just wondered if there were any rules or tips u could give me for songwriting, using keyboard as an accompaniment instrument. And have any of U created ur own songs, and if u have can i find them anywhere on net, for example ur home pages or sites or any websites?

when making your own compostion you should always have a question phrase, with and answer phrase

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Have a look at some theory of music books - they will tell you about cadences, which is how to make things sound finished, and the rules of harmony - which is how the keyboard part fits in with the voice part.
Cat

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Is it worth saying that most popular music sheets and albums have guitar chord symbols and say what the chord is. May help Reignmurda 'analyse' existing songs.
Veronique

I did GCSE music with no knowledge of theory at all. I got really frustrated when my pieces never sounded finished, and the harmonies weren't quite right. In my opinion theory, and cadences and harmony rules, take a lot of the frustration out of songwriting without removing flexibility - that's why I suggested it.

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Hey Rhapsodin, thanks for sharing your expertise with us - I've re-read your post a few times, and am almost tempted to have another go at coming up with something on the piano, although it usually seems to fizzle out, I'm afraid. (perhaps the fact that I can't play the piano doesn't help!)

One question I've wondered is this; take your "twas on a summer evening when the moon was shining bright" - say that's in two bars of 4 with "twas" on a quaver upbeat and a rest at the end - a bit like the verse part in "supercalafragalisticexpialidocious". How do you decide how many chord changes there are going to be in the left hand? Some pieces seem to have a single broken chord covering an entire bar, whilst others change the chord every time the note in the melody changes. Is it just trial and error, or are there degrees of the scale in the melody which tend to prompt a chord change? Or is it usually the rhythm which forces a chord change?

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QUOTE (Rhapsodin @ Dec 18 2004, 07:11 PM)

Remember, the physical rhythm is basically boring and depends on a few devices to keep interest going hence the importance of melody and harmonic rhythm (that moves things forward).

This is a really positive, non-intimidating way of looking at it.

Thank you so much Rhapsodin for this and your many other interesting thoughts, which I know people usually pay you to share with them! None of this guidance seems to be contained in Walter Piston's book on harmony.

The Roman Numerals are as useful as any other version to me, although the specific examples will take me longer to work out than the general points (however they are written).

Hope you have a healthily tubby christmas with plenty of woohoo!

David