how do you write a song?

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i don't play any instrument but i would like to write music but I never get anywhere with it. i eighter can't get some song i listened to out of my head or i end up thinkning of some song i already heard . So i get blocked from even hearing anything else in my head. How do you actually do it?

Do you know any Music Theory? Music is like a language with it's own simple grammar and alphabet to learn. I suggest you try learning the piano or other keyboard. it is very easy to visualize the different notes and chords on a keyboard and you can even figure out how to reproduce the stuff you hear in your head

I think you need to learn an instrument otherwise it's just poems. Guitar is a pretty quick thing to learn

i want to be able to do it in my head first. I would very much like to play a instrument i just lack the courage. Maybe if I know I enjoy doing it and can finnish a song i could take the step.
Maybe im a bit stupid but for some reason I don't know how to do it.

I write songs even though I can't sing and can't play s**t.

I already write poetry so it's easy for me, I just have to write it with the verse, chorus, verse, chorus layout.

Remember, song lyrics are poetry. So just write a poem with the right layout and you've just written a song. It's that simple.

You do not have to know how to play anything, or even sing well to write a song. You don't need to known any music theory either.

BUT, and this is a VERY BIG BUT (not that one silly, the word for crying out loud!), if you cannot play anything, you need to be able to COMMUNICATE what you've written to musicians and singers who can. And good luck with that, because most of them are either too busy writing stuff of their own, or playing stuff already established.

Use a recording device of any kind at all. TEACH yourself to sing, by singing music already written. You don't have to be great, just good enough to get the idea recorded.

Now, as for the part about it always coming out like something you've already heard, there are two good ways to deal with that problem.

Listen to a LOT of different styles of music, but most importantly, LISTEN TO JAZZ. Even if you don't like jazz, listen to it anyway. Find some songs that you know as standards that have been recorded by jazz musicians. Listen to what they do with the original music. THAT, my friend, is on the spot composing. Jazz (just listening to it) teaches you how a song can be changed, sometimes beyond all recognition. That will teach you what to do with pieces that turn out to sound too much like another song you already know. But you have to listen to a lot of it.

Second, assuming you've already spent a great deal of your life listening to a lot of music, TURN OFF THE RADIO! Most important! Quit listening to popular music altogether for a long time. Radio is intentionally rife with catchy tunes easy to remember. That's the nature of all pop music. Listen to stuff that's hard to remember for a while. Listen to classical, listen to jazz, listen to anything you haven't spent most of your life listening to.

The point is to drive those simplistic hard to get out of your head songs out of your head so you can think up your own simplistic hard to get out of your head songs, then THEY can be stuck in your head. After a while, your biggest problem will be that your songs start sounding like other songs YOU'VE written.

In the end, no matter what you do, someone will find something similar in what you've written to something someone else wrote. Don't let it bother you. Inadvertent copyright violations happen all the time. The worst that can happen if that does happen, and somebody sues you, is that the original author will make money from your song instead of you, or, you will split the difference in some way.

Oh, and the points about music theory, playing an instrument and singing? No, you don't have to be able to do any of those things, but they sure do help. A LOT! Without them, you ARE handicapped, but it can still be done.

Pick up an instrument, I suppose. I could write a song without any of my instruments, but the knowledge of writing one only really comes from being able to play an instrument.

Oh, and it's not the same thing as poetry. If you're writing lyrics and just adding a few chords here and there (add a little "C" chord there, maybe a "G" chord there, yadda yadda)... then stop writing what you perceive to be "music" and start taking up poetry, or just focus on lyrics. Music is supposed to have melodies and stuff - I'm sick of the radio-pop s**t where people think they can take the same four chords that every pop "art"ist uses and thinks they can call it a song as opposed to poetry. Then there's modern pop-rap, which doesn't even have chords. There's literally nothing but a simple over-compressed beat repeating over and over again with no variation. Just lyrics. Poetry's good - all I'm saying is, if they have the guts to call that music, I have the guts to call it uninspired.

At this very moment, I've been writing music since earlier this year. At the very moment, I only have the groundwork for eight songs down. Some are barely developed, I find it just naturally comes along. Sometimes I'll feel inhibited by something - "it sounds too simple" or "it sounds too complex", either one thing or the other - and I find the only way to really counteract that is to just go right into it. If it sounds like a good melody and has a good progression, roll with it.

Learning how to play (or just listening to) a variety of different types of music really helps well.

And also importantly, you kind of have an ultimatum here:

1.) Find others to play with, collaborate together to write songs
2.) Learn a ton, and I mean a TON, and then write songs

#1 isn't the most advisable in this case, and being in this forum I shouldn't need to spell it out. This is one of the most common ways of writing music in some of the most successful music groups.

