Techniques when composing (tips and trick thread)

[Amblin]

I think this could be a good thread to everyone that gets stuck sometimes. Recently I have been had a severe writersblock, but lately, things has gotten way better.

Nowadays, I RARELY sit down, forcing something out. Playing random things on the keyboard hoping to end up with something hasn't really done wonders for me, so I can't understand why I've kept it up.

I've always had ideas for melodies in my head, and one of the things I've done before is to...ehm...sing it into a mic and then use WIDI. Then I started using Melodyne doing the same thing. I really suck at playing keys so this was/is my punishment.

I have no idea how good your voice is, but let's say you have a melody in your head. Start to hum the first note of it, while playing some notes your keyboard with a sound until your voice unisons with the sound you're playing. If you can't get it right, go an octave up or down and try it. Once you have the first one, got to the second or third note that's in your head and repeat the process, and from there you should be able to calculate which possible scale you're in, and easier guess the rest of the notes.

Maybe this is a standard technique, but I thought what the hell, if someone don't know about it, it might help.

Now...do YOU got any secret tricks?

What do you start out with? a naked melody or a comp of the building chords, while playing a melody over it?

[zoot75]

This can be a very useful thread! I think lots of people have different composition techniques and if we share it with each other it might give an inspiration!

Mine is a simple method: I mostly tend to loop a 4 or a 8 bar part which has some percussion and a pad-like sound or a piano sound with the chord progression. On top of this I hum or play the melody. For me the hardest thing is to find (or create) the right preset for the lead melody. My experience is that most of the times very simple sounds which are not spectacular when played out of the mix tend to sound right. Then I arrange the 8 bar loop including other other instruments and start to build the song from that point. I usually have to work very hard until I have all parts for a song It is very hard to keep the listener interested for 4 or 5 minutes!

Though lots of folks say that applying song formats (I mean intro-verse1-bridge-refrain-verse2-bridge-refrain-refrain-middle8-......so on)is a cliched way of working and make the song boring I think they are quite useful! I don't say that I am against free structures - on the contrary I *admire* people who explore unique ways of composing - in my case I just feel comfortable within these cliches and I realized that I mostly finish those songs which have these shall I say well established structures.

[Klemperer]

Indeed, this could be a good thread!
I often take the guitar, play something I like, and for vst-things I started with loooooooong noodlings, just to avoid short 16, 32, 64 or whatever patterns that I found at least sometimes giving a bit of dull music in the end. But frankly, I ended up with looong, say, padsounds, accompanied them without any clue of the key and so on (well it's dead easy to find out while playing) and what progressions there were, and for sure your way, zoot75, is much quicker to get good results! I would just recommend noodling long periods of music and then accompanying this if you'd, like me, want to be a better live-player (guitar, piano right now). It is the worst way of getting the music in your head into the computer, so I'll read this thread with interest now.

For example, I admire vurt's music. For this and similar kind of works those loooong periods might be just great, then you go and take the best parts, work with them, and so on. I, in contrary, had in mind to play "one time live" (I didn't even know for a long time how to punch in and out in EnergyXT, because I didn't want to) and then the next take live again. So all in all I used the chaotic way, and even if it is much fun, it is for sure not the fastest way, even if you have many parts you can use later, even in other pieces than the one you thought it was for.

[soulata]

I compose with piano/guitar/bass only (one at the time of course).

I have a tendency to drift in front of a computer (hello KvR), so that's a no go for me.

k

[musikmachine]

Keep it simple when composing and if an ideas not working drop it.Thats probably obvious but it's one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me and has saved me a lot of hours

[Klemperer]

Keep it simple when composing and if an ideas not working drop it.Thats probably obvious but it's one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me and has saved me a lot of hours

Yes, good advice, pretty well sums up some mistakes I made . Only thing I'd add is don't delete the dropped stuff right away, but put it into a "outtakes" or so folder. Sometimes I just listened to old parts and started something better with it.

