In November, I performed for the iCademy Fall Recital. I have performed in the recital ever since it started, but this time, it was different. It was different because I wrote my first song for it, called “Falcon”.
Everything was done by me: the video, the accordion, the guitar, the vocals, and, most importantly, the song itself.
From a beginner’s point of view, writing the first song is harder than writing any other song. It seems like a puzzle must be put together, but worse. It’s like you must first make the puzzle from scratch and then put it together. But, once done and looking back, it’s not that hard!
The first thing I did was come up with an idea. I had an idea to write a song about the relatives of a budgerigar, and a falcon is a relative of a budgie.
Once I had an idea, I needed to start on lyrics. It’s important to start lyrics first because music is highly structured, but lyrics are not and it’s easier to change lyrics than melody.
Here are the lyrics I eventually came up with:
On the perch there's a down feather
Next to a bird with a yellow face
Next to it, in this case is a
Falcon
They don't look like dinosaurs
But they're not that unlike
Hear the call of the budgie and the roar of the
Falcon
Then the falcon did say,
"Budgie's not my lunch today
Although it's strange I can speak, I'm a
Falcon"
On my door was a knock
And I beheld a great flock
A bird said, "Hello, how are you, I'm Doctor
Falcon"
And as I toiled on
And eventually wrote this song
I made the music in the key of
Falcon
They don't look like dinosaurs
But they're not that unlike
Hear the call of the budgie and the roar of the
Falcon
You don't have their good ears
But if you strain you can hear
The eternal war of the budgie and the
Falcon
Notice that the first two lines are “On the perch there’s a down feather / Next to a bird with a yellow face”. I got this lyric from looking at Bondi, a bird with a yellow face. He was simply sitting next to a down feather. And, being comfortable around birds, I sang that lyric to him. Although the response was only an apathetic look, I had my first lyric and the beginning of a melody. (TIP: Whatever you do, DO NOT forget your melody. Even if you think it sounds terrible, it isn’t. It can be edited into an amazing melody). I wrote it down and continued the lyrics, not forgetting the rhyme scheme. (TIP: I find it easier to work on the melody and lyrics at the same time. The melody and lyrics guide each other in development.) I basically wrote a poem, trying out each line to see if it would fit the melody I had come up with. (TIP: Don’t care if your melody or lyrics sound terrible. Just fix it and remember that you are not done with the song and that it will be a great song when it’s done.)
All songs have a verse and a chorus. Sometimes there’s a bridge. A verse is for telling a story. A chorus is the repeating part that everybody sings along to. A bridge can be included as a guitar solo, or as yet another part of a song. In my song, the song structure is
verse 1
chorus
verse (with guitar solo)
bridge
verse 2
verse 3
chorus
verse 4
After I was done with my lyrics, I chose the chords. I chose F major for “falcon”. I strummed chords from F major that go along with my melody, listening to the melody in my head while strumming the chords. I used a combination of what “sounded good” and this chord map:
This chord map goes along with rules. Each numeral refers to a note in the scale. “I” is the first note. “ii” is the second, and so on. In the F major scale, the notes, in order, are F G A Bb C D E. Start on I. You can jump anywhere, and then you follow the arrows. The uppercase numerals are major, and the lowercase numerals are minor. Notices there are two ii’s and two V’s. Even though they are in different locations, they are the same. For example, the chord progression I IV V “vi” is one that follows the rules. (TIP: This chord map is not a rule, it’s a tool. You can go against the arrows if you think it sounds better for your song.)
The chord progression for the verse is F Bb C G F G F C D G F C D G. It looks long, but these chords are played over the entire verse. (TIP: It’s helpful to write down the lyrics with a line left blank in between each line. On the blank lines, write the chord that starts playing above the word it starts playing on.) The chords for the chorus are F G C D F Bb F C D G F C D G. The bridge chords are F A Bb C F F# G F C D G F C D G (notice F# is not part of the scale. I just thought it sounded good as a “sliding” effect between F and G.)
Once I had the timing and chords down, the songwriting process was pretty much over, and the more technical phase started. I decided which instruments would be on the song. I chose guitar because it is a versatile instrument that fits with rock songs and the accordion because I wanted a happy-sounding instrument to play along to a guitar. Even though I didn’t have a bass guitar at the time, I chose bass (I managed to get my guitar to sound like a bass by artificially changing the pitch down several octaves in Audacity).
Since I had the instruments decided, I was ready to start recording in Audacity. (I didn’t do this first, but I should have: put a drum track down. A drum track keeps the other instrument playing on beat, even if it’s just a metronome beat that stays throughout the song. You can always change it later, and LMMS has a good drum machine.) I recorded the guitar strumming first, throughout the entire song. I have an electric guitar, its cable, and an adapter (¼” female to 3.5mm male adapter) to plug it into the computer. I recorded the accordion next, throughout the entire song. Although my accordion has a plug, it’s a 60’s amplifier plug and I don’t have the adapter, so I used a USB rockband microphone. I recorded the vocals next, also using the rockband microphone. After that, I recorded the “bass” guitar track.
Between recording each track, I did some editing. Using a few seconds of signal-free space at the beginning and end of the recording, I did noise reduction and used the time shift tool to line up the tracks correctly. Also, each track wasn’t immediately recorded as the final version. I re-did each track at least twice as needed.
After recording everything, I started the edits. I used the leveler on the clean guitar tracks to add distortion. I added reverb on the vocals to make it sound more pleasant and to add a fitting effect on “Falcooooonnnn”. I changed the pitch of the “bass” guitar to make it sound like a bass. I changed the volume of each track so that everything was audible. I added a phaser effect to the beginning accordion note (yes, that is an accordion).
Now I had a very good idea of what the final product would sound like, I wrote a short solo based on the F major scale and recorded it. (TIP: Solos sound worse than they are. All you need to do is play around on a scale and make sure it sounds good. They’re a place to show off your skills, and they’re fun!) I removed noise and added leveler.
At this point, I had all the final tracks recorded and I recorded no more. But I was not done with the song. I listened to it several more times, and decided that the accordion should only be present in the solo and the “Falcooooonnnn”. This finished off the audio section of the song.
I started on the video part of the song. I used my camera to record clips of my birds. I videotaped them being sleepy. I videotaped them yawning. I taped them running around, until I only had 1 second left on the camera. I predicted that if I put the camera strap in the cage, Bondette would peck Bondi away from it within a second, and I pulled it off.
Finally, I downloaded all the clips and arranged them to music using PowerDirector. When satisfied, I uploaded the video to YouTube and I was done.
The songwriting process can be hard, especially on beginners. Just keep working at it, and write more and more songs and you will get better over time. Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have any, I’d like to help! Good luck!
