Give me 12 minutes, and you'll be a pro at making chords & melodies

Let's learn how to make chords and

melodies once and for all. This is for

people who know nothing about music

theory and struggle with creating chords

and melodies. So, even if you have no

experience, at the end of this video,

you'll be a master at creating chords

and melodies. Let's get started. Load up

a piano sound. I'm using Cloud Piano,

which is my own plug-in, but any piano

will do, and open up piano roll. Now,

here we are in Piano Roll. There is only

one thing we need to set up to start

creating our composition, and that is

choosing the key of your song. So go

right here into options, go to view,

scale highlighting, and now you get to

choose the key of your song, the root

note and the scale. You can choose any

of these, and this technique will work,

but the ones easier to understand are

major, yonian, and minor natural. So use

the right click of your mouse to select

minor natural and then choose your key.

We're going to choose F. Again, use the

right click. Then the window won't

close. Now our key is set to F minor

natural. We can leave the screen. And

now you can see the piano roll changed.

You can see some of the notes that are

highlighted like these ones. And some of

them are darker like these ones. Also,

if you want to see all the notes in

piano roll, go to view, key labels, all

notes. And the first note we're going to

put in is F4,

which is the root note of F minor. It's

good practice to start with the root

note of your key, which is in the name

of the key. Second thing you need to

understand is how to create chords.

Minor and major chords always have the

same shape. A major chord has the first

note, then three spaces, a note on the

fourth one, then two spaces, and a note

on the third one. This is the shape of a

major chord. It's always the shape of a

major chord. You need to have the first

note, three spaces in between, the

second note, then two spaces in between,

and the third note. That's always a

major chord. To create a minor chord,

you just move the middle note one down.

Therefore, a minor chord is the first

note, two spaces in between, then the

second note, three spaces in between,

then the third note. These shapes are

always the same, so we can always use

them. Now, how do we know which chord to

use, a major chord or a minor chord?

Well, since we set up our key and we can

see the highlighted notes, we always use

the one that fits into the highlighted

notes. So, here, starting on F, if we

want to create a major chord, that would

be three spaces and then the fourth one

is the note. But this one is not on the

highlighted grid. It's on the darker

one. So it cannot be in our key.

Therefore, we know this will have to be

a minor chord. So we're going to leave

two spaces. Then put in the note on the

third one. And then we're going to leave

three spaces and put in the note on the

fourth one.

And we can see all of these notes are on

the highlighted grid, which means that's

the correct chord to choose in this

case. So let's continue and create a

chord progression. So you can choose any

notes that you want. So we starting with

F. Let's just put in the bass notes.

So for example, that or

whatever feels right for you. And then

we just fill in the chords again using

the same strategy. So here a minor chord

wouldn't be on the highlighted grid.

Therefore, it will be a major chord

here.

[Music]

You basically just fill in the chords,

then double check if all of them are on

the highlighted grid, which they are.

So, all of these notes are in the key of

F minor. Now, we can preview our chord

progression.

[Music]

Pretty basic, but it works. This is the

first step. Once you know this, you are

on the right track. Now a few things we

can do is do inverted chords. Basically

you select any note from your chord and

put it octave higher. So right here for

example

I feel like the notes are too low. So

I'm going to take the lowest note

holding control and selecting and I'm

going to press control arrow up to put

it octave higher. Now the chord is still

the same but the notes are in a

different order but it will still work

and it will sound slightly different.

Here

[Music]

it is before we inverted it. And here it

is now.

The same chord but notes are in a

different order. Now you can do this

anywhere and you can do multiple notes

as well. So for example here we can

select those two put them octave higher.

[Music]

But when you do that, you can forget

which bass notes you used because now

you would think the lowest note is the

bass note. But of course, it's not. It's

this one right here. So, let me put them

back. And a good practice is to select

your bass notes before inverting the

chords and just hold shift and put them

octave lower and then invert your

chords. Now you won't forget which of

these are your bass notes.

Right now we already have a great chord

progression, a simple one, but a good

one. But we can make it way more

interesting by adding more notes. Now,

of course, you can use any of these

notes that are highlighted, but not all

of them will sound great,

but they will fit into the harmony

either way. Of course, you can use any

of the notes that you already have in

the chord. So, that is F, Gsharp, and C,

and put them octave higher as well.

Those will always sound good.

But you can just experiment with

different variations. So try a note

[Music]

and preview it.

[Music]

And also it's good to preview it with

the previous chord as well.

[Music]

So this is nice to me.

Okay, now let's do one more chord

progression and then I'm going to show

you how to make the melody as well. So,

let's remove this. Go back to view scale

highlighting. Let's do major and let's

do G. G major. Now, we have different

notes at our disposal, but same

techniques. So, I'm going to go faster

now.

And let's try a different piano sound

from our cloud piano plugin. A very

affordable piano. So if you want to

check it out, link will be below in the

description. And we can also enable some

of these effects here to make it more

interesting.

Let's also add the bass notes.

[Music]

And let's create the chords. Again, the

same shapes as I mentioned.

[Music]

Just like that. You can see here is a

major chord with three spaces and two

spaces. Here is a minor chord with two

spaces and three spaces. Another minor

chord and then a major chord. Just

follow the highlighted notes.

[Music]

And of course, let's invert some of

these.

[Music]

And now we can add a few more notes.

[Music]

Now we can add the melody. You must be

wondering how to create the melody.

Well, again, just follow the highlighted

notes. We can go with a simple one by

choosing one note, for example.

[Music]

[Music]

Something like this. Okay, how did I

just create that? Again, I was just

following the highlighted notes,

choosing G as my starting point. And

then, of course, I still hum the melody

in my head, and then transfer it into

piano roll. But when you know which

notes you can use, it makes it way

easier.

Okay, let's remove this melody and let's

try a more complex one. One thing you

can learn about making melodies is there

is always a question and an answer.

[Music]

[Music]

So in this case we go up in here

and then we create a loop by going down

at the end.

[Music]

Essentially what I'm trying to say is

the last part of your melody should also

fit with the first part of your melody.

For example, if I had A in here,

I don't really like that because you end

with A and then you start with A and it

doesn't sound as good when it repeats.

So, you really need to pay attention to

your last note and the first note. So,

they sound good one after another when

it repeats. One thing you can do before

creating the melody is set the rhythm of

the melody first. So, just choose one

note, maybe the note of your key. So G

and create a rhythm only.

So just like so we just created the

rhythm

and now what we are going to do adjust

the notes.

[Music]

[Music]

And as you can see here, we have this

repetition. Then we have pretty much the

same one, but this note

is higher here. And then the first one

repeats again. So that's another thing

you can do is have the same repetition

twice, but also every second time change

something slightly

[Music]

at the end. We want to make sure the

listener knows it's the end. That's why

we go down here. It doesn't necessarily

mean you need to go down. We just go

into a different direction as the

previous repetitions. So we have

but at the end.

So always keep that in mind when

creating the melodies. Anyways guys,

that is it. That's how we create chords

and melodies in 2025. Also, make sure to

check out my piano plug-in if you want

to. It's a really affordable piano

plug-in for every producer. Thank you

for watching and I'll see you in the

next one. Goodbye.