Writing music

[Shout 2.0]

I want to write music for my songs. I just write them in a tab form in a notebook of mine. And they're not for songs. They're just broken up pieces of music that will soon become music. I'm thinking about writing my music down in chords but what about the scales. I dunno any scales and I don't know a program where I can input some scattered notes in so I can see the scale for it. But what I worry is that what if someone looks at it and plays the whole chord. What if I just wanted to use the last two strings of the Open G chord. I'm not going to write down little notes. And how did Jimmy Page write down his music? Most of his songs are scattered notes. And I know that they're not arpeggios. Like in the song "Heartbreaker". The intro couldn't have been a chord because there were more then one notes on one string. It's like putting two fingers on different frets on one string. Only the highest fret will effect the sound. And one thing I will not do is study music and notes and write them in that bar stuff. I might consider but at the moment my mind thinks it's a huge no-no. I don't think I have much time to just draw little balls everywhere and figure out if it's on this string or on the other.

[Holy Diver]

I use guitar pro to write out all my songs. It uses tab, so no knowledge of actual music notation is needed, although you will need to know rhythm (half note, quarter note, etc..) in order to get the timing of your songs right. If you put down your melody in the program, you can use the scale finder to tell you what scale it's in. The chords are simple too, you can put in pre-made chords and modify them how you like, or just put what you want in from scratch.

[sonicst0rm]

you might as well learn some music theory shouldn't take too long to learn some basic enough stuff to start writing music. It looks complicated at first, but it's pretty key to learning how to write a melody unless you wanna take longer and try and see if every single note sounds right.

[Shadius]

Just learn some scales and how to keep things in key.

That way, you can chose some notes that will definately sound classically good together, and chose when to break this rule.

Start with the major scale in first position, and the minor scale, and how those scales are related to each other on the neck.

It might also help to find out what chords are in what key, as well, if you need help with what other chords to use in progressions.

I would suggest tabbing your songs out into a music program, like Guitar Pro, or PowerTab, or Sibelius, or something.

[Shout 2.0]

I use Power tab so if I do suggest to use notations for like solos or fillers that aren't chords then I'll use that to determine what the key is so I can right it down on my notebook.

[zyxon]

You need to learn some theory. Just because there is more the one note on a string doesn't mean they aren't both in the chord.

[ebv-dave]

I know you want to start writing your own songs which is great, but by the sounds it you really need to learn abit more first. Maybe you should try and learn a song like Heartbreaker, so you understand how different notes can be written, then maybe learn the major and minor scale, or maybe the pentatonic, it'll all fall into place eventually, it's something that you understand more naturally with practice and time, and gain knowledge of gradually, not all at once.

[Shout 2.0]

I know A LOT of songs where a note is used with scales and such.

[shayne_122]

You seem to be a sort of beginner at guitar, then, no?

I see where you're coming from when it comes to music notation, as I still haven't learned treble clef, (I know bass because of trombone) but I learned theory in relation to tab. In order to write melodic lines for your own songs, you're going to either need to be really lucky, or learn theory.

For the record, didn't Jimmy Page copy a bunch of old blues guys for his riffs?

And Heartbreaker is just part of a C major scale, if I remember correctly.. which I probably don't, because I looked over it at least 2 years ago.

[WindowLedge]

For the record, didn't Jimmy Page copy a bunch of old blues guys for his riffs?

And Heartbreaker is just part of a C major scale, if I remember correctly.. which I probably don't, because I looked over it at least 2 years ago.

Most definitely. Its A minor pentatonic with the b5 thrown in (A blues) btw

[Shout 2.0]

You seem to be a sort of beginner at guitar, then, no?
I started guitar in december but I consider myself an intermediate player. I know a lot of songs and chords. I had this chart with some scales but I gave it to my cousin who just started because it had chords also. Anyone know any sites where I can get some scales to study and learn? But yeah. I know some in one point and more in another. And this may not help much but you can kind of tell I play the guitar much from december to now because I don't have noobie fingers. You know where you crumple them all into a bar but only use two of them for one string. I have split fingers.

[ANEBIST]

I'd use power tabs.