PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Writing Songs

Cool idea. Anything and everything about the writing of music and lyrics. It could be a neat place for folks to ask questions about the process and art of writing as well as seek out collaborators in an open forum.

Islansoul,

Check out Pat Pattison's course at Berklee online.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/songwriting-lyrics

Andy....

Typically, I'm very selective when it comes to song writing.
My song subjects come from my personal experiences, my take of an aspect of life or imagined story lines. (IE: for concept projects)
Not forlorn songs about love lost or broken hearts.
Hence...all my song writing efforts are very personal to me.
Although, I do think I may have in my early writing archives about (3) of the woman/ballad genre but the last one was written in 1983.

We all have our propensities and there's a myriad of subjects to write about.

A good day to all....

One of Janice's favorite singers, Gregg Allman, said there are as many ways to write a song as there are songs. He also said that if there is a song in your soul it wiill come out. For us irrespective of genre a song works if it has soul (yeah, I know, define that Bud).

There are hundreds of roots songs, particularly classic bluegrass for example, that have the power to rip the paint right off of your heart. And they are three chords written by folks who couldn't tell you what I IV V means. I'm trying, perhaps poorly, to express that song writing is a big tent that includes the sophistication and class of Duke Ellington to the "true life" writings of Bill Monroe and Carter Stanley.

That's the wonder of it. Not everybody is trying to write a hit. Not everybody has an arsenal of chords. Heck, a lot of writers can't read music. But that doesn't mean they don't have something to say. Or that they might not let you experience their soul for a few minutes.

Bud

PS We think the idea of a songwriting forum would be very cool.

It has been my experience that I need to have a story to tell. I have never been able to just sit down and write something if I don't have a story in mind. My CD was truly 9 stories from my life.

I need to start dating somebody again and have her dump me so I have something to work with. And really, the finding somebody to date is the hard part. The getting dumped part is pretty much a given....

OK Eddie...you made me laugh. At least you have a sense of humor about it. But, man are your right. As for me, I need a story to get me started also. No story..no song.

Bob

Given all the books we've read, movies and tv shows we've seen, all the stories we've heard and all the personal stories we've been through -- there should be no lack of things to write about. I don't write personal stories about myself, I make everything up. Some of it works and some of it doesn't -- just like real life.

I've sat down a few times with no story in mind, and nothing to write about.

I just started writing and ended up with a few good songs that way. Of course, that road is littered with the broken, derelict, rotting shells of the songs that never made it to the finish line.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

That may be the funniest thing I have ever heard on this forum!!

Ha ha ha ha. A classic!!!

Herb, you need to write a song about those rotting eggs man. Throw in a walrus and you're done!

Ha! Breakups and barrooms.

Coo coo ka choo

You do yourself a disservice if you don't at least check out the aforementioned free Pat Pattinson course from Berklee.

I checked it out! Useful tips! Thanks!!

To the specific question of "What chords would go good with a melody", there are a number of factors to the answer.

But first, you need to know what chords are in the key.

This requires that you know the key that you're in.

Once you know the key, you need to know the notes of the scale. For example, the notes of the D major scale are (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#). The notes of the F major scale are (F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E).

Once you know the notes, you can create a list of chords in the scale. The 1st, 4th and 5th notes of a major scale will always give you a major chord. The 2nd, 3rd and 5th will give you a minor chord. The 7th note will give you a diminished chord.

So if you're in the key of D major, you have the chords:

D (D, F#, A)
Em (E, G, B)
F#m (F#, A, C#)
G (G, B, D)
A (A, C#, E)
Bm (B, D, F#)
C#dim (C#, E, G)

Again, I assume you already know this.

OK, now on to the "rules":

1. Most importantly: No matter what the "rules" tell you, if it sounds good, it is good. And if it sounds bad, it is bad.

2. Typically, only "important" notes need to match with the chords. If a note isn't on a strong beat (1st or 3rd beat), or is short, it's OK if that note doesn't go with the chord. A little bit of dissonance makes things interesting.

3. A chord will go with a melody if the melody note is a member of the chord. So if you're in the key of D and have a C# note in the melody, any chord with a C# will sound good. Reworking the chord chart above, we get:

D -> D, Bm, G
E -> Em, C#dim, A
F#m -> F#m, D, Bm
G -> G, Em, C#dim
A -> A, F#m, D
B -> Bm, G, F$
C# -> C#dim, A, F#m[

So the chords C#dim, A and F#m will all sound good with the note C#. You don't really need to make a list, you can just find the chord based on the note you're looking at (C#dim), two steps under that note (A) and two steps over that note (E).

