How to Compose a Song - Piano for Beginners

Trying to compose a song on the piano but you don’t know where to start? Here are the 6 simple steps that even beginners can take to compose a song on the piano – from start to finish!

Have you ever heard a beautiful song and wondered, “How in the world did he write that song?” Today I want to share the 6 simple steps that I’ve used with beginning piano players to help them compose their own songs. Whether you want to write a song for yourself or you’re trying to find a fun and engaging activity for piano lessons these steps can be used for beginners or advanced piano players alike.

How do you compose a song on piano?

Decide what you want your song to be about.
Choose a key signature.
Compose two different melodies.
Decide on the form of your song.
Add some chords.
Come up with an awesome title!

The first step to composing a piano piece is to decide what you want your song to be about. Do you want to write a love song? Do you want to write a break up song? Do you want to write a song about Halloween, Christmas, or the summer sun? Deciding on a topic first is so important because that will give you direction and help you figure out a melody.

Once you have a topic for your song, you’ll need to choose a key signature! A key signature just tells us what notes to play on the piano. If you’re a beginner piano player, you need to stick with C Major or A minor – only play white keys!

You know what you want your song to be about, but now what?

Now that you have a topic for your piano composition and you have chosen your key signature, we get to the fun stuff – start composing your piano piece!

Sit down at your piano and come up with a short melody that you really love. A melody is like the part of the song you sing – it’s the main line of music. Take your time, and make sure you can remember it! Play it a few times until you’re really happy with this melody. Write down the note names you’ve played or even take a video of your hands playing this melody on the piano. We’ll call this Melody A.

Now we need to come up with another short melody. This melody should be very different from Melody A. If Melody A had a lot of short and quick notes, the new melody could have long notes. If Melody A had a lot of different notes, the new melody could have many notes that repeat. Take your time with the new melody to make sure you can remember it and make sure you really like it. Write down the notes names you’ve played or take a video of your hands play this melody on the piano. We’ll call this Melody B.

Now that you have two different melodies, we can move on to step 4: Decide on the form of your song.

What does form mean in music?

In math as a kid, you probably learned all about patterns. Red, orange, red, orange. Or maybe your teacher called red “A” and called orange “B.” When she did that, your pattern became ABAB. Songs have patterns, too! In music, the form is just like a pattern. Sometimes the form for a song is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. Since that form is typically used when songs have words, we won’t be using that for our song. We’ll stick to Melody A and Melody B.

For step 4, we need to decide on our form – or pattern – for the song you are writing. First, you need to write out a possible form using the letters A and B. Then play the song in this possible form and decide whether or not you like it this way. Keep trying different forms until you are happy with the way your song sounds! Some forms to try are ABAB, AABB, ABBA, AABA, ABAA, and on and on! The possibilities are probably endless… When you’re happy with the form of your song, make sure you write down your form wherever you wrote down your melodies!

Now that you have two awesome melodies and you’ve composed a song from start to finish, we need to take it to the next level by adding some chords to the left hand!

What chords should you play with a song? What chords go together when composing a song?

If you chose to compose your song using only the white keys on the piano, then there are 4 chords you can choose from! The chords you can choose from are C, F, G, and A minor. If you don’t know what that means or how to play the chords C, F, G, and A minor. Don’t worry! I’m here to help.

The easiest way to play chords is to use your pinky and thumb to play two notes on the piano at the same time. The name of the chord is the note you will play with your pinky. At the same time, play the note 5 keys higher with your thumb. Here are all your chord choices:

C chord: C & G

F chord: F & C

G chord: G & D

A minor chord: A & E

Remember to play these chords with your left hand!

To decide which chords to play and when, try to match up one of the notes. For example, if you play the note C in your melody, you should choose a C chord or F chord because they both have C in the chord! Take some time and play around with some chord options. Usually a song will follow the same pattern of chords like C, F, G, A minor or C, F, G, C. This pattern is called a chord progression.

You’ve worked so hard so far on this piano composition – even as a beginner piano player you’re composing a song like a pro! There’s only one more step to composing a song on the piano. We need to create a title! Come up with an awesome title that is easy to remember and conveys what your song is about. Play your song from start to finish and share it with the joyful community!

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