How to Make a Song for Someone With No Music Skills
Twelve ways to make a song for someone with no music skills at all, from a family choir video to a finished song, plus a simple method for writing the words yourself.
You want to give someone a song, and you do not play an instrument or trust your singing voice. That is fine. To make a song for someone you need two things, the right words about them and a tune to carry those words, and you can borrow or get help with either one. Here are 12 ways to do it, from a free evening project to a finished track. Our top pick is a Songbond song, because you only bring the stories and the music is handled for you.
Hear a finished song made from someone's stories
This one was made for another family. Yours would carry their name and your stories.
12 ways to make a song for someone
- Send your stories to Songbond ($39.90). Write down their name, their nicknames and a few moments you share, and Songbond turns them into an original song within 24 hours. You can ask for changes until it feels right. No music skills needed at any point.
- New words on a tune everyone knows. Keep the melody of a birthday song or a nursery rhyme and write four new lines about them. Everyone can sing along, which takes the pressure off your voice. Free, and about an hour of work.
- A karaoke backing track. Find an instrumental version of their favorite song, write your own verse, and sing over it. It sounds far more finished than singing alone in the kitchen.
- Spoken word over soft music. If singing is out, read your words aloud over a quiet piano track. Record it on your phone in a room with carpet and curtains. Many people find a spoken version even more moving.
- A family choir video. Send the words to relatives and ask each one to film themselves singing a single line. Stitch the clips together with a free phone app. Give people a week to send theirs.
- The kids sing the chorus. Children do not care if they are off-key, and nobody listening will either. Record them in the car, where they tend to sing loudest.
- A musical friend sets your words to music. Give them the lyrics and a sense of the mood you want, happy, slow or somewhere between. Offer to pay, or trade them a good dinner.
- A loop app on your phone. Free music apps let you drag ready-made drum, guitar and piano loops into a simple track. Add your voice or a spoken message on top.
- A photo slideshow set to your song. Put your recording under 20 or 30 photos from your years together. Free phone apps do this in minutes, and it gives them something to watch as well as hear.
- A lyric card read aloud. If you run out of time to record, write the words by hand in a card and read them out when you hand it over. It is still a song you made.
- A sing-along at the table. Print the lyrics on small cards, hand them to the guests after dinner and sing it together. Loud, a little messy, and remembered for years.
- A voice note waiting in their inbox. If you live apart, send your recording as a voice message timed to land with their morning coffee. Small, private and free.
How to pick the right way for you
Be honest about two things: how much time you have and how comfortable you are being heard. A song does not have to be sung well to be loved. It has to be clearly about them.
- If they are the one who cries at home videos: the family choir or the kids singing the chorus.
- If they are private and would hate a scene: a voice note or a finished song they can play alone.
- If they are the life of every party: the table sing-along with printed lyric cards.
Write the words yourself in four steps
Pick a tune first and hum it until you know where the lines break. Then write the chorus as one plain sentence you want them to hear, like “you were the one who stayed,” and repeat it. For each verse, use one real memory with a place and an object in it: the blue truck, the kitchen in the old house, the lake at six in the morning. Only rhyme the ends of lines two and four, and if a rhyme forces a word you would never say, drop the rhyme. Read it out loud once. If it sounds like you talking, it is ready.
Make their song without writing a note
If you would rather skip the music part, make a custom song from your stories. It is ready within 24 hours, and express delivery gets it to you in about an hour.
Also in the Journal: a thank-you song for a friend and birthday songs for Mom.
