Let’s Write A… Major Key Song

In this video, I'll show you how to write a song in a major key. I'll discuss the thought process as I sketch out the different parts of the song in real time so you can see how easy it is to write your own songs. Okay, so I'm over at the computer now, and this is Hookpad, which is a great tool for sketching out your songwriting ideas. There's a link in the description if you want to try Hookpad for yourself. Everything that you see on screen is pretty much the default for Hookpad.

Maybe you won't be in dark mode, but this is kind of what you'll be presented with when you first come to write a song. To write this major key song, I'm going to use the key of C Major. It's the simplest key to use in songwriting. On the piano, it uses all of the white keys, and you can see here the chords that are in the key of C Major with their relevant Roman numerals: C Major, D minor, E minor, F Major, G Major, A minor, and B diminished.

Within Hookpad, you create the chords along the bottom row, and then above it, you will create a melody later on. The quickest and easiest way to write a major key song is to set yourself some constraints. By boxing yourself in slightly, it makes the song-writing process quicker and easier. It also allows for more creativity when working within these limitations. The first constraint I’m going to apply is regarding the structure of our song.

So, if you've heard of terms like verses and choruses, these are parts of a song, and your structure refers to how many of these parts you have within the entire song. I'm going to go ahead and outline the structure: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, and possibly an outro. When you first start songwriting, it's best to keep things simple. Then, as you become more experienced, you can branch out and experiment more. Your first goal is just to complete a few songs, and using a structure like this will make it really easy. Additionally, using software like Hookpad makes the process even easier.

To begin with, if we think about the introduction, the simplest intro is where you take chords from the chorus and repeat them quickly to bring us into the song and introduce the key. My first focus will be on writing chords for the chorus and verse. Starting with the chords is the easiest starting point for songwriting. You can integrate them into your structure, and then you can create melodies from the notes in the chords. So, we'll start with the chorus chords.

Another constraint that makes songwriting easy is to limit your chord progressions to four chords. A chord progression is simply a sequence of chords that repeats. If you create what's known as a chord loop or a chord turnaround, then you only need four chords, which can be repeated, say, four times to create your chorus. This is a really common technique you'll see in many popular songs, and it allows for quick songwriting. Another guideline here is to play one chord per bar.

So, you see here in the hook pad that we have these division lines for the bars, and then within each bar, there are four smaller divisions. This is because we're in four-four time, which means each bar has four beats, as indicated by these divisions. So, one bar would have four beats, and we'll just play a chord for an entire bar and then change chords. Another easy idea is to use a chord loop formula. I'll link a video at the end of this video that will show you more about this, but basically, if you start the first bar with the I chord, which is the tonic and the home of the key, and then you end on either chords IV or V, that will create the chord loop. Chords IV and V create what are known as cadences, which pull you back to the I chord. They are the elements that end your progression and bring it back around to I, allowing you to easily repeat the progression. So, let's start by adding the I chord at the beginning.

You just click it here, and then we'll also add the V chord at the end. So we have these two chords in between, these two bars in between, where we have a bit of choice. My thinking is that I want the chorus to be quite upbeat and straightforward. Now this structure, this four-bar turnaround, will lead us into that. There aren't going to be many surprises here.

It's going to be quite straightforward—a basic chorus. Typically, you will see the I, IV, VI, and V chords used a lot. I'm going to try to avoid that here. Instead, I might use the IV chord and then one of the minor chords, maybe two. So we have a I, IV, II, V progression, which is C major, F major, D minor, and G major.

So, let's have a listen to how that sounds. The sounds in Hookpad are just the default settings; I haven't changed anything. Remember, we're just sketching and creating a song here; it's not a final production. However, you can change the band options within Hookpad if you want to experiment with that.

Okay, I'm quite happy with that for the core of our chorus. So what I'll probably do is repeat that three times, which gives us 12 bars. For the final four bars—13, 14, 15, and 16—I want some sort of variation, maybe ending on the one chord as a way to close out the chorus. I won't repeat this for now; we'll just work on the last four bars of our chorus. We're coming from the five chord, and perhaps the surprise will be that we don't start on the one chord for the final four bars of our chorus. So, we're coming from the five chord, and I mentioned that I want to end on the one chord.

