Breaking Your Music Down To Make It Simpler!

What you should get from this technique:

After this session, you should be able to take any standard chord progression, (that

you’ve created) and turn it into something a little more intricate and a little more

interesting. Anybody (after a bit of practice) can just hammer away at a few chords,

but it can sometimes be a little boring to just strum away, or bang away. Also, the

problem with just banging away at a bunch of chords, is that it lacks dynamics, and

can sound a little boring and repetitive. With this technique, it allows you to add more

space, variety, and colour to your music.

So what do we do?

Ok, let’s begin by taking a simple, random chord progression.

Let’s pick Am, Em, Am, and F.

We can easily just play these chords as they come, but we want to make something a

little more interesting here! Something I use a lot, and have used to very good effect,

is breaking the chord down, and taking one of the notes out so you’re ONLY playing

two notes from the chord. I’ll demonstrate how I would do it on this chord

progression.

As we’ve already discussed, each chord is normally made using a minimum of three

notes. A root (1), a 3 rd, and a 5 th. Again, we could elaborate here and make it a lot

more complex, but for the purposes of this course we don’t need to. Let’s look at each

chord in turn, and I’ll show you how I’ve broken it down (you can hear how I’ve done

this on the audio that is coming soon).

Am: This chord consists of the notes A (1), C (3), and E (5). So instead of taking the

whole chord, we’ll remove the 5 th, and just play the A, and the C like so:

Then we’ll take the next chord, which is the Em. The notes in the Em chord are (you

should already know this by now, I hope you do), E (root), G (3 rd), and B (5 th).

Again we’re going to lose the 5 th, and just play the E, and the G. Here it is again:

Back to the Am, however this time, we don’t want to have the same sound as the

previous Am chord, because we’re trying to keep the sound varied at this point. So

what are we going to do? We’re going to play an inversion (an inversion is simply a

different order using the same notes) of the chord.

So we’ll use the same two notes, A, and C, however, to keep things from getting

boring, this time we’ll play the C as the lower note, and the A as the higher note like

so:

And now we finish on the F Major. Just for continuity, we’ll again play the root note

and the third, so in this example, we’ll play the F and the A. To make it sound even

more varied, we’re going to play out of the octave here, like we did in the E minor

example. So the F is lower, and the A is higher.

Now if you play that, you’ll see how different it sounds to just strumming or playing

full chords, and how it opens the sound up and creates more space. This is even more

valuable when playing in larger groups, as full chords being hammered all the time

can muddy the sound of the band/group.

Let’s have another go. This time we’re going to use the same technique, but we want

as little movement as possible. We’re going to find the notes that correspond in each

chord, and try and keep them going throughout the variation.

We’ll use the chord sequence D, G, C, and G. Let’s examine the chords in a little

more detail.

The notes contained within a D Major chord are as follows:

D F# A

The notes contained within a G Major chord are as follows:

G B D

Notice that the D note is found in both D Major and the G Major, so we’re going to

keep that note going on BOTH chords.

Now we come to the C Major and G Major chords. The notes within C Major are:

C E G

And to remind us again, in G, we have:

G B D

So this time, let’s keep the G going as in this example:

C Major:

G Major:

This time, we did it slightly differently, and used the G note on TOP instead of on the

bottom. This is an easy way of making your life easier, by minimising the amount of

movement you have to do on your instrument.

So by using this technique, it should now have become clear how you can take a

simple (or complex) chord progression, and turn it into something with a little more

space, colour, texture, and variety.

By finding which notes correspond to different chords, it makes it easy to find various

positions to play in, and also means you can economise the amount of work you need

to do in order to create a nice sounding sequence.

What we’ve covered:

We’ve covered taking a chord, and breaking it down to add more space to the sound.

Also, taking a whole chord progression and doing the same, and even making sure we

play different inversions when chords are repeated, to ensure a variety of sound (and

to keep it interesting).

Exercises:

Take either a chord progression you know well, or one that you’ve written

yourself, and A) Look at what notes correspond within each chord, and B)

break it down and simplify it.

Do the same above exercise with a whole song, and link up all the parts to

create a totally different sound, incorporating verses, choruses, and other parts.

Make sure the sound is smooth, with transitions between sections that are easy

on the ear.

Writing Harmonies to make your Melodies

Come Alive

What you should get from this section:

After this section, you should be able to create simple harmonies for your melodies

and vocal lines, and make sure they don’t clash with the rest of the band.

Harmonising sounds like a complicated term, but it simply means playing more than

one note at a time. A chord contains harmony, so if you’ve been playing chords,

you’ve automatically been doing it already!

But how do we USE harmony to enrich a melody or vocal line?

