Creating Your Own Pop Tune- Lesson ONE

This week, we’ve started creating our very own Pop Song!

To do this, we learned a little bit about something called the Circle of Fifths, which pretty much most modern and Classical music is based on.

We used the Circle of Fifths to create what’s called a ‘Chord Progression’, which is the foundation of popular music.

PRINTING

You should have your own copy, but if you need a new one, or you’d like to create more pop chord progressions, simply CLICK on the image above and print away!

PLAYING

To start with, this week we are playing each chord FOUR times with the right hand, while the left hand holds the ‘root note’ of the chord. The Root Note is simply the note the chord is named after. For instance, a ‘C’ chord has the root note ‘C’. An ‘Em’ (E Minor) chord has the root note ‘E’.

To play the right hand chord, you simply use your thumb to play the root note, then skip a note, and skip another note. Play them all together. A ‘C’ chord would be C E G. An Em chord would be E G B.

Because we are creating a tune based on the C Major scale, there are NO sharps or flats (black notes) to worry about when you play the chords. You’ll only need white notes.

I created this short video to help remind you of how to begin playing your new piece:

That’s lesson one for creating your own Pop Song!

A piece that gives a really good example of how chords are used to create fabulous popular music is Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’, that many of you have been learning.

Click the image below to find everything you need to know about how to play the piano accompaniment for this famous piece