One chord, and then maybe in between, we want to kind of journey to the one chord. Perhaps we could go from five to six, keeping four in the same position. We'll try two again. Let's have a listen; I want to hear how it transitions from five into this final bar, this final section of the chorus... I'm not so sure about the transition from two to one.

Maybe we'll try out a 3 to 1. Let's have a listen to that. I think that's okay. We'll go with that for now. Now that we've created our chorus chords, we can also think about which four of these we're going to use for the intro.

And the obvious choice would be this 1-4-2-5 progression because it instantly sets up the key. We've got the tonic chord straight away, and we've got the dominant V chord setting up the cadence back to I. So, to me, that's the obvious choice for the intro. So, that's our chorus and our intro written, or at least the chords. Okay, so I've just tidied things up a bit.

Within Hookpad, you can create sections and new elements, as you can see here. So, here's the intro with the 1-4-2-5 chords. I've created a blank 16-bar section for the verse, which is shown here. You can also see that across the screen. Then, here are our 16 bars for the chorus; the first four chords are repeated three times, followed by a closing section. After the chorus, if I highlight this and create a new section, this will eventually be the bridge. Now, in the final structure, if you remember, it goes: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. However, for this demonstration, I'll just write out each part so we can create this quickly. Okay, our next focus is on the chords for the verse. We had this simple four-chord loop for the chorus, but I think that's going to become quite tiring. Even within this chorus, the three repeats might be a bit excessive.

So we want something a bit more complex and interesting for the verse. I'd suggest that this also lends itself to a simpler, more memorable chorus. We will try to make the melody the biggest hook of the song over the chorus, allowing the verse to be a bit more lingering and intriguing in our chord selection. To achieve this, I will create an additional constraint where we're going to use 8-bar loops. The verse will be 16 bars long, so we will have two 8-bar loops for the verse. This gives us more room to work within and provides a great starting point. A well-known progression is Pachelbel's Canon progression, which is widely used in popular music. It works nicely because it offers a blend of major and minor chords, leading you in different directions, making it feel like you're going on a bit of a journey. We can use that as our starting point, and I’ll set that progression in the first 8 bars now. The progression is: I - V - vi - iii - IV - I - IV - V. Here’s how that sounds.

That will be familiar to you; it works really well. It's a great eight-bar loop. I want to add some rhythmic variation to this. Everything is one quarter bar, which can become quite tiring. Within Hookpad, you can edit chord durations like this by dragging, or you can use the selector in the top left. A nice thing to do is to change chords off the beat. You can see these division lines here. If I leave this selection as it is after beat 2, we will be changing between beats 2 and 3 of this bar. So, have a listen to how that sounds.

See how it suddenly jumps to the V chord? It adds an element of surprise. If I make this V chord even shorter here, the first bar could look like this. Let's have a listen. Then, I could move the VI across.

Sometimes it's nice to have variation within the bar like this, and then something a bit more straightforward, whether it's a whole bar or a half bar. So, let's listen to these two together. I think I'm going to try a half bar with the six, and then maybe keep three to a whole bar but stretch it across this change of bar. You see? That's another idea you can experiment with. Okay, I'm not sure about that.

I might chop that down to half a bar. Let's try again. I'm quite happy with that introduction to the verse loop. The thing with this, and with a lot of songwriting, is that it's a lot of trial and error. So whether you're writing on the computer like this, in Hookpad or other software, or on your instrument, you can play around with ideas.

So here we've got the constraints, and we're working within them. That's really powerful when you're songwriting; you still have creativity within such limited options, and that's quite nice, really. It's like the boundaries or the margins of what you're working towards. Now, I'm going to bring the four chord up. Maybe we'll have this for a whole bar.

Let's try again. Yeah, I quite like that because it gives us a break from these rapid changes. What we could do is sandwich this "Pachelbel's" 8-bar progression into the first four bars, and then we can do our own thing in the final four. Remember, we just want to start on one and end on four or five.

