Compose an Eight-Bar Piece
The capstone: a key, a tempo, a progression that ends with a cadence, a motif that asks and answers — an eight-bar piece of your own, written, played back and saved.
Builds on: 6.1 Writing a Melody4.3 Progressions & Cadences
The order of decisions
Composers do not begin with the first note. They begin with a frame, and the frame makes every later choice smaller and easier. For an eight-bar piece the frame is four decisions, and this is a good order to make them in:
- A key and a tempo. Major or minor is the largest mood decision you will make; the key itself matters less (the composer picks C, G or F to keep the piano easy). Tempo decides whether the same notes are a lullaby or a march.
- A progression. Eight bars, one chord each. Stick to diatonic chords — I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi — and make the last two bars a cadence: V–I for a firm ending, IV–I for a gentler one. Everything in Unit 4 applies; I–V–vi–IV is never wrong.
- A motif. Two bars, three to six notes, a rhythm you would recognise clapped. Put its important notes on chord tones of bars 1 and 2.
- The rest of the tune. Bars 3–4 repeat or vary the motif (a sequence up a step is the easy win). Bars 5–6 push toward the climax, the highest note of the piece. Bars 7–8 come down and land on the tonic, on the beat, over the final chord.
Checking your work by ear
Play it back — and listen for four things. Does the first phrase end open and the second close? Is there one highest note, and does it arrive around bar 5 or 6? Are the strong beats on chord tones, with the passing and neighbour notes in between? Does it end on the tonic, over I, with a sense of full stop? If any answer is no, you know exactly which lesson to reopen — and the fix is usually one note.
Give it a title
Not a joke. Naming a piece changes how you hear it: it becomes a thing you made rather than an exercise you did. Eight bars is a complete musical thought — a period — and many real songs are a period with words. Your tune is the beginning of a songbook.
The next steps are all things you can now read about and hear: a B section (eight new bars, often starting on IV or vi, then back to A — the AABA form of every jazz standard); a bridge that modulates to the dominant and comes home; seventh chords in the progression; a bass line that walks between roots; a counter-melody. Each one is a lesson in this course applied one size larger. And the piano course next door will put your own tune under your own fingers.
The Composer below keeps everything in this browser, so you can leave and return. Fill the eight bars, play it from the top, and tick the checklist as each part of the frame is in place.
🎼 Lab — The Composer
Your workbench: key, tempo, eight chord slots and a piano-roll grid of two octaves — one note per eighth. Left-hand chords play on beats 1 and 3; your melody plays over them. Everything is saved automatically.
- Set the last two chords to V and I (or IV and I) before you write a note — the ending is decided first.
- Write bars 1–2, then copy the idea into bars 3–4 one row higher.
- Aim the highest note at bar 5 or 6, then walk down to the tonic row in bar 8 and press play from the top.