Paul McCartney wrote, yesterday. McCartney, you know, apparently he, he woke up with it in his, with his head. Then, he woke up this in his head, just the, Â okay, that’s what he woke up with.
He didn’t wake up with the calls. He didn’t wake up with the, you know, Â What’s more inspirational, the melody. And then he says, once I sat down with that melody, Â I came up with scrambled eggs.
How my baby loves. Just, I said, I just love my baby’s legs. And that is, that is not an apocryphal tale. That is true. It took him two years to actually chord the song. He would go around people saying, is this melody familiar? So I want you to come up with the, the melody  first. Okay?  So the lyrical theme, let’s move on.  Lyrical point of view.  First person will be, baby, I’m a firework second baby. You are a firework third baby. She’s a firework. What works best, in my opinion, and for this exercise is your, so you’ll be writing this  song in the second person, okay?
Tempo, very important. This is a very important thing. Tempo. Â And there’s a tip tip here as well. Too often we settle with the tempo that we start with, particularly if we’re using digital audio workstations. We set the beat, we write the song, we maybe put a vocal down, and all of a sudden it seems like it’s dragging a bit. So rather than go back, redo the guitar, redo the vocal, we live with the tempo.
Big mistake. So at the start of the process, set the tempo,  get the guitar,  Come up with one chord. I want you to write with the melody. So you’d be  just to get the melody flowing. Then we’ll look at how you harmonize it in a, in, in a little while. So  set the tempo,  then stop the tempo on the digital audio workstation. Play it without the tempo.
And I, and I suspect you’ll find that you always play it a little bit faster. Â So make sure that the tempo really is backing up the feel of the melody, because that will really help the song Land two BPM Â below the, the optimum tempo. And you might not get the cut. I wrote with Sophie ish beter. Â And, in fact, my daughter’s just been in touch with her. I’ve put her in touch and she’s, she’s on the phone with her this evening. She’s designing, some sleeves for her webcast. But I was speaking to her and, I wrote a song, 118 BPM.
It didn’t go on the album ’cause she said the producers, it wasn’t 120 BPM. and, and that was the vibe. Â Okay? Â So Tempo 120 BPM, I would like you to be somewhere around that in your track. It’s a fantastic drive in tempo. I did a whole lecture on this. I could have just used a Katie Perry Brand New Radicals. You got the music in you. 120 Rollercoaster Roller Heating, another great pop song written by Greg Alexander, who is the singer of the brand New radicals 120 BPM, my sweet Lord George Harrison.
Three Katy Perry Songs, raw Teenage Dream.  And they were all at 120 B bpm. It’s, it’s a really, really good  tempo to work out. So I  wanna switch here and keep going down. This is the important thing. I wanna look at melodic movement and harmonic support. I want you to write from the melody of the primary components.  Okay?
So you’ll sit there. Basically, I want you to come up with the, with the chords as well. I’m gonna share my logic with you  there.
Okay. So a little bit of a nuts and bolts of this. This is what I want you to do.  So  we mute everything. I’m gonna have to freestyle a little bit here ’cause we’re running out of time. And I don’t want to keep end of the referring to my notes. So in my workstation, I set it for 120 BPM.  So we have  the little beat going here.  If you don’t have the workstation,  Just get, go on, get a computer, get something on your, on your phone that gives you the tempo.
A little metronome. You’ll find 120 BPM is great for getting a groove going. So get the groove going. Don’t write the chords first. Â Basically, when she’s writing, this, this song, it, it, it’s in three parts. The same with, shooting Star by Owl City. And the same with Sarah Beres. You’re now gonna have to look up those yourself, I feel, to do the homework.
She starts  very low down.  So the melody in the verses  always starts.  So she’s here,  she’s singing. So  put that to the beat she has.  See how easy it is.
Once you’ve got the melody  to write a lyric, will you ever see that  you are not alone. You have everything or you need to own making it up when it’s called outside the  rain sets in and embrace the world and feel it on your skin,  et cetera, et cetera. So the melody like that is a great way to write. So I want you to find your key. It’s important.
The key is in G and it’s in G because  you play the G chord  and then you play the melody.  She’s Hitting the third note in the G chord, which is, let me put this back up there. So you can see this. There’s the G chord. 1, 2, 3 contains three notes, G, B, C. Now look at where her melody is placed. They’re very clever. They hit the melody  and they make sure it hits the three notes that are making up the chord. Not the C  or the sixth or the seventh.
Of course it glances across them. But the prior notes made of here,  that’s the third note.  Very important note in the chord. ’cause it decides whether it’s a major or mine takes a,  so those two notes are actually key notes in the chord.  So she’s playing the melody,  She’s In G.  So what I want you to do is find your key.  Could be C, could be d play around, it could be a  play around with the melody.
Make sure that they’re quite short for your verse. ’cause the verse is gonna tell the story, da, da da. You are never. Now look what happens when you put the chords in  melody. First you’re gonna start, make sure the first chord you use  in your progression is the, is the,  the tonic, the g  the chord that the, the key that the song is in.
So then you can go to a min here, here’s what Katie Perry used. She used this one. So they have  GA  minor  E, minor C.  Okay,  quick musical lesson.
Why? Because those are the chords that are in the key of G. Â Very simple. Every key one, Â every key. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Â has an appropriate chord. GA minor B minus, C, d, e, minor diminished debt. So they’re using only chords that are in the key four chords, one major, Â a minor, Â another minor, Â and very important. The fourth chord is very important in your progression.
Make sure the fourth chord is a major ’cause there’s only two other majors in the key that will be a C or a D ’cause they tumble so nicely. Back to the first chord. Â You could write alternate chords, use the same melody and they’ll work. Once you’ve got a melody, any chord in the key will work. But always good in this pop song. To start on the tonic, start on the chord. That, that’s key of the song is try and end your last chord on the fourth or fifth note of the, or the fourth or fifth chord, which will be, if it’s in G, that will be a C or a D.
So here are a couple of alternate chords you could use. And, and they’d work just as well.  Okay?  So  what you’re gonna be set with is a tempo 120 BPN.
You’re gonna write the, the melody,  the main key, the main thing, let’s stop logic  in these songs is I would like a verse, a pre and a chorus. Okay?  Now what I want you to do, I want you to keep the verse melody around  the, the tonic chord. So whatever key the song is in, move your verse, melody around it. If you’re in g it could be around here,  okay?
In your pre try and build up to the chorus, try and move out the chord. Remember, these chords are gonna be the same chords looping. So maybe you hit your pre try to move up a little.  And when you hit your chorus, which will be the key word you’re using, go for the octave of where you start the verse.