That's our main constraint for the eight-bar loop. So, I could bring this one across, and then we could alter this, splitting the final bar into three. I can put five up here. I don't think that's evenly split, but let's go with it. We could try it like this, where one and four are for a beat and a half, and then five is just for a single beat.

Oh yeah, that sounds quite nice. Let's listen to those first four bars. Okay, now here’s a nice thing to do. A common technique in songwriting is to repeat a rhythmic idea but use different notes.

So, you see here I've kind of set up a rhythm and a feeling in the first four bars because of these different chord durations. For the second four bars of the verse, I'm going to use the same rhythmic ideas and then just insert different chords. Within Hookpad, I can select these chords, shift-click, and then press C to copy them. After that, I can paste them down.

And like I said, what I'm going to do is use different chords but maintain this rhythm. So all I have to do is click on a chord, and I can try out different chords while keeping that rhythm. We can audition the different chords and see what we think. Let's try the sixth chord here. I’m going to try the IV chord here, and then we've not used the II chord, so let's give this a try.

Vi-IV-II-III. Let's go for that. I'm not sure about II-III. I like VI-IV. We could bring in the I chord here and have it in the middle of the final four bars.

Let's try that. Then, we can create some tension here with the V chord. You can see I'm generally avoiding the diminished chord, as most popular songs won't use it at all. I might consider it for the bridge; we'll talk about that in a moment.

The other thing to note at this point is that I'm only using basic chords, basic triads, but you've got options to use seventh chords, ninth chords, and suspended chords. That's beyond the scope of this video, but they're there if you want to experiment with them. Generally speaking, I'd suggest that you sketch out your song like this with basic triads before you bring in other chords because then you can think about the impact of those different chord types. I like the 4-5 change at the end, and that helps us meet our rules. I might not play the I chord again here, though.

Let's try that again. Right, let's listen to the whole verse now. I'm quite happy with that. Okay, you get the idea. I could have just repeated the first four bars again; that would have been perfectly fine. I could have changed the rhythm, as I said. That's up to you. Our overarching goal here was just to start with one and end with five, or four. And so, we've achieved that.

There are so many ways you could approach this, but for the purpose of this video, let's move on to the bridge. Typically, the purpose of a bridge in a song is to take us somewhere else. This might involve introducing chords we haven't heard before, presenting new ideas, or even making a key change if you're a bit more advanced. One effective way to create the feeling of going somewhere else is to avoid the I chord, which can deny the tonic and make it seem like we're moving into a different key. I feel like that's the direction I want to take with the bridge.

I also feel like I want to introduce the diminished chord. It's up to you whether you want to use the diminished chord, whether you can play it on your instrument, or whether you like the sound of it. But it is an option here. As I said earlier, you can also consider different chord types. Maybe the bridge introduces denser, more complicated chords.

Again, it's about feeling like we've gone somewhere else, particularly with this sort of song structure. I think I'm going to try the C# diminished chord here. I'm just going to write an 8-bar bridge, so I need to add some more bars afterwards. Here we go. We're going to start on the 7th chord.

Seven and six are going to be the main focus of this. If you used a whole song like this, it could start to feel like you're pulling yourself into the minor key, based around the sixth chord. That's beyond this lesson, but for now, just think of it as moving away from the one chord for a little bit so it sounds a bit different. We might start with the first two bars as whole bars, and then, as we go through the bridge, we'll gradually reduce the duration of the chords, creating a sense of slowing down and then speeding up. So, we've gone from six to seven to six; maybe we'll go four to five, and have these as more of an offbeat rhythm. Have a listen to that. If it sounds too triumphant, what if we go the other way? I like that rhythm to end this first section.

So, we could go 7, 6, 4, 5. After 5, you feel like you're going back to 1, but we could go back to 6. We could go 4, 5, 4, 6. Let's try that again with this offbeat rhythm.

Have a listen to that; I'm quite happy with it. Now, let's see what the two chord sounds like in half bars two and three. I think I want to go back to the seven chord here, maybe the six again. We said the six wanted to be the focus. This is a four and five change again, but then linger on five and have a rapid buildup at the end. Remember, we're going back into the chorus after this, so we're going straight towards the one chord. Seven would be a good lead-in to end here; it's a tense leading. I think I'll go with four and five again.

