5 Essential Elements On How To Write Superior Music

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Introduction
Thanks for subscribing to receive this guide on how to improve your music making. In this guide you will find some useful information on how you can write better music and improve as a composer, songwriter and/or producer. My name is Martyn Croston and I am a jazz pianist, arranger/composer and educator. Over the past 12 years I have had the privilege of working with a number of artists and groups, including Toby Smith (Jamiroquai), Dave Richmond (Manfred Mann), NBCs Clash of the Choirs, the Ukrainian guitarist Roman Miroshnichenko, and more recently the film composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Total Recall, Enemy of the State, Shrek, Prometheus). One of the key things to remember is that making music is a process, a process which takes time to master, and time to absorb new ideas and influences. Even the greatest musicians admit they are continuously learning with a desire to improve. You should think of this guide as the beginning of the process as you will receive even more valuable information in future e-mails. This guide covers 3 of the 5 elements on how to improve your music making with 2 more to follow by email. This will give you time in between to try out some of these suggestions, absorb the ideas and learn new techniques. Here are the first three... 1) You need to understand chords Regardless of whether you want to compose hip-hop tracks or classical music, a working knowledge of chords can really assist you in your music making. 2) You need to write meaningful lyrics You may already have some experience of this if you are a songwriter, but even if you compose mainly electronic music, understanding how to interpret words in your music is an extremely useful skill to have. The best way to learn how to do this is to write your own lyrics, as it forces you to think about words, and how you can adapt your melody and chord progressions appropriately. 3) You need a good sense of rhythm Sure, you may like to write songs with just guitar or piano, with a free sense of rhythm, but for the sake of variety and your own development, you will need to create an appropriate rhythm for your music, to draw the listener into your song, make them tap their foot or even get up and dance!

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The importance of listening to music

Before I go into more detail about 3 of the 5 elements you need to write great music, I must emphasize the importance of this crucial aspect. Listening to music is arguably the most important aspect of becoming a successful songwriter, composer or producer Unless you listen to music, how can you compose it? This may seem obvious, but it is astounding how many musicians dont listen to enough music, or listen in the right way. There are two ways of listening to music, passive listening and active listening. Passive listening is when you are listening to music in the background, such as during your meal, in a social setting with your friends, when you are doing the household chores etc. Basically, you allow the sound to wash over you without picking anything out in particular. Active listening is when you are totally focused on the music and can pick out individual parts. What is the bass playing? What is the chord progression? What is the time signature? What about the dynamics and tempo? Listening to music is always important and although passive listening will help you understand a basic sense of a style, active listening is the real deal and will help you become a great composer, producer or songwriter!
I can definitely recommend Spotify (no affiliate link) as a tool for listening to music. You can listen to 10 hours of music a month for FREE although you have to put up with the odd advert every so often.

You should set aside at least 20-30 minutes a day, listening to artists in your chosen style. Pick one or two tracks and each time you listen, focus on the following with a separate playing for each point. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) How would you describe the tempo and dynamics? How many chords are there in a bar? What is the chord progression and can you play it? What is the main melody/tune and does it change? Can you play it? What is the structure? i.e. intro, verse, chorus etc How many different parts can you hear and what instruments are there? Is there a repeated pattern in the music? Can you play it? What about the texture? Do all the parts play at the same time, or are there moments where you can only hear one or two of them? Does the music build up layer by layer?

There are many other questions you could ask yourself, but hopefully this will get your started. You should do this for as many styles as possible and you will start to rapidly improve your compositional skills, come up with ideas faster and develop your own style and sound quicker.

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Here is a useful tip to develop your creativity which has been an enormous help to me over the years in music composition. Learn to play certain parts of your favourite tracks This technique is a great way to absorb different influences and come up with more creative ideas when you compose. Now, this can be quite a challenge if you try to do this in real time, especially if the song is quite fast. But with the power of music software, you can slow down the audio and make it easier to play. You can do this in virtually all sequencers and digital audio workstations, but if dont have one yet, there is a FREE option to get you started using a program called Audacity. 1) Go to http://audacity.sourceforge.net (not an affiliate link) 2) Download the latest version of Audacity. Its FREE! 3) Install and run the program You can now import audio into the program (it must be a WAV, MP3 or AIFF file so you might have to rip your music to the computer if it is not in any of these formats) 4) Click Import > Audio and you should have a blue waveform appear on the screen, 5) Listen to your track by clicking the green triangle in the toolbar in the top left of the screen. 6) Stop the track and highlight a particular region by click dragging the mouse and go to Effect > Change Tempo and choose how much you want to slow the music down by e.g 50%, 25%. The region selected will now be slower when you press play. You can now listen to this section over and over again at a more comfortable tempo and work out how to play that piano riff, funky bass line or cool drum pattern on your MIDI controller. If you do this technique with a number of songs, you will start to absorb a variety of influences and start creating some interesting ideas in your own music.