In contrast, the chord G won't work, because the G chord doesn't have a C# note in it - the notes of the G chord are (G,B,D).


This raises the question, "What chords go with other chords?" The answer is "it depends", but in general:

1. If the chord is 3 scale degrees higher than the prior chord, it's strong and smooth. So a D chord will strongly follow a A chord, because D is 3 scale degrees above A: (A,B,C#,D). Similarly, Bm will follow an F#m.

There's a handy diagram called the "Circle of Fifth" or the "Cycle of Fourths" that Google will happily find for you. Learn it and love it.

2. If a chord shares two notes of the prior chord, it'll sound smooth. So a D chord with the notes (D,F#,A) will connect smoothly with a Bm chord containing (B,D,F#), because they share the two notes (D,F#).

3. If the chord is a major and belongs to the key, it can move to any other major chord in that scale. For example, the key of D has three major chords: D, G and A. So any of these chords will smoothly follow each other.

Wow! That was REALLY nice of you to do AND very useful...yet brief enough to have someone jump right in!

To me, it is more important to get someone going using something than trying to teach them EVERYTHING right away...giving them information constipation.

Some really great songs have been written that are really simple. From there I feel people "catch the learning bug."

I will be showing this to my kids!

Thanks!

David, you should cross-post this to the tips and tricks forum.

Great tips Dave.

David. What a great simple explanation. Thank you for taking the time to type this out. I am going to write it out in G (my favourite key) and stick it on my wall.

But thing #1 is that you need to expect and accept that you are going to write a LOT of bad songs before you start writing decent ones. I mean the evolution is something like:

bad
not as bad
so so
kinda sorta decent
decent
kinda sorta okay
okay
kinda sort good
good

And those are not one song intervals.

What I am saying in a lighthearted way is that the only way to learn how to play darts is to throw a lot of darts. And the only way to learn how to shoot free throws is to shoot a lot of free throws. And the only way to hit a bulls eye at the gun range is to throw a LOT of rounds downrange.

The only way to learn how to write songs is to just write those bad songs as you grow. Figure out what your story is, write the story out in lines that have a cadence, feeling where beats would be. That gives you some idea for cadence and tempo. Remember that your tempo can't be so fast that you can't get the words out between breaths. Once the cadence of the lyrics fits the cadence of the music (you will feel where natural pulses fit together) then you start thinking about the melody. You may go through 4-5 different melodies before you are comfortable with one.

Just as an example, let's pick The Beatles Love Me Do. Think of those lyrics.

Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please......
Love me do

and then think of how those lyrics lay against the cadence of the music. That is a loose definition of prosody, how lyrics and music work together.
Now think of their song I've Just Seen A Face. That is a very wordy lyric, but when you lay it against the tempo of the song, they fit together. Think of it like when you slip your hand into a baseball glove and the fingers of your hand naturally find their way into the fingers of the glove. That's what you are after.

This is also where some basic music lessons would help you if you have never taken any. Learning about tempo, where the "1" is in every measure, what a measure is, how to read what the little dots are all about, especially the time value of the quarter note, the half note, the whole note, what a dot behind a note means, tied notes... You don't need to go DEEP into theory, but basics. Like maybe knowing why the different key signatures have sharps and flats. Someone mentioned a chord wheel. When you look at the wheel, moving to the right, each new key adds one sharp. C has none, G has 1, D has 2, etc. When you see the relativity of G being the 5th note of the C scale, and D being the 5th note of the G scale and so forth, it starts to make sense quickly. And going to the left of the wheel you add 1 flat at a time, and those flats happen on the 4th note of a scale. So C has no flats, the 4th note of the C scale is F, and F has one flat. The 4th note of the F scale is B flat, which has 2 flats, and so on. Do you NEED to know that stuff to let BIAB wrote your music and go play at Billy's Bar? Nope! But knowing how to use those tools helps your songwriting craftsmanship like knowing a hammer from a chisel helps a carpenter. It would honestly become clear to you quickly if you took a music fundamentals course at your local community college. Most young people these days learn songs. Nobody learns music.

I hope that made SOME kind of sense to you.

Circle of fifths is a great tool, I use it all the time. There are lots of webpages that talk about it, here is one: http://guitaristguitarist.com/guitar_music_theory.html

I have one printed out and pinned to my wall for reference, I think this is the image I used: Circle of Fifths chart