Hold the five, and then I want it. I want seven again if we play it like that, and then I want seven again. If we play it like that. That sounds good. So, let's add some bars after the bridge, just so we can hear those first four bars of the chorus and how that leads in from the bridge. I'll add some more bars after this. For the purpose of this, we're going to copy those chorus chords and paste them in here. Let's have a listen to the bridge and the first four bars of the chorus. Thank you.

A bit of a rendering error there leads us nicely into the chorus. So, I hope that's given you a feeling for how to write the chords for a song. This should provide you with insight into the real-time thinking you might go through when you write a song. It's worth noting that there are many ways to write a song.

This is only one way. This is only one way that you write a song. It's worth noting that there are many ways to write a song. This is only one way. This is only one way that I write a song.

It's not the only way I use, but hopefully, it gives you insight into the thought process and how much you can achieve in a relatively short amount of time. Okay, let's now move on to writing the melodies. As you know, melody is really important for music. When it comes to copyright, actually, you can't copyright chord progressions, but you can copyright melodies.

So, they have a really big impact on how your songs sound and how they feel. You could have relatively simple chords with a more fancy or elaborate melody on top. They can truly shape the sound of your song and often provide the main hook or point of interest in your music. If you write lyrics, melodies and lyrics are very closely related. I'm not going to write lyrics in this video, but some people like to start with lyrics and then write melodies to match.

So, if that's you, you might want to start the process with your lyrics and then move to the melody. But for us, I like to go with chords first and then melody. There's a good reason why this is. We'll start with the chorus because the chorus is the focus of our song and where the melody really needs to shine and stand out. As you can see on Hookpad, I've highlighted the chord notes in the melody section above.

As the chords change, you can see that the three notes change as we go along. On the left-hand side, there are seven notes. These are in the C major scale, from which the C major key is created. All of these chords are formed using these notes.

We can use these notes in our melody. What I like to do is use the chord notes as scaffolding. They provide the basis for our melody, and then we can try other techniques and notes around them. The thing is, if you use chord notes in your melody, they sound really safe, and there's a good reason for that: they are already being heard.

For example, if I'm playing a C major chord, that's actually the notes C, E, and G played at the same time. So if I use the notes C, E, and G in a melody over the C major chord, it's going to sound safe and harmonious. Let's give that a try. You can see them highlighted here. I'll just use some quarter note lengths, or one-beat lengths, to demonstrate this.

So let's just go C E G E. If I play that back now, you'll hear how safe and nursery rhyme-like this sounds. To begin, you can use this idea and just sketch out a rough melody. Your options are really limited, so a lot of this will just feel like you're going up and down the chord like an arpeggio, and that's fine if that's what you want. However, you might want to think about it a little deeper. The first thing you can try, which doesn't involve any new notes, is to avoid starting each bar with the root note.

So, you see in this first bar, I've played C as the first note in the melody, and C is the root note of the C major chord. A similar thing would happen if I played F as the first note in this second bar. Even within the confines of the chord notes, starting the bar with a root note is the safest option, as you can hear here. It's very safe, with no tension; everything's falling on the bar, and there are no worries at all—there's no danger within this melody. One thing you can do is to avoid starting each bar with the root note.

To provide a contrast, we could start this second bar with F major, using C again, just like the first bar. However, since C isn't the root note in the F major chord, it will have a slightly different feel. Let's listen to that. This is a very simple concept you can try. There are other ideas we will explore shortly, but before we do that, let's consider the shape of the melody we want to create here. The chorus will be the main focus.

To make something the main focus in a song, particularly with melody, the easiest thing you can do is have the highest note in the whole song played in the chorus. High notes stand out and signify heightened emotion. So, having the highest point of your melody in the chorus indicates that this is an important part of the song. Where you place that high point within the chorus is up to you. You could create a melody where the high point runs throughout the chorus, or you could start the chorus high, transitioning from the verse to a peak, and then gradually come down. Alternatively, you might begin low in the chorus and build toward a high point. I think what I'm going to do is, if you remember the chords I've used in the chorus, we end on this minor section, this change section.

