Putting Chords with words

i was just wondering how do you know what chords to use with your lyrics?? and how do you work out what key you should use?? i am really confused about this

Basically, if you have the lyrics before you have the music, you should think of a melody.. something that comes to yer mind when reading the lyrics. Once you have a melody, write it down, or even better - when u you have a midi program like cubase - programm the melody as midifile.

Then it is a good idea to take the first few notes of the melody and search for a chord that has most of these notes in it.

If you have a very slow melody it is a good idea to build a chord on almost each note of the melody. if the first note is an A for example the first thing that comes to mind would either be an Amaj or Amin chord, or parts of it liker an A5 powerchord. If that isnt the sound you wanted try other chords. just improvise over the melody with chords..

Or the other way round.. go and think of a nice chord progression that hits the caracter of the lyrics. The improvise a nice melody over it. then go and fit the word into the melody or vice versa fit the melody to the words

[Edited by Azrael on 05-12-2002 at 09:53 AM]

Originally posted by Azrael
Or the other way round.. go and think of a nice chord progression that hits the caracter of the lyrics. The improvise a nice melody over it. then go and fit the word into the melody or vice versa fit the melody to the words

[Edited by Azrael on 05-12-2002 at 09:53 AM]

This is usually the route I go. I find it easy to hear the words of a song once I have the music in my head. I can feel the song when I play it and maybe hum a few bars as I go along soon I find something I like and work with it.

Azrael Have you took a listen to my song "Faded" in the tricks section? This is the method I used to find the lyrics to that song.

not yet, but i will do as soon as i finished my pizza! *LOL*

sometimes it just comes to u. ya know when your reading the word and u make sort of a melody out of it, u just make that melody into chords. sometimes it helps to listen to different songs and steal sort of the same tone. not always though. i've only been playing the guitar for 2 years and i've already made several songs. practice make perfect. try different chords or licks and see which one u like best then put the words with it.