#2 is my case here, as I've yet to find a band. I'm writing the guitar, the bass, the drums, and more, for a single song, and the song has variations in it (like a verse and a chorus, nice intro, and a nice backing for the solos, etc...), it's a pretty nice solid rock song. I'm writing another song that is more classical-piano influenced. Then another is jazzy (with piano) and another is down-tempo progressive rock, ala Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, etc...

Usually, you write a melody and find a chord progression that fits under it or write a chord progression and create a melody to match. The former is more common, but the latter is more stable and generally sounds better when you're done.

The most important thing to know is that music is composed of seven basic "triads," or chords. For example, in the key of C major (the one with no sharps or flats), the first chord would consist of a C, an E, and a G. That chord is called a I chord. The seven basic triads in the key of C are I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, and vii(diminished). The capital letters denote major chords, the lower case letters denote minor chords, and the diminished chord contains an interval called a tritone (which used to be referred to as the devil's interval, as it sounds terrible when you do not resolve it properly). When creating a chord progression, you can only go from certain chords to other particular chords, and music theory classes will specifically show you how that works. The most important thing to know, though, is that V and vii (dim) always go to I.

And that's even more than you need to make a song. Most popular music consists only of the I, IV, and V chords. Of course, that's one of the (many) reasons that I despise it, but it doesn't stop people from trying.

If all this technical stuff is beyond you because you don't have the training, you may just want to create a melody and find a friend with a guitar to add some chords. Do what sounds nice. That's what I usually do.

I wouldn't advise NOT listening, though.

ALWAYS listen. ALWAYS. And especially listen to what you like to hear and the kinds of things you want to write.

Music theory? You NEED it. I'm a piano teacher, actually, and I'm getting more students lately who are more interested in popular styles and church music, and piano teachers generally don't teach that kind of things because they were fed a steady diet of classical music and theory homework.

What music theory DOESN'T do, which is why I don't do theory homework with either my adult students or my kids, is teach you how to PLAY. I want my students practicing every chance they get. Whether they understand the difference between a major chord and a minor chord, or the difference between a C6 chord and an Am7 chord has nothing to do playing the instrument. You see the note, you play the note. Simple as that.

But if you want to WRITE, you need theory. My master's degree is in composition, so my theory background is a little bit more specialized due to my particular special musical interests (atonal music and 12-tone). But songwriting involves simple triadic chord constructions and common chord progressions. These progressions WORK, which is why they are used so often and why so many pop songs sound alike. Oh yeah, I also play keyboards for a rock band.

Learn your basic triads in all major keys. I, IV, and V7 chords to start with. Write a few songs in 12-bar blues, add a I, vi, ii, V7 turnaround at the end of some of them (quite common thing to do). Write down the chord progressions of other kinds of tunes that don't follow 12-bar blues. Learn the circle of 5ths, which is your best friend when making your own chord progressions (circle of 5ths progressions are naturally strong progressions). An example of a simple circle progression is I, vi, ii, V, I. The first song I ever wrote was a simple I, V, IV, V.

To understand how to effectively end a phrase (like a verse or a chorus) you need to understand cadences--authentic (perfect/imperfect), plagal, half, and deceptive (half and deceptive cadences avoid a dominant-tonic resolution and allow you to extend musical phrases).

These are just the basics of music theory you need for songwriting, and they are extremely valuable. Other things you have to understand are like the concept of the "hook," some kind interesting musical idea that grabs the listener's attention. It can be something like an instrumental lick or some unusual play on words.

Other little things I've noticed (I'm talking about on big productions here) are like what some people call "ghosts." A "ghost" is a note or notes from various instruments that are barely noticeable but fill up a tiny portion of the sonic spectrum. Drummers are good at ghosting, typically on the snare drum, but you also hear this with guitarists and bassists (especially in funk styles with slap-bass technique) and occasionally with synthesizers (although ghosting is hard to do effectively with piano). We're just talking about making recorded music, which you probably aren't that interested in right now, but it's useful to know some of these tricks.

And finally, knowing these basics about music theory will help you understand how to basically get the structure of a song down, but it won't make you a good singer or a good lyricist or a good instrumentalist. I enjoy composing instrumental music because it's what I know best and what I've done most of my life. The only way I've ever been able to write songs that are decent at all is when I've been able to work with someone who has a heart for lyrics. I can be jamming at a piano or on my Synclavier (you can do the same on any workstation-type keyboard), which helps my songwriting partner come up with some ideas for lyrics, which helps me keep working and trying out different directions for the song to go. It doesn't take long before we have a good basic demo, and I'll often continue on independently to make a full-blown instrumental track which we can use either as a back track (karaoke-style) or as a demo if we're giving it to a band to learn. This isn't something I do very regularly because as soon as I try to write songs, some big composition project lands in my lap (currently writing for a handbell duo, of all things!).