So I feel like I want to start on a high point for this 1-4-2-5 repeated section, and then we're going to be drawn down towards this one chord in a lower register. That's generally the shape I'm thinking of. For example, I could make these C notes in a higher octave, and then we could work towards a lower C note in the final chord. That's one way of sketching out that kind of shape or contour for this chorus. Now, obviously, the notes are going to go up and down in between, but they could serve as our guiding principles for the chorus.

So the next thing we can consider, without introducing any notes beyond the chord notes, is the idea of note lengths and where those notes fall in the bar. You can see here that we've started with these quarter notes, and they all fall on the beats of the bar: one, two, three, four. Like this: one, two, three, four.

And that is as predictable as it gets. So what if we move the notes within the bar? Take this second bar here. What if I shift these notes slightly so they're off the beat?

You can see they're still quarter notes in length, but listen to the difference. You can hear how they sound somewhat out of place and uneven. I could shift them a bit more so they feel more evenly spaced, creating a different sensation. So, experiment with where your notes fall within the bar. The other thing to consider is the length of the notes.

So, you can make notes shorter. I could make that an eighth note, and then this one an eighth note, which I heard for half of a beat. It would sound like this: an eighth note, followed by another eighth note, which I heard for half of a beat. It would sound like this.

It gives more pace and more interest to the melody. Another thing we can do is vary the notes further. For example, we might have a short passage with rapid-fire notes. These shorter note lengths are useful for passing notes, which I'll discuss in a moment. You can experiment with chord notes, but this tends to create a more linear melody. Non-chord notes involve other notes—specifically, these four notes in this case—that aren't part of the underlying chord.

Now, obviously, if you're using seventh chords or other types of chords, they might have more than three notes in them, so you'll have a wider range of chord notes to choose from. However, here we've got four notes that are in the scale but not in the chord, and that means they will still work; they will still sound good because they're all within the key. They will add something a bit different, a little bit of tension, and something extra that the chord notes just can't bring. These are often called passing notes. The reason for that is, say you're linking two notes and you want to kind of fill in the gap, then these non-chord notes could work out. In this second bar, I've got the high C and this F note.

And so, in between, currently I'm playing an A and an F, but you could use this G note. This will give you a kind of ladder down to the F note. It's a passing note between the two. Here’s how that sounds. You could also say I could have chosen a B here and gone for a more extended ladder down.

So I'm going to rearrange this first bar because it's a bit boring. I'll give it something a bit extra. What I might do is come up to this B, so we begin in a higher place up at the top here. Another thing to consider in your melody is when you don't play a note, and that's called a rest. So here I'm going to put in a quarter note rest.

You can see that with this grey bar. Melody, if you're constantly firing notes at people in a melody, then they're going to become tired. Much like if you constantly play the same note melody, they're going to become fatigued. Similarly, if you consistently play the same note length, they're going to get tired. If you keep playing chord notes consistently, they'll become exhausted as well.

It's all about balance. When do we hear long notes and short notes? When do we hear high notes and low notes? When do we have silence followed by some notes? Songwriting is all about balance.

It's like balancing tension and resolution in your chords. So always be happy for some silence. It's not just like a conversation; sometimes, it's good to have silence in your songs. It can build tension or create interest. So let's have a listen to this now.

Okay, that sounds a bit more interesting right away, just by bringing in this B note and these shorter note durations. I'm going to add a rest at the end of this bar as well. There are some more things we can try now that we have a wider palette of notes. You see, we have these non-chord notes, and the beats they fall on are important. In 4/4 time, the first beat of a bar is always the strongest beat, and the third beat is the second strongest. Placing any non-chord note at the beginning of any of the beats will make it more prominent. In this first bar, this B note actually falls on the second beat.

