Songwriting guide
How to Find the Chords for a Melody You Hummed
You have a tune in your head and no idea what to play underneath it. Here is the process experienced writers use, in the order they use it.
Start by finding the home note
Hum your melody and let it stop wherever it wants to rest. That resting note is almost always the home note — the tonic. Everything else you do follows from it, so it is worth singing the phrase three or four times until the same note keeps arriving at the end.
Decide whether it feels major or minor
Sing the third note above your home note. If it sounds bright and open, you are in a major key. If it sounds darker and slightly sad, you are in a minor key. That single decision cuts the number of likely chords roughly in half.
List the chords that actually belong
In a major key the workhorses are the first, fourth and fifth chords, with the sixth as the emotional one. In a minor key it is the first, fourth, fifth and the flat-sixth. Nine out of ten popular songs live inside those handfuls of chords, so try them before anything exotic.
Match chords to the strong beats
You do not need a chord for every note. Look at the note that lands on beat one of each bar and pick a chord that contains it. Melody notes in between can pass through freely — that is what makes a line sound like a melody instead of an arpeggio.
Test each choice by singing over it
Play a candidate chord and sing the bar. If a note rubs uncomfortably, the chord is close but not right — try the chord a third away. This is the single fastest way to sharpen your ear, and it works whether you play guitar, piano or nothing at all.
Give the progression somewhere to go
A progression needs tension and release. Put the fifth chord just before you return home, and your phrase will sound finished. Delay that return and the phrase feels like it is still travelling — useful in a verse that leads into a chorus.
Let the app do the first pass
Doing this by hand teaches you a lot, but it is slow when an idea is fresh. Humming the phrase into Hummingchord gives you the key and a working progression in seconds, and then you can spend your time on the part only you can do: turning it into a song.
Let it find the chords for you
Hum the phrase once and get the key, a progression, guitar shapes and piano voicings.
Start humming — free