---
title: 'Songwriting, ep 1: How to Turn Your Ideas Into Songs'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=eMkJZ29bEbs'
video_id: 'eMkJZ29bEbs'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 0
---

# Songwriting, ep 1: How to Turn Your Ideas Into Songs

> Source: [Songwriting, ep 1: How to Turn Your Ideas Into Songs](https://youtube.com/watch?v=eMkJZ29bEbs)

## Summary



## Transcript

[Music]
today we're talking about songwriting uh
working with little pieces that you may
have and turning them into something
more before we even do that step one is
whenever you play something even halfway
into interesting or surprising to
yourself immediately grab your phone or
whatever way that you capture things and
get it creativity is a magical little
thing and it really you know it's
different for everybody but I can only
speak for myself you get very little
Sparks very little I met grab it and so
it's our job as creative people to
become aware when cool stuff happens
I've said that in other videos that like
the more you pay attention to when cool
little things happen okay guess what the
more cool things happen so assuming that
you've done that and maybe you have a
progression here a riff there a
progression there a riff there now we're
going to talk about how you can work
with those to get them to become
complete songs I'm going to use existing
songs because well that'll be just more
entertaining for everybody say we wrote
Lou Reed's perfect day
[Music]
which yeah it's also Cat Stevens's wild
world it's also I Will Survive it's
several songs so that's a really cool
progression that we came up with in a
minor and it might just live there like
that for forever we might just be stuck
with that going that's cool I'm going to
use that for something neat all right
store it away and who knows months later
maybe you came up with this
[Music]
thing where's the melody if I get that a
little
bit which is really uh that's the chord
is from uh what was that song Sister
Golden Hair by America another 70s soft
rock hit I love that stuff so that
chorus is let's see
B
A and you're like man that's a cool
thing too that's neat you wouldn't think
that you could put those two things
together you know if you had made those
little uh song Parts but you can and
here's the deal this is another thing I
always talk about write stuff down we
got to write stuff down to like kind of
think about it in front of us being like
huh okay so here's how Eric
does quick and simple
charts talked about this in my music
Theory series oh by the
way there's all my links my website my
patreon my Instagram my album my Spotify
my true fire me me me me me there they
are and you know about the check the
description box below it's all down
there too guitars amps whatever else
there you go simple chart right those
equal bars huh what do we got
b b a e does it again b b a e then I'll
let's go ahead and put the rest in F
minor e over G sharp and then
a CS two would be the complete chorus
there in the key of E so if I want to
move that to be copacetic with this
other imaginary thing that we made
up I need
to understand the major scale and how
that generates chords in the key so that
I can analyze this as the chords in the
key not just as they are so B is
actually the
five a is the four e is the one and this
is the thing that I talk about we don't
need to know all the music theory in the
world but we need to know
enough um so that we can major keys and
those chords minor keys and those chords
and then we can analyze things and take
a look at be like oh okay so it's 541
541 214 is is our chorus because that
means then if the perfect day chorus or
sorry Perfect Day section you know which
we had imaginarily made
up was in the key of A minor I be like
dude dud let's go ahead and just move
this whole section to the key of a major
CU that's what perfect day does um it
has the verse is in a minor the CH is in
a major so I'm going to keep it the same
okay so let's see that means again
having a know enough theory that I can
be like what's my five chord in the key
of a well that's e what's my four chord
D and a is
one does that again what's the two cord
in the key of A B
minor kind of does that little inversion
thing and then the
four boom I just moved it to the key
that's going to be copacetic with
perfect
day just hear how that
sounds can I get the melody there
[Music]
by the way I'll tab all this stuff out
put it up on my patreon page for free so
you can go grab that and kind of look at
it and scratch your head and be like boy
this is very academic Eric sorry
one more
[Music]
time so there it is Sister Golden Hair
moved to the key of A but let me go back
and
check uh-oh different time
sign watch I'm going to do it I'm going
to just shoehorn them together
1 2 3 4 five
[Music]
six oops nope that's not going to work
because perfect day that original thing
we wrote is in 68 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5
6 Sister Golden here you know that we
made up no we didn't is in 44 okay that
means can I put
Sister Golden her to
[Music]
68 yes I
[Music]
can now let's put the two together the
verse
[Music]
new thing
[Music]
back
[Music]
around and so it works you know again
our ear it's doing you know it's like
fighting against me it's going that's
not the chorus that's not the chorus I
know because you know we programmed to
hear the song a certain way but it
doesn't not work is a little bit funky
cuz perfect day ends on an E major the
new section starts on the E major so
that's always a little bit of a weird
thing but it's not a wrong thing to do
again this is Art you can do whatever
you want I'm not saying this is the
coolest matchup ever made but I think it
illustrates the point and the point is
this a good idea is a good idea
regardless of key or Groove that all
your ideas especially because they came
from you they're actually probably able
to get manipulated to work with each
other to create a bridge a verse to A
Chorus a verse to a pre- chorus to A
Chorus a verse to a break you know I
mean these things that you've made they
probably actually work together you just
might not see that um because of the the
the keys being different or the grooves
being different and I can tell you I I
mean I do this all this is how I write
music a lot I'll be like I'll have a
thing that was you know
cool for one was like my favorite part
of one thing that I made up of the rest
of the song was really a throwaway I'm
like well then I'll just move that to a
do
thing you know to a new key and be like
ah it worked it it it it worked so so to
review capture every good little idea
that you ever have cuz yay you know the
more you do that the more cool little
ideas you have and then yeah no enough
music theory to be able to look at
things as chord changes and manipulate
them through different keys because
that's how you can recombine things in
various
ways thanks so much to everybody who
supports me and all the ways that you do
even if it's just clicking like And
subscribe that cues me in business with
the algorithm relevancy as Bill and Ted
would say be excellent to each other
that includes yourself happy Friday eat
pizza
[Music]