BASIC ELEMENTS FOR WRITING A SONG

When putting a song together you need some basic elements. An Artist will have their own unique way of expressing the song and the way they want to structure the song. For a singer, start with the melody and lyrics to start creating a song. For a pianist, you will can start with the melody and chord progressions. But these are the basic important elements needed to create a song:

1. The melody, it is the single most important part of a song. This is what the artist would sing or an instrument is playing the melody like Carlos Santana on guitar or Kenny G on the saxophone!

2. The harmony is when 2 (or more) people sing together with different parts that blend perfectly together. The Beach Boys have amazing and complex vocal harmonies.

3. The rhythm, it is a rhythmic structure of patterns played by the instruments. For instance the drums and bass guitar will play a series of rhythmic patterns to lay the foundation of a song.

4. The texture, which is the tempo (fast or slow), melody, and harmonies blended together to create the song. It’s basically a way to describe how the music or sound is organized. You can have thin texture where there are just a few instruments or thick where there are many instruments.

5. The sounds, different instruments you choose to use in a song. Some artists keep it simple and others prefer a full orchestra like ELO.

I’ve attached a video of Chelsko song “Masterpiece” with a few layers of texture in the composition.

JOKE FOR THE DAY:

What makes pirates such good singers? They can hit the high Cs!

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