Have the thought ever cross your mind that composing songs for the piano would be an awesome talent to have? Fortunately, the steps to get started isn't too hard, but it does require some music theory training and dedication. In this article, I will be showing you the basic steps for composing your very own piano composition.

Get Familiar with Chords

Chords are the foundation for every piano music. Think of your favorite pop song right now. Without a doubt, that song has a chord foundation, and it is being constantly repeated throughout the tune. For practice, you can select up to 20 of your favorite songs, and try to determine the chord for each. Mistakes will frequently happen, but you will definitely improve if you keep practicing!

Chord Progressions


Oh boy, this step is basically a shortcut to creating your piano piece. A chord progression is a series of chord(usually 4 in pop songs) that is played in a chronological order. For beginners, I am going to show you a simple chord progression that sounds amazing to the ears:

A minor -> F Major -> C Major -> G Major

So what do you do with these four types of chords? For your left hand, you should develop a simple fingering pattern for each chord. But in our case, we can keep it simple by pressing down the chords as a triad. By playing it in triads, it should give your ears the ability to listen if the chords do not match your melody.

Now that we got the left hand out of the way, lets move on to your right hand; the melody. The melody is generally very easy to create because all you have to do is press the keys that sounds good to you. One important thing to note is that you must follow the key signature from your first chord. So for example, the A minor you do not have any black keys, so you do not have to worry about playing those.Try to throw in some exotic elements like trills, scales, or turns in order to make your composition sound interesting.  


Practice, practice, practice!


By determining the chord progression for your list of 20 songs, you can always apply it to your own type of compositions. For example, if your favorite tune has a C, F, and A major chord, use it for your left hand! You can alternate the melody with your own style, and make it sound great without copying the original. Pop musicians use this technique frequently, and it is a popular method to develop songs. I hope you learned something in this guide, and best of luck! You can read more tips and guides at my blog!