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Songwriting

Before embarking on writing a song, ask yourself questions like:

• what area of the song will you focus on first? Some songwriters begin with lyrics, others will begin with musical ideas.
• does your idea have a clear structure of verse and chorus?
• what chord progression are you going to use?
• will you add backing vocals and additional instruments?

In this clip, Nina Nesbitt talks about how she approached the songwriting process in her song Masquerade.

Rock/Pop

Sometimes you can use a drum beat as way to start coming up with ideas for rock/pop music. The image below shows a simple drum beat that you might find a useful starting point for creating music in the rock/pop style.

Another useful approach is to adapt a popular chord progression, using the structure to help create your own original music.

Other useful things to consider when developing rock/pop ideas include:

• backing vocals, as singing in harmony can add extra texture to your song.
• guitar effects such as distortion can change the timbre and add further interest to your music.
• structure is important in a rock/pop song, so think about verse, chorus and middle eight blues.

Blues

Much like in rock/pop, you can use chord progressions such as the 12 bar blues to help inspire your own original pieces of music.

Other useful things to consider when developing blues ideas include:

• blues verses - a three line structure - AAB - where the first line is repeated.
• blues notes - some notes used in blues music may be flattened by a semitone. These are normally the third, fifth or seventh notes of the scale.

Jazz

Useful things to consider when developing jazz ideas include:

• improvisation - where the performer makes up the music during the performance. The music is not written down.
• syncopation - where the music is played off or against the main beat.
• blues notes - some notes used in jazz music are flattened by a semitone - normally the third, fifth or seventh notes of the scale.