III: Writing the basic theme of a song

Let's continue, shall we? Now I'm going to talk about how to write a basic theme and then how to change it into a song.

When you want to write a song, rarely does the opporitunity come when you have an entire song, completed, in your head. (with all instruments, notes, etc.) So what most of us do is, write down the basic theme of a song first. Download the file mid1.mid by clicking here. This is a midi file I've made with musictime. As you can see, it's just a basic theme, it's VERY basic. This is the kind of thing that you should write down. Anyway, to get an idea of how basic it is, let's look at the notes:

Man, that's basic. The basicness of it is so basic, that it basically is basic. Anyway, the next step, after you have decided the theme, is to change it into what you want. In the next article of this series, I will talk about how to write chords to harmonize and make things sound how you want. For now, we'll try to change this theme without all that stuff. Okay, let's say that I wanted to change this into a fast, exciting battle song. I would first add a snare drum to play in the background, because that makes it seem like a battle. Then, I would make the theme play a lot faster. Finally, I would add other instruments to harmonize it and make it sound how I want. (More on this in the next article.) Click here to download mid2.mid. This file is the basic theme, changed into a more exciting, faster song.

Now, let's say you wanted to change it into a sad, slow song instead. Well, you can do that too. Click here to take a listenin' to the file mid3.mid. This is the basic theme we came up with above, except changed into a sad song. Of course, this isn't a complete song, but it should give you an idea.

Anyway, that was just to show you how to write a basic theme. Time for me to take a break. In a few weeks, I'll finish part III of this series, which will talk about how to write variations on songs, and how to harmonize notes. So if you want to know how I changed that basic theme into some songs, you'll understand after reading part III. Will there be a part IV...maybe even a part V? Because I've already got ideas on what to write for those, like how to use DirectX to play music, or advanced musical notation. Will they be written? Email me if you want it!

John Licato is a pianist and a percussionist, and can be contacted at Pitech@hawaii.rr.com. Feel free to send any comments, questions, or suggestions.