SO FAR WE have looked at the art of songwriting from the point of view of the lyric: using the lyric as a vehicle for inspiring musical ideas from its own rhythmic content. This is the only way to approach the problem if you are a budding musician with few musical skills - skills you must now acquire somehow.

At least we've made a start - our considerations of the lyrical content should encourage you to think of writing lyrics with the specific intention of turning them into something musical. Otherwise you're writing poetry; all good lyricists are able to add a musical dimension to their writing, to turn it away from being just poetic.

But now comes the moment when we must take onboard some musical considerations. It's essential that you play either keyboards or guitar (or both) so that you can play a chordal accompaniment to your songwriting efforts. So, if you're not already doing so, read the Fret Fax and/or Key Lines pieces that appear in conjunction with this one each month.

Let's set the general background of music to lyrics. First, the most popular form of music has to be The Song - originally, and sometimes still, in unaccompanied form, but generally a voice or voices with instrumental backing of one form or another. In western music, this generally takes the form of a harmony instrument playing chords for someone to sing to. This is where the guitar or keyboards come into the reckoning.

Some basic musical things first. If you sing any melody, it will tend to fix around the central note of the tune. We identify this central note as "tonic" in musical terms. It's not always the first note, but often it is, If you think of 'The Locomotion', then the first syllable of "Everybody's" is the tonic note of that tune. The most important skill for any musician is to be able to identify this "tonic" feel, the core of the melody, simply because all the chordal accompaniment stems from the logic of the melody.

What is the logic of the melody? Can it be identified? In most song material, it's usually very easily identifiable, as a basic structure of notes which we call a "scale". A scale is just a succession of notes, all of which are identified by a separate letter name.

Play this simple scale of C major (Diagram K). All the examples in this article will be shown both as letter names and music notation, just to get you used to what it looks like. If you look at the earlier Key Lines articles, you'll see an explanation of the major scale, and of the chords which come from it.

Concentrate for a while on the melody possibilities using only these notes. Play the music in Diagram L using evenly spaced notes. Did you recognise that great Europop classic, 'Frere Jacques'? What about Diagram M? Yes, it's the immortal 'Three Blind Mice", Did you get it?

They both seem to centre on the note C as the "tonic", but obviously start on different parts of the C major scale. Play this C major chord, voiced for both piano and guitar (Diagram N), and you should be able to sing both extracts over the chord. (To start with, you may just need to get away with one struck chord to a bar; after that you should experiment along the lines of the instructions in Fret Fax and Key Lines).

Now play and sing 'Silent Night' over the same chord, as shown in Diagram 0. Where I've put the question marks, the C chord no longer "fits" the melody line. So what happens? As a melody, 'Silent Night' uses only the notes of the C major scale, but at the ?? point, a chord change is needed for the melody to "fit". But which chord, and is there a choice? The answer is emphatically "yes", and as you go on the choice of chords becomes wider and wider. To begin with though, the choice should be limited to what is probable and likely given the style of the chosen material. In the case of well-known folk tunes, Christmas carols or popular songs, the first probable selection of chords is that which relates to the scale of the melody line.

Here you should refer back to the earlier Key Lines articles, because a C major scale produces the chords in Diagram P. We call these "diatonic" chords, because they use only the notes of the chosen scale, in this case C major. I've spelt out the names of the notes in the chords, named the chords, and given you a clue as to how the chords are formed (by counting from the bottom note, the root, plus the notes that are three and live letter names away from the root, and in the case of the chord of G7, adding the note seven letter names away from the root.) This was explained in great detail in Key Lines, so if you haven't seen that, write for the back issue to your friendly neighbourhood editor (address at the front of the mag), and all will be revealed!

The next piece of musical information is this: in the same way as the note C was the centre of things in this key as far as the melody goes, so is the chord of C major in terms of harmony. That's why all the tunes I've picked started well on the C chord, the "tonic" chord. It must be obvious, though, that if all tunes only had one chord, then the options for a melody would be pretty dull, so eventually the time comes for a change of chord, and the first place to look is the set of "diatonic" chord's shown above.

If using the tonic as a chord is so important, what is next most important? Try the chord built on the fifth note of the sale (called the "Dominant" chord, in this case the G7) where I had the question mark. You'll notice that at the point of the chord change to G7, the melody note on "All is calm" is a D, which just happens to be one of the notes that make up the G7 chord. A lot of the time, melody notes and chords coincide, so that the vocal line is fairly gentle against the accompaniment, as it is in this case. Later, however, you'll discover the miracle of producing melody notes which clash with the chosen harmony, and at that point your whole view of writing lifts into a new, um, solar system.

For the moment though, be patient, and take things one step at a time. There are already some interesting options available. Look at the alternative version of 'Silent Night' (Diagram Q), in which I've added Dm7 and G7 as chord changes. This is not the original progression, which goes simply from tonic to dominant - C to G7 in this case - but it "works" and you may like it better. What it proves is that there is always choice. Even if you restrict yourself to the diatonic chords and to non-dashing melody notes, you'll see that some chords share the same notes of the C scale. So the first note, G, in 'Silent Night' could be harmonised as C (where it is the fifth of the chord), as G7 (where it is the root of the chord), or as E minor (where it is the third of the chord). Sing the tune and try these other options.

They "work" after a fashion, but not in the familiar "right" way that the C major chord does. That is because you hear this tune starting on the tonic chord, not on chords V7 (G7) or III (Em). You can draw some comfort from this. Because the tune of 'Silent Night' uses only scale (diatonic) notes, the chords we use to harmonise it can be restricted to only the diatonic chords. That means there must be endless numbers of classic pop songs which use similar restrictions, and are massively successful. And, of course, there are!

Now to your "homework" for this month. Diagram R shows a simple chord progression in C major, over eight bars. Play the chords and sing a melody line over the top, as simply as you can to start with. When you've done that, write down the letter names of the notes you've picked, as best you can (don't get neurotic about notation or rhythm, just the letter names will do). Count a steady, slow four-to-a-bar, and notice that in bar 8, each chord has a two-beat pulse.

When you've finished, try and see if any of your melody notes clash with the notes of the selected chord at any point. Do you like the result? If so, ask yourself why...