Want To Make Music? Here’s How To Get Started
Making music of your own can be incredibly intimidating to start with. If you’re already a good singer, or you’re someone who plays 2 or 3 instruments, this might feel like the natural next step. But what if you just love music but have little knowledge about it? You too can make music!
Whether you love Christmas music, or if you’re more of a country girl, or maybe you’re keen to kickstart a hip-hop career – no matter what kind of music you love, getting started with making your own songs starts the same. You need an idea, and we’ve got some tips below to help you move that idea from being just in your head to a full-length song. It might take a while, but all good music should!
Start with Your Lyrics
You need to write your song before you can make it. You need to have an emotion and a tone ready, and a style to feed into, and something to say with your music. So sit down right now and see how the lyrics flow out of you.
It’s just like putting a poem together, but if you haven’t done that since high school English days, it might take a while for the lines to form. Don’t beat yourself up over this. Some songs were written in 10 minutes, yes, but a lot more songs were written over a series of days and weeks.
Research Your Beats
Once you’ve got the lyrics written down, and you know vaguely what you want the song to sound like, it’s time to do some research into the instrumental side of your chosen genre. You need to find a beat that sounds like what you’ve got floating through your head, and to do that, you need to listen.
You can get onto sites like Youtube and listen to songs that have inspired you, or even download some piano sheet music and see how the notes and chords tend to move. Now you can put together your own beat! Remember, you can take inspiration and ideas from what you research, but ultimately you’re looking to make something new and different. Take a risk here, get your guitar or drum kit out, and see how bits and pieces of the music fit together.
Refine as Much as Possible
Once you’ve got the two main elements of the song put together, you’ll need to record it. Now, don’t just do this once. Make sure you record time and time again until you’re truly happy with the way it all sounds. You need to be sure the music reflects what you want it to, and that won’t happen without a little refinement. Even ‘raw’ music takes time to make, and unless you’re a practiced freestyle artist, it’s not going to come pouring out on the first try.
If you want to make your own music, all you need is a bit of know-how and the passion to craft a song.
