Easy music composition – don’t sweat it
Easy music composition? Is there such a thing? You have probably wondered how some of your favorite musicians can come up with great songs from time to time, ones you just can’t get out of your head and find yourself singing them all day long. Would you like to be able to write your own songs?
Sing It
First of all, I would suggest you to put down the guitar and the staff paper for a minute, and try to sing something, anything, just for your own pleasure. Record it.
Create The Melody
You have a lot of music burned in your mind already. You can probably recognize their structure, how they are built up, so if you want to create a tune with a certain structure, all you have to do is try to fit your own melodies into that frame. Tailor their length when necessary. For example, let’s say you want to compose a 12 bar blues. Pick a 12 bar blues you know, use its frame and replace the original parts of the song with the ones you just came up with.
Place The Chords
Then when you already have the melody all the way through, you can start dressing it up with chords. Use simple major and minor triads first, use extensions when you want to emphasize certain parts, or just want your melody line to sound prettier.
Be Creative
Don’t be afraid to come up with weird things. Weird, unusual things often sound interesting and original.
Repeat It
Repetition is the heart of it all, and even the weirdest line can sound good when it’s repeated in the next few bars, accompanied by the right chords. The above mentioned structures or frames will guide you through your song, so you’ll know where and how many times to repeat certain parts. It’s a copy-and-paste procedure if you will. The brain loves to recognize patterns they are already familiar with, ones it has already heard before somewhere, sometime (especially if it was in the same song in the previous verse!
These suggestions will help you make your first steps, but it’s far from being the only way to do it. Who knows, you might be able to create your own good sounding compositions. But even if they all turn out mediocre, who cares, if you can finally enjoy making your own music.
