone to their own style. If things like these become someone's personal Bible then something went wrong somewhere.
You'll be happy to know that 5 minutes into the project I rejigged 'your' chord prgression because it wasn't working with 'my' melody. :)
Don