Good vocalists are NOT hard to come by, and very few of them are actually good songwriters themselves. But you DEFINITELY need to have a good handle on music theory, basic keyboard or guitar skills, rote memorization of chord progressions, and be friendly with at least one GOOD singer who has a pretty good imagination, an open mind, and willingness to improvise. I, for one, suck as a vocalist, and if I ever do write a song that's worth being heard, it's only because I'll have a singing partner who knows how to make it sound great!

Be brave and don't be afraid to try anything. If you want, PM me and I'll be glad to help in any way I can.

Agreed. But if you spend enough time listening, and listening to a lot of varied styles, there can come a point at which you don't need to listen as much anymore. I'm talking about listening too much to the radio etc. If you spend more time creating your own stuff, eventually what you create may still sound like other works, but they are more likely to sound like your own than somebody elses.

That takes time and practice, and avoiding listening to too much of other people's music can help you develop your own style.



Poppycock. No you don't. I won't say it doesn't help, and help a LOT, but it isn't absolutely necessary. Human beings composed music for thousands of years before music theory was developed. The Beatles are still highly respected as both musicians and composers, and they didn't read or write music before writing many great songs.



Right. Playing is the only way to learn how to play. But here's where I get into trouble with musicians. Because in this day and age, you don't have to learn to play ANY traditional instruments to compose good music!

Midi composers "write" music all the time without being able to play an instrument or understand a lick of music theory. There is a lot of very good music out there composed by people who cannot play anything, and cannot read staff music.



If by "write" you mean, make dots on staff music by hand, and make it understandable to musicians trained to read it, then yes, you do need music theory for that. But the fact is you don't have to be able to do that at all anymore.

I write staff music, but I use Sibelius to do it. I know very little music theory. Just enough to get me by, but I wouldn't even need any of that to do what I do. I can "write" using Sibelius because I can actually HEAR what I'm writing while I write it. I write by ear. True, if computers didn't exist, I wouldn't be able to write as much as I do, but they do exist, so I can, and all with nearly no musical theory training. And I do it all by hand, with a mouse, not by playing into the program.

The only instrument I can play is the guitar, but most of what I write now with Sibelius is independent of that, and doesn't have any of my playing in it.

Frankly, I find it a bit annoying when people who have spent the time and money to obtain a degree in music insist that everyone else must do the same, or not be taken seriously by anyone.

Hogwash. It IS commendable whenever anyone does delve into music that deeply out of passion and love for the craft, but to insist that it is the only way is a bit bigoted in my opinion. Music theory and degrees in music aren't for everyone who loves music.

I LOVE music, love composing, love playing what little I can, and love to write songs. But I absolutely despise music theory. To me, it's a bunch of arbitrary rules thought up mostly by a bunch of really good musicians and composers who are all now long dead.

Not to mention that when we speak of "music theory," we're usually talking about a set of rules for writing music down, along with a set of ways to explain music, most of which are totally Western European in origin. There are styles of music far more ancient still being played that do not fit within those "rules."

If you're going to love music, love it for what you want to do with it. Don't live for what others tell you you should or shouldn't do with it. If you want to learn theory, do it. If it does nothing but confuse you, and it isn't fun...

why bother?

I like writing my own poems to the tune of existing songs, I know it's cheating but it's fun if you know nothing about music theory.

get a little midi keyboard and some software to go with it. or maybe guitar. I would say keyboard is easier for pure composition.

learn scales. try to figure out how they make you feel and what emotions can be ascribed to them
eg minor major etc. it's not that simple but it is a good start

learn chords and what they are composed of. triads usually plus other notes

I tend to think of music in numbers. Eg you can represent chords as notes in the major scale or with reference to those notes. chord inversions too

learn to mix chords and scales

learn about circle of fifths and the significance of it

learn about suspended chords and their ability to add suspense that can then be relieved by moving to something other than note 2 or 4 in the major scale

all the stuff i have listed here is actually really simple it is just that people want to make you think it is complicated.

Most pop or rock music is ridiculously simple and relies on repetition and minor variation and combining building blocks. If you already have a good ear for what is significant in music that is half the work done.

think about rhythm

I really know little beyond that but i'm sure there is a whole load more to learn. once you start to see progress in your abilities it is one of the most enjoyable things.