[jplanet]

I'll usually start by just hanging out and improvising on pinao, guitar or bass. Once I nail some kind of riff or melody, I'll record it in Tracktion, then use the auto tempo to set the project tempo to what I recorded. Then I activate the click and record it again so that I can lock up everything to it...

I find that if I do it this way, starting with the melodic instrument instead of drums first, I get things with a much more organic feel, as opposed to quantized and clinical-sounding.

But naturally, if you are going for a dance track, the above would probably be counter-productive. Works great for rock, though...

[soulata]

Keep it simple when composing and if an ideas not working drop it.Thats probably obvious but it's one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me and has saved me a lot of hours

So true. But it's so hard deleting half-baked ideas, even if you know they're going nowhere.

[musikmachine]

Keep it simple when composing and if an ideas not working drop it.Thats probably obvious but it's one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me and has saved me a lot of hours

Yes, good advice, pretty well sums up some mistakes I made . Only thing I'd add is don't delete the dropped stuff right away, but put it into a "outtakes" or so folder. Sometimes I just listened to old parts and started something better with it.

Your right i used to drag stuff into the browser in live but the amount of old stuff i've got is ridiculous!now i pretty much delete or render it and export it then delete if it's something i can use again.An outtakes folder is a good idea though.Just don't end up with gigs of unfinished tracks!

[MoreDread]

Things to look for while composing: a set of guidelines

[spuddle]

Another vote for composing "AWAY" from the computer.

I sincerely urge people to pick up a traditional instrument or two. Most people find they really get one with a specific type of instrument e.g. guitar / stringed / plucked / bowed / keyboard / wind / percussion etc.

Now study the instrument and practise until you have at least basic chops to start 'playing around' or improvising. There are a lot of resources available that help you with this, for me jazz harmony theory on the guitar has been a great aid.

Now every time you are playing or 'noodling', RECORD it! At the end of the session, day or week, go back over these recordings and listen for interesting fragments. You can isolate them and use as samples if the quality is good enough or what I like to do is transcribe the ideas out to paper / digital notation and then enter/export the MIDI for sequencer use.

So lately a lot of my best ideas started out on the guitar, I just run to the computer and start entering the notes and I'm ready to play with the music data.

To the people who already play an instrument well but continually get stuck for ideas, try picking up a new instrument that is different enough in technique, this usually inspires you giving you new ideas. For example I don't compose in the same way sat at a Piano as I do with a guitar, so I get different results each time.

Also as the thread started, imagining a melody or motif in your head first and then working it out is probably the most natural way of composing. All the greats did it like that!

[Electric Chair Orchestra]

Always get it down, on paper or recording, and learn not to pre-judge it. ALways go back to it later - when the improvements and shortcomings will be self-evident. When you're recording/creating, you're not in "judgement mode" because your brain chemistry is about creativity. Improvements are about reduction/criticism/analysis, and you can't normally be creative and be critical at once - these tasks are discrete within the brain.

[johnny2johnny]

candle light...... its the only way to compose music....

[jcivil]

If I begin with a tune in my head, I sing it and once I think I kinda sorta have something, I syllableize it (I don't think much in chromatic lines anymore, it's mostly modal rite now), solfege-like, though I use saregama rather than do re mi.

I have shorthand(s) like that for rhythm and melody, and so I don't lose that recipe in the rain, again, post it asap online.

If I begin with some words, some syllables in time typa thing, I find a rhythm or beat scheme that supports it and work on how those syllables scan agin that beat.

I like drones, and sometimes I begin with long tones in Absynth, draw envelopes to give some form, and see how that moves in space, and what other orchestration, movement that indicates.

or I improvise lines on a strat, which is more or less the same thing as singing, with more possibilities cause I am so not a singer.

Or, I get a groove going on a BFD kit or some congas or some sound.

I really like the rhythm of speech... metered, free, half and half...

[Kim Lajoie]

Oh, I thought this thread was about this. It's four years old, mind.

-Kim.