I’ve been writing music for years, so imagine my joy when my nine year’ old daughter asked me if I could help her write a song. So we sat down and I started to work through the theory that I had learnt. It didn’t take long for her eyes to gloss over and I was worried I was losing her. So I decided to keep it really simple. I plugged in an old keyboard and showed her a couple of chords. Happy child for the rest of the day, or so I thought. A few minutes later and she’s back again this time she wanted to know more chords and how to write lyrics, again we started looking for more chords online. Then I found some information on the BBC website, we started to work through but she lost interest again. So I started to look online for some kind of resource. Something basic and simple enough to hold the attention of a nine year old but had enough of the basics to enable her to write a song. Everything I found either made the presumption that the reader had a basic understanding of an instrument or the starting place for the basics were so routed in music theory long winded that I found it a challenge to read through let alone someone who just wanted to write a song!

I started to gather information together from all different sources it became a bit of a mission, every piece of information I would write an explanation for and it got to the point when my daughter would wait for my notes instead of reading through the material.

It was a few months later I received a song request from a friend of mine. He had gotten engaged and wanted to really surprise his Bride with a song on their wedding day. Now I’ve written songs for all kinds of things, people and companies, but what he wanted, was something far more personal, he wanted to write it himself! I sat down and started to work through the notes I had made for my daughter and started to put together the Ultimate Absolutely Essential Beginners Guide To Writing A Song, an entry level guide that is simple and accessible enough for anyone who wants to write a song and has no idea where to begin.