This guide isn't specific to FL Studio. You can use the information here with any DAW.

I am not an expert in music. I'm just a guy who makes music because it's my passion. I never took any kind of music lesson in my life. This is just my experience and knowledge.

Please keep in mind that everything here is extremely simplified so that beginners do not get confused.

SCALES

Music is just... notes. Together. Not every note sounds good together though, and that's where we have to use scales. You use scales in chords, melodies, and everything else. Don't think that you can only use 1 scale in a song! You can switch scales mid song, preferably a similar one.

Here are some:

There are so many other scales/modes. There are hundreds of websites that tell you which is which.

Usually, people use major scales when they want their song to be 'happy', and minor scales when they want their song to be 'sad'.

MELODIES

You should think of melodies as questions and answers. Descending sounds like a question, ascending is an answer to that. You can't just have a melody that infinitely goes up or down, can you?

For example, here (ignore the ghost notes) is a harp melody I made.

If you're having trouble, pick 2 notes that have 12 notes between each other, use the highest note and the lowest note only once. Also, playing on your keyboard/midi keyboard is very helpful. That's how you discover really good melodies. You can play an instrument on your actual keyboard by just pressing the keys, for example, "z" on FL Studio is C4. You should use the home row (middle row) on your keyboard for the black notes in that same octave. The row on top of the home row is 5th octave and note are the same. You use the number keys for black keys this time.

CHORDS

I guess this is the trickiest part? Well, chords are a combination of notes. for example, C Major chord is: C E G. Notice how E is the 4th note (semitone, to be exact. so black keys are included.) after C? and G is the 7th note after C? That's how you achieve every major chord. For minor chords, you count 3 notes from the root note for the 2nd note and 7 notes for the 3rd note. For example, The A minor chord, A C E.

There are also other kinds of chords of course... One of the easiest is "Seventh Chords" You play 4 notes instead of 3. For major seventh chords, you can achieve it by counting +0 +4, +7, +11 semitones from the root note. For example, C Major 7th chord is: C E G B. For minor seventh chords, you count +0, +3, +7, +10. This kind of chords are usually used in jazz and stuff that sound like jazz, like Lo-fi music maybe. There are also dominant 7th chords where you count +0 +4 +7 +10. You can ignore all this for now tho.

CHORD PROGRESSIONS

Chord progressions are just chords played one after other. They are the foundations of emotional tone in music.

For example, one of the most popular chord progression is: C - G - Am (A minor) - F, often called I - V - vi - IV (C is "I", G is "V", Am is "vi", F is "IV"), which represents the notes in the scale, which is C Major in this case. This progression is very popular in pop music.

If you're a beginner (you probably are if you're reading this) I recommend sticking to triads for your chord progressions for now. I guess you could do 7ths too since they aren't that complicated, but it would be nice to go simple for your first few tracks.

RHYTHM

Rhythm is timing of notes, how long they are, how spaced out they are. and how they interact with other stuff like beat in the song. This is actually pretty important since melody, a significant part of music, is made of rhythm and pitch only. Most people think it's the pitch wrong with their boring melody, but it's actually the rhythm in some cases.

Rhythm is actually why I recommended playing on your keyboard/MIDI because you're probably going to come out with extremely simple rhythm if you just write on the piano roll. Sometimes, just a minor tweak of notes' spacing, timing, duration can change a lot and it's hard to realize that without playing the melody in different ways with your keyboard.

For example, this is way more lively, original, and fun compared to this and the only difference is that some notes were slightly re-positioned and changed in length. You can copy the melodies to your piano roll to hear the difference.

TIME SIGNATURES

Although this is very important, if you're a beginner, I recommend you to stick with 4/4 (4 quarter note beats per measure), which is the default in every DAW I've ever seen.

However, when you improve, you should definitely experiment with different signatures.

STRUCTURE

The definitions of verses and choruses aren't really that important since you can figure what they are and you can also probably imagine how the song is supposed to structured, but I still want to include just little stuff about them.

There are some more, but I don't think they are worth explaining for now. Just know that you aren't limited to verse, chorus, and bridge. There are also pre-choruses, intros, and outros. You can probably tell what they are from their names.

There are unlimited combinations you can make. ABAB, ABACB, AABCB, and so on (every letter is a section).

BEFORE YOU START

Before you start your tracks, try to plan ahead. Obviously, you cannot plan the whole song. Just get an idea of what you want to make. Get an idea of what kind of instruments would be nice for what you have in mind. Maybe listen to the same genre of music before you start. Try setting the mood in your room for that genre.

MINDSET

Your mindset is one of the most important things in general if you want to improve in literally anything. You should always believe in yourself. You should never compare yourself to other artists. Comparison is like a sin in self-improvement. You should never feel bad for not having the same opportunities as other people. Do you want a story where everything was handed to you? Or do you want a story where you worked hard to achieve what you want? I hope you want the latter.