I had an epiphany. I had to look up that word to be sure that is what I really had. It is a sudden, intuitive insight into the reality or essential meaning of something. This insight happened in a music theory class in my sophomore year of high school. I can still remember it like it happened yesterday. It was going to be monumental key to unlocking the secrets to music and songwriting.
Here is the secret, there are only seven notes in the key of C. There are only seven. If I change to the key of G, they are different notes, (same pattern) but only seven notes. That is so simple. I looked at songs I loved, yup seven notes. This is great. I got this music thing figured out. I'm going to write a hit rock song.
I sat down at a piano in the band room and started plunking away. I was fueled by inspiration. A full tank of inspiration but nothing. I was playing notes but it wasn't a hit song, it wasn't a very good song, I was disappointed. Then I had another epiphany. Hoping it would unlock more doors than my last secret key had done.
When I played a note on the piano. ( I was playing in the key of C, so my seven notes were all white keys. (no black keys) You could only do three things.
- Play a note. Make a decision.
- Play the same note
- Play a higher note
- Play a lower note
- Repeat this process until you write a hit song.
I thought I had enough knowledge to write a great song. I had the basics. If I was a novelist, I thought I could write a book but I was still working on writing a sentence. Not a book. I got discouraged and gave up songwriting for twenty years. During that twenty years I kept learning, listening to songs, learning to play guitar, practicing guitar chords, taking guitar lessons, and playing other people's hit songs. I learned what they did, what chords they chose, different rythmns, and on and on. So much to learn. Just because something looks or sounds simple doesn't mean that it is.
Turtles take it slow and learn as they go.