---
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
channel: 'Eric Haugen Guitar'
---

# 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

This video explores the process of transforming small musical ideas into complete songs. The host demonstrates how to capture creative sparks, use music theory to analyze and transpose chord progressions, and combine disparate parts by adjusting key and time signature.

### Key Points

- **Capture Ideas Immediately** [00:00] — Whenever you play something interesting, immediately record it on your phone. Creativity gives small sparks, and it's our job to notice and capture them.
- **Combining Separate Ideas** [01:10] — You may have a progression here and a riff there; the goal is to learn how to work with these pieces to form complete songs.
- **Example Progression: Perfect Day** [01:28] — The chord progression from Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' (also used in 'Wild World' and 'I Will Survive') is in A minor, serving as a starting point.
- **Another Idea: Sister Golden Hair Chorus** [02:19] — The chorus from 'Sister Golden Hair' by America is in the key of E, with chords B, A, E, F#m, E/G#, A.
- **Charting Ideas** [03:03] — Write down chord progressions using simple charts. For example, the Sister Golden Hair chorus: B, B, A, E (repeated), then F#m, E/G#, A.
- **Using Music Theory to Transpose** [04:06] — Understand the major scale and how chords are generated in a key. Analyze chords as scale degrees (e.g., B is the 5, A is the 4, E is the 1 in key of E).
- **Transposing to Match Keys** [04:52] — To combine the Perfect Day verse (A minor) with the Sister Golden Hair chorus (E major), transpose the chorus to A major by converting scale degrees: 5=E, 4=D, 1=A, 2=Bm.
- **Adjusting Time Signatures** [06:38] — Perfect Day is in 6/8, Sister Golden Hair is in 4/4. To combine them, the host demonstrates fitting the 4/4 chorus into 6/8 by altering the rhythm.
- **Final Mashup and Conclusion** [08:38] — The combined piece works despite initial oddness. The key takeaway: a good idea is a good idea regardless of key or groove; with enough theory, you can manipulate ideas to work together.

### Conclusion

By capturing every good idea and learning enough music theory to transpose and adjust time signatures, you can recombine your musical fragments into cohesive songs. The process is creative and flexible—art allows you to do whatever works.

## Transcript

Today we're talking about songwriting. 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 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 never 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, take a look 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.
Yeah, it's also Cat Stevens' 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 May 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 thing.
Where's the melody if I get that a little bit? Which is really, that's the chorus from, what is that song?
Sister Golden Hair by America. Another 70s South Rock hit. I love that stuff. So that chorus is, let's see. B.
And you like man that a cool thing too That neat You wouldn think that you could put those two things together you know if you had made those little song parts But you can And here the deal This is another thing I always talk about Write stuff down We gotta write stuff down to like kind of think about it in front of us
You're 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, me. There they are. And, you know, 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 just go ahead and put the rest in F sharp minor.
Okay, E over G sharp. And then A. So this too 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 5. A is the 4. E is the 1. This is the thing that I talk about. You don't need to know all the music theory in the world. but we need to know enough 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 it. Okay, so it's 5-4-1, 5-4-1, 2-1-4 is our chorus. Because that means then if the perfect day chorus, or sorry, perfect day section,
which we had imaginarily made up, was in the key of A minor, I could be like, dude, let's go ahead and just move this whole section to the key of A major,
because that's what perfect A does. It has the verses in A minor, the choruses in A major, so I'm going to keep it the same. Okay, so let's see. That means, again, having enough theories, I can be like,
what's my 5 chord in the key of A? Well, that's E. What's my 4 chord? D. And A is 1. Let's do that again. What's the two chord in the key of A? B minor.
It kind of does that little inversion thing, and then the four. Boom I just moved it to the key that going to be copacetic with Perfect Day Do you hear how that sounds
Hmm. Think it's a note here?
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 so one more time
So there it is, Sister Golden Hair moved to the key of A. But let me go back and check. Uh-oh. She's on Thompson's turn.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to just shoehorn them together.
Oops, nope, that's not going to work, because Perfect Day, that original thing we wrote, is in 6-8, 1-2-3-4-5-6, or 1-2-3-4-5-6, Sister Golden Hair, you know, that we made up, that
we didn't, is in 4-4, okay, that means, can I put Sister Golden Hair into 6-8?
See if I can.
Now let's put the two together. The verse.
You think?
you And so it works you know again our ear is doing you know it fighting against
music of, that's not the chorus, that's not the chorus. I know, because, you know, we've programmed to hear the song a certain way, but it doesn't not work. It's a little bit funky, because Perfect Day ends on an E major, the new section starts on your E major, so
it'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 mashup 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 keys being different or the grooves being different. And I can tell you, I mean, I do this, this is how I write music a lot. I'll be like, I'll have a thing that was, you know, cool for one,
it was like my favorite part of one thing that I made up and the rest of the song was really a throwaway. I'm like, well, then I'll just move that to a new thing. you know to a new key and be like ah it worked it it worked so two of you capture every good
little idea that you ever have because yay you know the more you do that the more cool little ideas you have and then yeah know 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 in all the ways that you do. Even if it's just clicking like and subscribe,
that keeps 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.
© BF-WATCH TV 2021