So it's more prominent, whereas here this non-chord G note doesn't fall on the beat; it falls between the beats, so it's not as prominent. So have a listen to that, paying particular attention to this B note and this G note to notice the difference in tension. You can see how much more this B rang out in your mind. If you place non-chord notes in stronger positions on the beat, then they will stand out more and add more tension, which can be just what you're looking for. So bear that in mind when considering the placement of your notes. So far, we've just confined the notes to the bars, but you can, of course, hold notes over chord changes, and that can create some really interesting sounds. There are a few different ways you can do this.

The first one is called suspension, and that's where you hold a chord note, and then it becomes a non-chord note. So let's try this here. You can see we're going from F to D minor. A chord note we could try is F, but F is between the two, and so is A. However, if you look here, we've got C, and C is a chord note in F, but it's not in D minor. So if I play C here, I'm going to play it high again because I want to maintain that higher register.

And if I hold that over the chord change, you can see it moves from a chord note in F to a non-chord note in D minor. So, let's listen to how that sounds. And maybe just have two longer notes over this D minor chord. I think I'll go down to B, and you'll see why I've chosen B in a moment. Let's have a listen to the melody.

Now, the next thing you can do with holding notes over chord changes is anticipation. This is where you hold a non-chord note that becomes a chord note. This is why I wanted this B note here; because you can see that B is not in the D minor chord, but it is in the G major chord. So, let's see what happens when we hold a B note over this chord change...

When we hold a B note over this chord change, it has a slightly different feel compared to this suspension here. You can also hold shared notes; you can see that there's often common notes between chords. For example, between D minor and G, there is this D note. One of the most important things in melody is rhythm.

You saw with these early bars that moving away from just quarter notes introduced interest and really brought this melody to life. This is where there's a strong connection between the syllables in your lyrics, how you sing, and the rhythm you produce. If you're interested in rap music, the lyrical flow of the syllables is extremely important. That rhythm is essential in all melody. In some ways, it is the most crucial element because there aren't many notes to choose from, but there are countless ways you can vary the rhythm and the duration of each note, which can significantly change how your song feels.

So, what you often want to do is take rhythmic elements and repeat them. You see, I like this rhythmic element in bar 2, so I'm going to copy that and repeat it here. I could change the notes, but let's have a look. Let's have a listen.

So I'm going to change the notes here. This introduces an idea called sequences. Sequences take the same melodic shape and move it up or down over different chords. What this means is that you're taking a shape or rhythmic idea and varying it over the chord changes. You might see some people start with an idea like this and then, as the chords change, they just move it up.

So, for example, if you take this idea here, you would then move to the next one, which has a C at the top and an F at the bottom. You'd move it up one scale degree, going from D and E to G. You could even do it again like that and just keep rising or falling. You see this a lot in popular music with sequences. As with everything, sequences are really powerful, but you don't want to overdo it, because then it becomes boring and predictable. So you can create sequences and then break them; that's quite interesting.

Let's return to this melody over the G major chord. I feel like I want to go down to maybe this D note here. Let's listen... No, I think that's okay. I could extend it to drop further.

So remember, I have 16 bars to work with. Let's listen to this sequence. I wasn't going to keep it. No, it doesn't sound great.

You can do something I haven't really done here: you can shift ideas away from the first beat of each bar. At the moment, every first beat of each bar has melody notes, but what if, for example, on this repeat, we shift this repeated sequence off the first beat of the bar? How does that sound? That sounds quite good because it gives us the sequence idea but feels fresh. So, I could probably repeat that over this second F chord. I don't want to repeat it a third time, but I could return to this initial rhythmic idea again to provide some coherence.

You can see here that this has no chord notes. How's that going to sound over the D minor chord? Let's have a listen. I think I'll move up at the end to this chord note and hold it over into the G major. So, you can see that although we've come down here, I'm still coming back up to this high C, and in the back of my mind is that low C at the end. But that will lead to that when we change to those minor chords in the last four bars.

I think I'm just going to go to a G note here. Nothing fancy. I think I'll bring it in a little early. Okay, now let's have a talk about steps and leaps. We've kind of seen this in action, but steps are where notes are next to each other, like these sequences.

