Writing a Song

Melody, harmony, lyrics and form — from a one-line idea to a demo you can send out

There is a melody line, or a verse, in your head, and it has never become a song anyone can sit through. This path runs from one motive to a demo you can send, making only the decisions that matter.

Who this path is for

For anyone who can already hum full sections and is willing to revise ten times. A little instrument helps; none is required if you can click notes in. Not for scoring to picture — that is Scoring for Video or Games.

Read these three first

• Motive and Subject — a motive is material, a subject is a statement; tell them apart and you will know what that half-line in your head is.
• Song Form — the chorus returning is what makes a song memorable; fix the structure before the timbre.
• The three most common progressions — a skeleton that can carry a melody beats a pile of chord names.

What comes next

• The Making of a Melody — a scale is material; a melody is a selection from it.
• Cadence — the punctuation of harmony; it decides where a phrase closes.
• Hook design — short, repeatable, transformable; it takes three appearances to stick.
• Designing the chorus lift — lift comes from changing gear, not from volume.
• The DAW — where an idea becomes a file.
• From idea to finished track — put checkpoints in the middle.

What you can skip

The specifics of mixing and mastering, orchestration, AI prompting, the full theory curriculum. Before the song stands up, all of it is optimising the wrong thing.

Common detours

1. Studying harmony before writing. Songwriting runs on judgement, and judgement comes from finishing songs. 2. Abandoning each song at the chorus. Ten half-songs are worth less than one complete one. 3. Using timbre and mixing to hide structural problems. The structure is wrong; the more you mix, the faker it gets.