How do I make a song? Let me tell you.
First, at start, there's only a single piece of melody or a chord progression of two chords. If I have a piece of melody (verse or chorus), I try to find the chords with them. Mainly, chords consist of 3 notes and are either major (0 0+4 0+7 semitones) or minor (0 0+3 0+7 semitones), and the nice icky notes lay around the 7th note in key of the chord, 0+11 semitones for major, 0+10 semitones for minor chords. Then, I have some, say 2 chords, on paper. I try to find the key, scale they're in, which one can find by trying to play the major and minor scales in one of the chords or any note and see if the chords fit within the scale with all of their notes. in semitones, from the main (ground note): major scale: 0 +2 +4 +5 +7 +9 +11 +12 minor scale: 0 +2 +3 +5 +7 +8 +10 +12 I then try to alternate the chord scheme by shifting some notes in the chords according to the main scale, sometimes by shifting all notes to make different chords that are in the main scale. Applying tricks here, such as switches in scales are sometimes very hard to make without making a tune sound false, but can add to the dynamic tension. Optionally, I already had a melody in mind, so I make the melody go with all the chords I have so far, or I decide to figure some parts of it out here, or I decide to only get a general idea of where the melody is suggesting to be. I try to make a different set of chords that lead in to the main chord theme here, one can "start" it in reverse, towards (from) the main chord schemes starting chord, to see if it goes nicely. Sometimes I just shift the main chord scheme and alter it a bit, or just alter a bit of the main chord scheme. Sometimes I have another melody (verse or chorus) that I need to figure out the chord scheme for, so I do that then. The scale of this part may differ from the main scale, sometimes be in the same scale but start on a different note, sometimes have a shift of scale, anything you can think of, but make sure it sounds well together to or from the main chord scheme. I optionally add some parts of a melody here in mind and paper. One can repeat creating as many chord schemes and melodies as you like here, for a chorus, another verse, outtro, but I shall go on to making the first dynamic structures in the track, as I first do. I put the main chord scheme into sequencer, the chords get in along with (automation of) long dynamic variation applied to them (on certain parameters of the instrument, volume in- or decrement, note decay, volume fadeout, note cutoff length, sample offset, reverb room size, delay send amount) and add the basics of the drums, with (most important) different volume for accents, maybe a hihat and snare, most of the times the kick drum is good to put in already here. Optionally, add the melody, with a same set of dynamics / fades applied, and accents, so it has different volumes (perhaps in a repeated scheme) or notes that stand out in height with accents. Make a copy of the main theme or make a different part of chords, edit the fades to even more or even less tension, shift some of the lower notes in the melodies and chords to a higher octave or shift some of the highest notes in the chords or melodies to a lower octave. Now, from listening, I make a hook in melodics. That is, something that goes well with the tension and is repetitive but variating, mostly around the 4-5 octave, and has elements of or follows the structure of the chords. It can be as less as 3 notes, but it has not to remain too much in the music, only be remaining in the mind and rembered by the listener. Now, I add the chorus chord part, with all the dynamics on the chords, such as filtering, note decay, chorus depth, distortion amount, gain, whatever you can apply to make it dynamic and full sounding, maybe some basic drums and melodic accents. Then make a hook to that. It has to be rock solid, something that you can hum or sing, Make it within the shift you have applied to the chord parts, and think of shift…