April Keez
Apr 21, 20201 min
Outlining is one of my favorite ways to start writing a song! This is the outline that I use when I write, including descriptions of the specific song sections. If you're feeling stuck, give it a try!
Start by coming up with a Main Idea for your song. This can be anything from "I am in love" to "Puppies are cute" to "Why hath the world forsaken me?!" You do you. Find subject matter that speaks to you and use your own feelings to help your idea to grow!
Come up with 1 sentence descriptions of your song sections by following the prompts in my outline.
Choose your chords. I've used the key of C as an example here, but you can play around with any key you like. Experiment by mixing around the different chords in the key until you find something that sounds good to you. The most important thing here is to make sure that your chords match the overall feeling of your song (though, sometimes it can be fun to intentionally break this rule by writing a sad song in a happy key to highlight the juxtaposition).
Flesh out the rest of your song using your outline!
You can see a full description of my process in the video below:
I hope this post has been helpful! Stay tuned for more songwriting resources!