My first song had three chords, a stolen progression, and a chorus about my car breaking down. It was terrible. Writing it changed everything.
Songwriting is a separate skill from guitar playing, and it only grows by doing it. There's no chord count, no theory exam, no level to reach first. If you can play three or four chords, you have everything the writers of most hit songs had. The waiting is the only real obstacle.
🔑 KEY IDEA
The first one is supposed to be bad
Don't start from nothing; nobody does. Take a chord progression that already works, G-C-D or C-G-Am-F, and use it. This is completely legal and completely normal: progressions belong to everyone, and the song you'd borrow it from borrowed it too. Melodies are the part you can't take. The loop is just the ground you build on.
The whole recipe, one evening:
- 1Pick a progression you can loop smoothly. Stay in one key and every chord will agree.
- 2Record the loop on your phone, a minute or two of it.
- 3Play it back and hum over it, no words yet. Your voice finds melodies your fingers can't.
- 4Keep the accidental bit that sounds like a song. That's your chorus.
- 5Scope: one verse plus one chorus, repeated, is a complete song. Bridges are for song five.
🔥 PRO TIP
Hum first, words later
Get a complete rough version, start to finish, before you fix anything. A phone recording of you playing it once through, mumbled words and all, is a finished first song, and finished is the entire assignment. Then write another. Quantity is how songwriters improve; each one teaches you something polishing the first one never would. Keep a voice memo folder of fragments so no session ever starts from a blank page.
Someday you'll play your fifteenth song for someone and they'll go quiet in the good way. It starts with the bad one you write this week.
Your turn ⭐
Ready check
Question 1 of 3
How many chords do you need before writing a song?
The cheat sheet
- You're ready with three or four chords. Songwriting grows only by doing it.
- Steal a progression; it's legal and universal. Melodies are the part that's yours.
- Record the loop, hum over it, keep the accident that sounds like a chorus.
- One verse, one chorus, finished badly, beats a perfect song that doesn't exist.
Common questions
Should I write the chords or the lyrics first?
Whichever comes to you; both doors are real. Chords-first suits most guitarists because the loop gives your voice something to react to, but if a phrase is stuck in your head, start there and find chords under it. There is no correct order, only the one that gets you moving.
My first attempt sounds terrible. Should I keep fixing it?
Finish it rough, then start song two. Polishing song one teaches you polishing; writing song two teaches you songwriting. The improvement you want lives a few finished-bad songs away, not a few more hours into this one.
When do ideas come? I sit down to write and get nothing.
Mostly not during writing sessions, which is normal. Catch them when they arrive: hum into your phone in the parking lot, type the phrase at midnight. Sessions are where fragments get assembled, and a session that starts from a saved fragment never faces the blank page.