Downward leaps are where you have bigger jumps, so there’s a bit of a jump here from this high C to this G. As I've said with everything else, you want to balance the steps and leaps in your melodies. Lots of steps are easy, but they can become boring because they are close together, so there’s not much surprise in what’s coming next. Leaps are more dramatic; they signify effort and emotion.

If you've got a big leap, then it showcases something important. But if you have lots of leaps, it can become chaotic and overwhelming. So, you want to balance leaps with steps. So far in this melody, I would suggest I've had quite a lot of steps. There's a leap here from F to C, which makes this C stand out.

And leaps and steps can be in both directions. You can leap down or leap up, etc. So, where do we want to take this melody next? Since it's a slightly longer chorus, I feel like we should take the melody somewhere else.

Create some new rhythmic ideas, but I'm not yet down in the low C register. We're still saving that, so I don't want to go too low. The range of this melody is only an octave from C to C. You can, of course, go higher or lower. It will depend on the instrument you're using or how competent the singer is. That's why some singers prefer different keys and vocal ranges.

You'll see that some songs have a really narrow range, which might be better suited for a less confident singer or a certain style of singing. That's something to keep in mind when you're writing your melody as well. I feel like I want to introduce a leap. Perhaps we could go down through the notes here. So we go from G to C, and then from F to that high chord, C again.

We've got a stagger of leaps there. Listen to how it's verging on chaotic. I feel like we need to step back from this currently, as these leaps have become too much. Maybe we can get away with holding over the chord change or G, G, and then I'll come back to this initial rhythm here. I like that three-note sequence: B, C, G. If I repeat that over D minor, that's what I did in the previous four bars, so that can tie us back to that. Let's listen to where we are now.

That could work. It's not fantastic, but you would want to think about whether there are phrases that have appeared elsewhere in the song that you're rhythmically carrying into the chorus. You might occasionally reprise something in the verse just to hint at what’s going to come up in the chorus. That's an idea. Is there a riff or a motif on an instrument that you could bring in?

Or are certain lyrics more important than others that I want to highlight with a high note? All of these considerations go into writing a melody. You can always come back and revise things. Maybe you sketch out the song like this, and then you start performing it. You think, "Actually, this melody note doesn't work here." Or, if you're singing and playing at the same time, maybe you realize, "I can't perform that at the same time," or "I don't like how it sounds."

So it's a constant process of revision, trial and error, and revision. But for now, we're going to finish off this melody, as I said. I want to come down to this C note, so maybe a nice stepped sequence down to C to bring us in. This is the first time A minor is being heard in the chorus, so I might introduce a pause at the beginning so we can hear that chord fully.

And then we were up around this G note. So we could start on an A like that. I could create a sequence with that rhythm by repeating this over the F chord and bringing it down.

Let's have a listen to that. No, I'm not keen on that. What if I maintain it? That doesn't sound like a similar idea to what I did here, but I might change the end for a bit of variation. And we step down to this F note, which I could then hold into this E minor chord.

Or I could bring this down. That sounds better. It's the same notes, but you've varied it slightly. I want to add a bit of speed and haste here, thank you. I think it would be nice to end on this idea, but with the lowest note being that low C. Like that, maybe. We need to link the two, so let's think about this. And let's have more of a break here.

I'm not sure about the rhythm of this part; it's going to take a bit of tweaking. But for now, that gives you an idea of how to write a chorus melody. Then, what you could do is take exactly the same ideas and go back to the verse. You would think, "Okay, how can I write a melody for this verse? What is this verse trying to convey?" In this example, there are more minor chords, so do we want to use these chord notes to really highlight the minor flavor?

You might say, "Oh, we'll use chord notes over the minor chords, and over the major chords, we'll use non-chord tones so the minor chords feel safer." There are all sorts of experimentation you can engage in. The next step would be to think about the arrangement of the song. This involves considering how and where you play the chords on your chosen instrument or software. If you perform with other musicians, it will also include how the different parts work together as a whole.

Then you can take the song to record and produce it if required. You now know how to write a major key song, but you don't know why these chords work well together. I have a really simple system for explaining major key chord functions that will transform your songs. Watch the video on screen now to elevate your major key knowledge to the next level.