The piano might be the most complete songwriting tool we have. Harmony, melody, rhythm and arrangement all sit in one place, which is part of why so many songs start at a keyboard even when the writer is a guitarist or a singer.
The catch is that not everyone is a trained pianist, and a blank piano roll can stall a good idea fast. That’s where EZkeys 2 earns its spot in a session. It won’t write the song for you, but it’ll help you move faster, try more ideas and make better calls about which ones actually serve the song. Here are five ways to use it as a co-writer rather than just a piano sound.
1. Start with the song you already have
The best piano parts support the song like a foundation. Before you write a piano line in a vacuum, listen to what’s already there: the rhythm, the chords, the bass movement and the emotional direction of the track. The best piano part is usually the one that answers the rest of the arrangement instead of taking it over.
The fastest way to do this in EZkeys 2 is Bandmate. Drag in guitar audio, drum MIDI or bass MIDI, and EZkeys analyzes the source for tempo, key and chords. It then suggests piano grooves that follow the feel of your track. Here you can filter by genre, play style and type to narrow things down. Drop in bass MIDI and the piano follows your chord changes and rhythm of the bass line. Drop in drum MIDI and EZkeys builds a chord progression you can reshape while it follows the drums.
Say a guitarist has a rough verse progression and no keys yet. They drag the DI guitar into Bandmate, audition a few accompaniments against the original take, then drag the best one to the Song Track to keep editing.
2. Let the chord progression tell a stronger story
Chords create emotional direction. A good progression should feel like it’s going somewhere, whether that means tension, release, lift, melancholy or a small surprise. When a progression feels boring, the problem could be that every chord is placed exactly where the listener expects it, or it has no harmonic variation.
Suggest Chords and the Chord Wheel are built for this kind of experimenting. Suggest Chords can build or reshape a progression around a musical genre, and it adapts the following chords as you change one, so a single edit nudges the whole sequence to fit. The Chord Wheel handles inversions, octaves, chord types and added notes, so you can voice a chord differently while keeping it in key. For deciding on the mood, open Songwriting Scales, which previews progressions in a chosen scale, shows you the diatonic chords and even lists borrowed chords you can drag straight to the Song Track.
Picture a chorus that feels too safe. The songwriter uses Suggest Chords to try a different second chord, then changes the inversion or harmonic coloration in the chord to make that moment less predictable.
3. Find the right groove before you overthink the part
A piano part isn’t only about the chords. It’s also about rhythm, spacing, density and feel. The same progression can become a quiet ballad, a pop anthem, a country part or a darker cinematic cue depending entirely on the groove. If you can manage to get that feel right early, the rest of the part tends to fall into place.
EZkeys 2 includes a large core MIDI library organized in song-structure format, with separate sections for riffs and common playing styles like arpeggios and ostinatos. To search it without scrolling forever, use the filters (genre, play style, type, time signature and resolution) or reach for Tap2Find. Tap a rhythm in with your mouse, or record one from a MIDI controller, and EZkeys finds matching grooves. It still pulls up useful results when your input is rough or incomplete, which is the point: you can tap a vague idea and get somewhere.
A songwriter hears a rhythmic piano idea in their head but can’t play it cleanly. They tap the basic rhythm into Tap2Find, browse the matches, and pick one that starts the songwriting process.
Then, fill out the rest of the song by finding matching piano grooves. Right-click the groove you dragged to the Song Track and select Find > Show Similar Grooves, or Select Containing Folder in Grooves. You’ll then see a selection of different song parts that fit with the theme of your chosen performance.
4. Turn simple chords into a real performance
A professional-sounding keys part comes from voicing, movement, dynamics and the relationship between the left and right hands. For a lot of writers, the missing piece is just the physical ability to play it.
Replace MIDI closes that gap. Start with a standard groove or your own recorded chords, shape them with the Chord Wheel, then hit Replace MIDI to audition full performances from the library with your chord progression. When one feels right, save it and the performance writes to the Song Track over your simple chords.
Imagine blocking out a chorus with plain whole-note chords just to get an idea down. Then use Replace MIDI to try several more musical performances until the part sounds like something a session player would have tracked. And all of a sudden you have the makings of a finished chorus.
5. Edit like a songwriter, not a programmer
MIDI editing should serve the emotion of the song. Small changes to velocity, timing, note length, note choice and register are what make a part feel human and connected to the vocal or the melody.
The Grid Editor is where this happens in EZkeys 2. Humanize adjusts velocity and micro-timing automatically to take the stiffness out of a programmed groove (select your notes, click Humanize). Scale highlighting and chord-note highlighting show you which notes belong to the current scale or chord, and Scale Snap keeps your dragged notes on those notes, so you can write a counter melody or arpeggio in a key you don’t know perfectly. Smart select lets you grab notes by resolution or by left and right hand and edit them as a group. When you’re done, record directly to the Song Track, layer takes, quantize and export MIDI or audio.
Bring your next song to the piano
None of this replaces your instincts as a writer. What EZkeys 2 does is shorten the distance between an idea and hearing it performed well, so you spend more of a session making creative decisions and less of it fighting the piano roll. Try one of these tips on your next track and see what a single good progression turns into.
Explore EZkeys 2 and start turning your ideas into finished piano parts.
EZdrummer 3 is tailored for songwriters. Superior Drummer 3 is built for producers and engineers who want complete control over every element of the drum recording. Neither one is better than the other, but one may be the right choice for the way you prefer to work.
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