Write Your First Song

1.Keys and scales: the notes that belong together

A scale is the set of notes a song is built from. Pick a key, like C major, and you get seven notes that sound right together. On a piano, C major is simply the white keys.

Twelve notes, that's all

Western music uses twelve notes, then repeats them higher and lower. On a keyboard they're the seven white keys and five black keys between one C and the next. From one key to the very next one, black or white, is a half step. Two half steps make a whole step.

That's the whole alphabet. Every song you know is made from those twelve.

A scale picks seven of them

A major scale walks up in this pattern of steps:

whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half

Start on C and follow it, and you land on C D E F G A B C: all white keys. Start on any other key, follow the same pattern, and you get the major scale of that key. It will use some black keys, but it sounds the same, only higher or lower. That's what a key is: a starting note, plus the pattern.

Major and minor

Play C major up and down. Bright, settled, a bit "happy birthday".

Now play the same white keys from A to A. Same notes, different home. That's A minor, and it sounds darker, more wistful. Its pattern is:

whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole

A major key and the minor key that shares its notes are relatives: C major and A minor are family. Lots of songs move between the two, which is one reason a chorus can suddenly feel brighter than the verse.

Why home matters

The first note of the scale is home (musicians call it the tonic). A melody can wander, but the ear wants to come back there. End a tune on home and it feels finished. End it anywhere else and it feels like a question. Songwriters use both on purpose.

2.Chords and progressions: the harmony under your song

A chord is three or more notes played together: take every other note of the scale (the 1st, 3rd and 5th) and you have one. A progression is a few chords in a row, repeated. Four chords are enough for a lot of songs.

Building a chord

Put a finger on C. Skip a white key and put a finger on E. Skip one more: G. That's C major: C, E, G. Stacking every other note like this gives you a triad, the basic chord.

Do the same from D and you get D, F, A: D minor. The difference is in the gaps:

• Major: 4 half steps, then 3. Bright.
• Minor: 3 half steps, then 4. Darker.

One half step in the middle note changes the whole mood. Try C E G, then C E♭ G.

Seven chords from one scale

Build a triad on every note of C major and you get the chords that belong to the key:

Musicians number them with Roman numerals: capitals for major, small letters for minor (the ° marks the odd one out, a diminished chord). The numbers are the trick. "I – V – vi – IV" means the same thing in every key, so once you learn a progression in C, you can play it anywhere.

Three chords do most of the work:

• I is home.
• IV moves away. It feels open.
• V wants to go back home. It feels like tension.

Play C, F, G, C (I – IV – V – I) and you hear a little story: home, away, tension, home again. That's how a great many songs begin.

Four progressions to start with

• I – IV – V – I (C F G C): the first one everyone learns. Rock, folk, blues.
• I – V – vi – IV (C G Am F): the pop progression. The vi is the first minor chord, and it gives the bright chords an ache.
• vi – IV – I – V (Am F C G): the same four chords starting on the minor one. Moodier. Very 80s.
• i – iv – v – i in a minor key (Am Dm Em Am): all minor, all shadow.

The second and third use the same chords in a different order. Where a progression starts changes how it feels.

Make it yours

A progression isn't a song yet. Change how long each chord lasts, play it slow or fast, or play the notes of each chord one after another (that's an arpeggio). Swap one chord for another from the table. Chord progressions belong to nobody, so take them and use them freely. What makes a song yours is what you put on top, and that's lesson 4.

3.Rhythm and groove: what makes people move

Rhythm is when the notes happen. Most songs count in fours: four beats to a bar, with the kick drum on beats 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and 4. The tempo, in beats per minute (BPM), sets how fast it goes.

Beats, bars and tempo

Tap your foot to any song and you're tapping the beat. Count them in groups of four, "1, 2, 3, 4", and each group is a bar. Chords usually change at the start of a bar, which is why a progression of four chords often lasts four bars.

The tempo is how many beats go by in a minute. Slow ballads sit around 60 to 80 BPM, most pop between 100 and 130, and dance music around 120 to 128. The same chords at a different tempo can turn a ballad into a dance track.

The basic beat

Almost every pop and rock beat starts from the same skeleton:

• Kick (the low thud) on beats 1 and 3. It's the floor.
• Snare (the crack) on beats 2 and 4. That's the backbeat, where people clap.
• Hi-hat (the tick) on every half beat: "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". It keeps time.

Dance music often puts the kick on all four beats instead: "four on the floor".

Groove is in the gaps

A beat that hits only on the numbers feels stiff. Move a note onto an "and", just before or after the beat, and it starts to swing. That's syncopation, and it's most of what people mean by groove. Leaving a beat empty matters as much as filling one: space lets the music breathe.

The bass usually locks to the kick, playing the root of each chord as the kick hits. When the bass and kick agree, the whole song feels tight.

4.Melody and the hook: the part people sing

A melody is the tune on top, one note at a time. Start from the notes of the chord underneath, land on them on the strong beats, and move mostly in small steps. The hook is a short phrase you repeat until it sticks.

Start from the chord

The easiest notes to sing over a chord are the chord's own. Over C major (C E G), any of those three will sound right. Put a chord note on beat 1 of each bar and you can wander in between with other notes from the scale: they'll sound like a passing step, not a mistake.

Steps and leaps

Most good melodies move step by step, to the next note up or down, because that's easy to sing. Then, now and then, they leap, and the leap is where the feeling is. After a big jump up, a melody usually steps back down. Too many leaps and it sounds random; none at all and it sounds like a scale.

Repeat, then change one thing

The ear loves repetition with a twist. Sing a short phrase, sing it again, then change the end. Or answer it: one phrase asks, the next replies. That call and response shape is in folk songs, blues and pop alike.

The hook

The hook is the bit people hum on the way home. It's short (a few words, a few notes), it usually carries the song's title, and it comes back several times, most of all in the chorus. Give it a rhythm you could clap and put it a little higher than the verse, so it lifts when it arrives.

Hum before you play

Play the progression on repeat and hum over it without thinking. Record yourself on your phone. Most melodies are found that way, not built, and the ones you hum are the ones others can sing. Your melody is the part that's truly yours, so make it your own and not someone else's tune.

5.Song structure: putting it all together

Most songs are built from a few parts that repeat: a verse that tells the story, a chorus that carries the hook, and often a bridge for something new. A common order is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus.

The parts

• Intro: a few bars to set the mood. Often the chorus chords, without the voice.
• Verse: the story. Lower and calmer, with new words each time.
• Pre-chorus (optional): a short build that makes the chorus feel inevitable.
• Chorus: the hook and the title. The biggest, highest part, with the same words every time.
• Bridge: once, near the end. New chords or a new feel, so the last chorus lands like coming home.
• Outro: how it ends: a fade, the hook once more, or a full stop.

A map to start from

Intro – Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus – Outro

Each part is usually 4 or 8 bars. That map at a pop tempo comes out at about three minutes, which is roughly how long most songs are.

Contrast is the secret

If the verse and the chorus sound the same, the chorus has nothing to rise from. Make them different in at least one way: other chords, a higher melody, a busier beat, more instruments. A common trick is to start the verse on the vi chord and the chorus on the I, so the chorus sounds brighter the moment it starts.

Finish it

Your first song doesn't need to be great. It needs to be finished. A finished song teaches you more than ten good starts, and the second one will be better. Pick a progression, a beat and a hook, fill in the map, and call it done.