On a guitar, you can play up to six notes at the same time. On the piano, you can play up to ten (as many fingers as you have) but on the violin, it’s hard to play even three, while on wind instruments you can only play one note at a time.
I will show you how to write a song on guitar in a simple step-by-step process. Keep in mind this is just a “method” you can use as a beginner.
It’s definitely not the only way to write a song on the guitar, especially when it comes to where you begin writing your song. For example, you may come up with a melody first, with the words first, or even with the rhythm.
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The good news is that no one method is better than another. The method is just something that enables you to unleash your own creativity and organize it into a guitar song.
Thus, the only chords you need to learn in order to actually start writing a song on guitar using this method, are the following:
If you don’t know how to play barre chords yet, all these chords can be played in the open position. If you can play barre chords, I suggest you barre the F major chord and play all the other chords open.
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The chords above are not chosen at random. If you pursue the study of music theory you will understand that these chords sound good together because they belong to either the key of C major or that of A minor.
This is not a music theory lesson though, and all you need to do is choose 3 or 4 chords and experiment with different combinations.
You can get more direction on how chords progress to each other in this lesson but you can also make a chord progression from any random combination of the chords you have learned in Step One.
Guitar Silhouette With Musical Notes And Word
When you get used to writing songs on guitar, you don’t need to restrict yourself to three or four chords. However here we’ll be using a small number of chords not only for simplicity’s sake but also because most Rock and Pop songs actually use a small number of chords.
Once you’ve chosen the chords, you’ve actually created a chord progression. What you need to do now is to put your chords neatly into bars.
If you’ve chosen a sequence of only 3 chords, then one of the chords will be repeated twice in the last bar as in this example:
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What we’ve learned up to now has been very systematic: You learn the chords, choose a few of them, and put them after each other in a logical way.
Most likely, your mind is going to be telling you that your tunes are stupid, that people are going to laugh when they hear your songs, that you’ll never be able to write a “real” song, and all that jazz.
You need to get rid of all this and something that will definitely help you is keeping this in mind: Songwriting is a learning process, not a performance.
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If you’re performing music, people are watching you in real-time, and you can’t correct your mistakes once you’ve done them (though, unless you’re playing on a pro-level making a couple of mistakes is not as catastrophic as you may think).
Even if you’re recording music at a studio, there is a limit to how many times you can get something wrong, since you’re paying for the time you’re spending and using the studio’s service.
In fact, you should be prepared upfront: You’re going to write a lot of crap. And that’s OK, that’s how you learn.
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Hopefully, this has helped you get rid of destructive mental thinking, so let’s get back to how to write a song on guitar.
Form your words into a phrase and sing it over the chord progression you chose. Keep coming up with tunes until you find one that matches the chords and makes a melody you’re happy with.
If you can’t come up with enough words now, just keep repeating the same line. Your focus should be on the melody here. You’ll come up with more lyrics in a coming step.
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While there’s nothing wrong with playing a chord at the beginning of the bar and letting it ring for its entirety, it’s likely you will want to make your rhythm more interesting and fast-paced.
This example, for instance, uses the first chord progression in Step 3 but adds variety to the rhythm through the use of crotchets, quavers as well as a dotted crotchet in the last bar.
So far you should have a phrase, with both words and melody, and the harmony (chords) that backs that phrase, with an interesting rhythm.
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In this step, you’ll just write more phrases that match, using the same harmony and rhythm, in order to come up with the song’s verses.
Once again, you come up with lyrics that don’t make sense. That’s normal. Keep pushing at it, and finally, the right words will come.
In order to write your chorus, you’re going to do the exact same process as in the previous steps, creating a new chord progression (choosing from the same group of chords you learned in Step 1) and a new rhythm for it.
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This probably being your first song on guitar, you should aim for simplicity. Many songs have more complex structures than just a verse and a chorus, but that’s a whole world you’ll be exploring as you’re learning the craft of songwriting.
What you’re going to do is, write two or more paragraphs with your verses, backed by the first chord progression you created.
Songwriting is a vast topic, and what I gave you here is simply one method you can go about writing a song on guitar.
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If you’ve managed to write a song on guitar using the method above, I suggest you start learning these items in order to start having more options in your songwriting arsenal:
And if you ever lack the inspiration to write songs, you might want to go to the place where inspiration comes from.
You may consider giving a donation, by which you will be helping a songwriter achieve his dreams. Each contribution, no matter how small, will make a difference.
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