1) You need to understand chords

Understanding harmony and chord progressions ties in with a good knowledge of music theory. Some of you might think, do I really need to learn this? Cant I just use loops? Obviously, you need a stronger understanding of theory if you are writing classical, film music or jazz, but it is still useful to know some aspects even if you are writing rock, hip-hop, dubstep or other electronica tracks, as it makes it easier to create the music you want. The likes of Dr. Dre, Will.i.am, Freddie Mercury and Elton John, to name but a few, have all studied music theory to some degree in order to improve their musical knowledge. Copyright Make-Music.Net

Knowing the relationships between chords enables you to write music faster and create parts which fit together seamlessly. So where to start? To understand chords, you first need to understand scales This is not the most popular word for musicians, especially if it involves practicing them on your instrument! However, if you can understand how the major scale works, it really opens up the other areas of theory. Lets look at the C major scale as an example. The Major Scale

1
Intervals

By understanding the major scale, intervals (the gap between 2 notes) become easier to understand. Dont feel you have to learn the names of the different intervals, but have a go at playing them and see what sounds good! Name of Interval Unison Major 2nd Major 3rd Perfect 4th Perfect 5th Example in C major scale 1 -1 = C-C 1-2 = C-D 1-3 = C-E 1-4 = C-F 1-5 = C-G Example in a famous song Imagine John Lennon Happy Birthday When the Saints Go Marching In Black or White Michael Jackson Superman

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Major 6th Major 7th Harmony

1-6 = C-A 1-7 = C-B

My Way Frank Sinatra Dont Know Why Norah Jones

By understanding the major scale and the intervals within it, we can start to look at chords and the relationships between them. If we stack 2 notes above the notes of our C major scale with 2 intervals of a third, we form chords (or triads). All the notes are within the key of C major.

C major

D minor

E minor

F major

G major

A minor

B dim

1 C major

2 D minor

3 E minor

4 F major

5 G major

6 A minor

7 B dim

Now some of these chords are generally more common than others. The 1st, 4th and 5th chords are often known as primary chords and are generally more widely used than the others. In our example above these would be C major, F major and G major
It is often usual to label chords with Roman numerals in theory to understand the relationships between them in every key i.e, primary chords = I, IV and V

You would be amazed how many songs just use these three chords! Copyright Make-Music.Net

The 2nd, 3rd and 6th chords are known as secondary chords and are not used quite as much as primary chords. In our example above these would be D minor, E minor and A minor Using these chords adds some more interest to chord progressions. The 7th chord of the major scale is diminished and rarely used. If you learn the chords that make up the other 11 major scales and explore chord progressions between them, you can start to create something really interesting! Here is list of some common progressions you can use in your music to get your started. Please note - The following list uses Roman numerals to explain the chord progressions, so visit this link if you are unsure what they mean. = > http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/44 Common chord progressions I - IV - I - IV e.g. C F C F i - IV - i - IV e.g. Cm F Cm F I - iii - IV - V e.g. C Em F G I - V - vi - IV e.g C-G-Am-F Take a look at this video by the band Axis of Awesome to show the popularity of the I - V - vi - IV progression. Its quite a funny video! = > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2De2cK1mDw&feature=related The Blues You can use the chord structure of the 12-bar blues to come up with a song I - I (or IV) - I - I IV - IV - I - I V - IV - I - I (or V) Example: C C (or F) C C FFCC G F C C (or G) You can make the chords dominant 7ths if you prefer... Copyright Make-Music.Net

C7 C7 (or F7) C7 C7 F7 F7 C7 C7 G7 F7 C7 C7 (or G7) Circle of fifths The circle of fifths can often be used to come up with a chord progression. It basically means the bass note, or root of the chord moves in fifths in a sequence. Here are some examples with the chords in bold using it. 1) Cm F Bb Eb Ab Ddim G

Or with seventh chords... Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7 Ebmaj7 AbMaj7 Dm7b5 G7 2) C Em Am Dm G7 C

Or with seventh chords... 3) Cmaj7 Em7 Am7 Dm7 G7 C

Or with just dominant seventh chords... 4) Cmaj7 E7 A7 D7 G7 C

If you are unsure how to play any of these chords in this list, or what they look like written down, visit the following links.. Standard notation = > http://www.musictheory.net/calculators/chord Fret Diagrams = > http://jguitar.com/chord Useful Resources http://www.musictheory.net This is an excellent site that covers all the aspects of music theory. It also features some useful written and listening practice tests. http://www.teoria.com This features a wider choice of tests than musictheory.net but does not contain as many tutorials.

