Writing a song – part 1: Music

Anybody can do it with time. Trust me. Back when I first started learning the guitar, I just wanted to play covers of my favorite songs. That was fun for awhile, but you start feeling like making your own stuff up. The problem was, I didn’t know how to create songs. I didn’t even know where to start. I was completely baffled. How do they do it?

Well today, I can say with confidence that I’m able to write songs! And you can too! I’m not saying that there is a way to be as good as your favorite musical artist. Sure, you potentially can, but some people out there are just more gifted in the art than others. But really, anybody can write a song. I have a lot to improve on, but I am getting better by the day. So I’m going to share a little bit with you. Remember, this is certainly no expert’s guide to writing songs. This is just my personal experience and how I learned my ways.

I think first things first: you need to have at least a little bit of music theory knowledge to write music. And I don’t mean ‘proper’ theory, like what you learn from taking music lessons and reading textbooks. Sure, that can definitely help you get jump started. And I actually recommend it. Doesn’t mean you have to though. It’s tougher, but you can certainly learn on your own. I took that rough road by never having taken any guitar lessons before. I figured out basic chord patterns and seeing musical trends just by covering songs. I followed that with learning basic open major and minor chords like C and Am. I also memorized the A minor scale by heart. What used to be just a set of strings and a bunch of frets now looks like a partially complete diagram that continues to be filled in. All this adds up to a foundation good enough to write at least some music.

In my opinion, no matter how you go about learning an instrument, just as long as you spend time with it, you’re bound to learn some kind of ‘theory’. That means if studying proper musical theory is not your thing, no problem. Some of the talent out there never learned scales and are doing fine. They rely heavily on feeling and what they hear in their head for their music. These intuitions are built from listening and discovering what they love in music and then applying it. That to me is considered possessing music knowledge. A fine example is Omar Rodríguez-López of the Mars Volta. His sound has a such a weird, distinct vibe and that really is a testament to him not following the rules but just taking from what he digs in music. It also partly has to do with what’s going on inside his head, which can really give someone his own unique sound. Depends on how crazy the orchestra in your listening mind is.

Writing music should be somewhat random, but not completely random. You want it to be spontaneous because that makes it interesting, but you want it to be musical as well. That’s where knowledge comes into play. Think of it as a way to help bring out the music inside you.

So always listen, play, practice, study, etc. Knowledge is your window to the music writing world. The randomness is already within you.

Part 2 to come shortly.

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