Q: okay I've done that step. my bar spacing looks a bit weird though- https://imgur.com/a/InxMS
also I find it quite hard to play the notes (keyboard) whilst reading but I imagine that's something I just need to practice a fuckton
A: i keep getting the feeling that you already know all this stuff, because you are doing everything perfectly, including things i haven't said yet (like the time signature). ok so take a look at the keyboard. play a C major scale (that's all the white keys from C up to C.) you will notice that all the notes are NOT actually the same distance apart, sound wise. to prove this, start on B and play all the white notes from B to B, it does NOT sound like a B major scale. to actually play every note you would include the black notes too. when you just play the white notes, you are getting a combination of larger and smaller intervals (called a 'whole step' or 'half step') depending on whether there is a black note in between. if you play all the notes going up, including white and black, you would get ALL half steps. i'm sure you already know all this. But let's look at the keyboard again, and look at the pattern of white/black keys, near the C note. you will notice that there is Another place on the keyboard where this pattern is almost the same, and that is near F. in other words, the black/white key configuration surrounding F is very similar to the black/white key configuration surrounding C. so start playing a scale starting from F, and play all the white notes from F to F. you may notice that this sounds Almost like an F major scale, but one note is wrong. the B. you can clearly see that that is where the black/white key pattern is not the same as it would have been for C. in C, going from the 3rd to 4th note there is no black note in between. but in F, there IS a black note there. in order to play a major scale right, that 3 to 4 interval needs to be a half step, just like it is in C. so when we play in F, you need to use the Bb note INSTEAD of B. play Bb, skip B. so play F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E, F. and that should sound like the F major scale. as long as all the B's are always flat, you are safely in F major. when we write, this is where you use a 'key signature'. put a flat sign on the middle line. this goes right after the treble clef symbol, and before the time signature. this one flat will apply to every B in the tune, including the higher and lower ones! that's just the way it works. but don't put the key signature on the one you wrote in C! that would mess it up. start a new one, put the flat on the B line (again that is the F key signature), and write the melody again, starting on F! you almost don't even have to know the notes, just follow the same pattern through the scale. up 1, up 1, up 2, down 1, etc. when the melody moves up one, it goes from a line to a space (or space to a line). when it goes up 2, it goes from space to space, or line to line. these are the patterns you are looking for when you read and write, and as long as you get your key signature right, it should be pretty easy. let me know if you need me to name the notes, but i would guess that you have this whole thing figured out by now.