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2) You need to write meaningful lyrics

What do you write first, the lyrics or the music? The simple answer is it does not matter. You should write songs starting with one or the other and see what works best for you. Here are some tips on how to create lyrics for your songs Coming up with some ideas 1) Create a TITLE something that appeals to you, easy to remember and describes the main message of the song 2) Think of some questions that your TITLE suggest e.g. We are the champions What did you win?, Where did you become champions? 3) Write down a list of images, words and phrases that the TITLE suggests to you e.g. We are the champions - winners, competition, tournament, victory, success, achievement etc. 4) Take one from your list and expand on it to create more words e.g. tournament = tough, nerves, pressure, expectation etc 5) Create a list of contrasting words, images and phrases. Dont worry, it doesnt have to be exact e.g. losers, failure, disappointment etc Creating the lyrics If youre fairly inexperienced at writing lyrics, a great idea to try is to use your lyrics with a song you are already familiar with. Pick a tune you like and know really well. Dont feel you have to find rhymes! 1) Sing the TITLE of your song where the title occurs in the chorus. You can do this a few times if it happens more than once 2) Add lyrics to the rest of the chorus by thinking of the questions you have written about your TITLE and the words and phrases you have already created 3) Do the same for the verse, using the questions, related and contrasting words you have created. In every verse, try to provide more information; you can create another list if you run out of ideas 4) Although your lyrics dont have to portray a story, there should be some sort of development and you should aim to provide the listener with information.

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3) You need a good sense of rhythm

To achieve this, it really comes down to listening again. Whatever drum pattern you want to create, it is vital you listen to many different beats in your chosen style, paying attention to aspects such as 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) Where in the beat can you hear a kick drum? How often can you hear the snare? Is it in 4/4 time? This is the most common, but 6/8 and 3/4 are often used in other styles. Are there hi-hats playing continuously? Are they playing repeated eighth or sixteenth notes? Can you hear any other percussion, e.g. tambourine, congas, bongos etc Are there any accents? A lot of music in the charts today is heavily compressed so it can be hard to tell.

You get the idea Here is a method I often use to create a drum pattern in my DAW. 1) Choose a tempo of 100 bpm and a 4/4 time signature 2) Create a new track 3) Assign an instrument to the track. Choose drums. (use a drum machine or drum VST if your software has it). Creating a beat You can create a drum loop in a piano roll editor or in standard music notation, but often the easiest way is to use software specifically designed to create drum patterns and will repeatedly loop what you are playing as you add to it (eg Ultrabeat for Logic) 1) Add something constant such as a hi-hat or rimshot on every beat (i.e. one every 4 boxes). This acts as a reference point until you get more of a rhythm going. 2) Start to add kick drum and snare parts. Dont put them down randomly; add them gradually as you hear the loop. 3) Remove your reference hi-hat/rimshot part, and add a hi-hat pattern as you did with the kick and snare. 4) Now you have a basic drum pattern! You can play your rhythm with different drum patches if you want a different sound or change the tempo. 5) At this stage, your drum pattern will sound a bit dull and lifeless, so you need to change the velocities of your drum parts to give it more character. You have to just experiment with this but generally parts on the downbeats will be a little louder and it is effective to change the velocities when you have 2 or more notes playing right after each other. Copyright Make-Music.Net

What next?
As part of your subscription, you will generally receive e-mails every 5 days maybe one or two more just to start off, which expand on the elements listed in this guide and even more. You will receive tips on aspects such as... More tips on coming up with a melody More advice for creating lyrics Mixing your music More chord progressions How to compose in different styles of music Music business advice Making money from your music

...and much more! From time to time, I may recommend products to you that I own or have tried out myself in detail as I feel they can benefit you as a composer, songwriter or producer. I might be an affiliate for some of these products and that means that if you buy through a link, I'll earn a commission (without you paying a penny more, of course!) which is money I spend, for example, on hosting and maintaining my website. Thanks for taking the time to read this guide and I will send you an e-mail tomorrow containing the 4th essential element on how to write superior music! Regards, Martyn Croston http://make-music.net

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