Well that all depends on what you want. Some people like really beautiful, sweet

harmonies, whilst others like nasty harmonies that clash and create a discordant

sound. As a rule:

Major Harmonies will create a happier type sound

Minor harmonies will create a sadder type of sound

Diminished harmonies sound more discordant

On a personal note, my favourite harmonies are minor 3rds, perfect 4ths, and minor

and Major 6ths. My ear tends to like more melancholy types of music, but I also love

Mozart who wrote some pretty happy tunes!!

How to create a harmony:

Here’s a step-by-step process you can use to create a harmony for any melody you

wish to use.

Write your melody out on manuscript paper, and/or record it

On another stave, write out the melody again but a third higher. So if, for

example, you started the original piece on G, start the second stave on B.

Notice that although I went a third HIGHER, I placed the harmony underneath,

as if I placed it higher it would then become more dominant than the original

melody. There are no rules here, but for now I would stay within the same key

signature and not add any sharps or flats.

Repeat the exercise, but write out the melody a fourth higher than the original.

So for example, if you started the melody on A in the original stave, write it out

but start on D.

Write out the same melody, but start a sixth higher than the

original. So in this example, we’ll start on F

Play each harmony over the original melody

Mark which passages you like the sound of or dislike the sound of from each

one.

Mix up the three new harmonies until you have a new, finished, combination

harmony you really like.

Write this one out, and this becomes your new harmony.

You can use this method for vocal lines, piano lines, guitars, strings... you name it.

You can do his with any harmony you like, and you DON’T have to stay within the

key, but at the beginning, it’s a good idea to keep within the key until you’re a bit

more confident, and you’re happy with the harmonies you’re creating.

A mistake a lot of people make when they’re starting to create harmonies, is

harmonising EVERY note in the melody or phrase. You definitely don’t have to do

this. Many pieces of music will have a really simple harmony going in the bass or mid

range, while a more frantic melody line goes over the top. Let’s take a look at how we

can do this. We’ll use the same melody line, but we’ll just simplify it so it’s a lot less

“busy”.

Here is the original melody with a harmony placed underneath.

Please bear in mind that these are ONLY examples and you can use any harmony you

like. If you want to write an entire harmony consisting of nothing but diminished

fifths, then go for it. It will probably sound a bit weird, but as a musician, that’s

perfectly up to you.

What you’ve learned:

How to take a melody and create as many harmonies as you like from it

How to pick which harmonies sound best and how to integrate them to create a

finished harmony.

Harmonic Overtones

Have you ever wondered why different instruments have completely different sounds,

even when playing THE EXACT SAME NOTE?

It's mainly because of "Harmonic Overtones".

Basically, the pitch we hear comes from vibration. So if for example we use the note

"A" vibrating at 440 Hz, it will ALSO vibrate at frequencies above that, at multiples

of 440 Hz (eg 880 Hz, 1320 Hz,

1740 Hz).

These frequencies will have different strengths of vibration according to the type of

instrument playing, so as an example, a trumpet may vibrate more strongly at 880 Hz,

and a piano may vibrate more

strongly at 1320 Hz.

There are MANY frequencies vibrating simultaneously. and the strength of these

vibrations determines the TIMBRE of the instrument.

This is why a piano doesn't sound like a trumpet (or an elephant

for that matter)

Basic Music Theory Explained

What you should get from this section:

In this section, I want to give you a basic understanding of musical theory, but without

overloading you with information. If you know your stuff as far as musical theory

goes, you’ll notice that I’ve left a lot out, and this has been done on purpose.

If you DO have a good understanding and grounding already, you will just be able to

work through the book a bit faster.

Nomenclature :

During the course, I’ll be referring to chord names and interval names, so it’s

important that you understand what we’re talking about. These are the chord names

we’ll be using:

Major Chord :

Any time you see a letter on it’s own for example “F” you know we mean F Major. I

also may write it as “F Maj”, so either of these requires you play the Major chord.

Minor Chord :

If you see a letter followed by a little m E.g. “Fm” then this relates to the minor chord.

Again, I might write “F min”, or “F minor”, and either of these will relate to a minor

chord.

There are literally hundreds of chords, and variations, but you won’t need most of

them in this course, and there are plenty of chord books and chord information on

various websites available, so I won’t cover them all here. The purpose of this course

is to help you to compose music, not learn every chord in existence.

Flats and Sharps:

A flat note uses the symbol (b) and a sharp note uses the symbol (#).

The Octave:

An octave is a musical term that covers a total of 11 notes, and spans from one note,

to the next note of the same name. The notes within the Western musical range are as

follows:

A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab,

After the Ab, we end up at the A again. All the notes you’ll ever play will be one of

these. You’ll notice that there are no sharps or flats between the notes B and C or E

and F. There ARE exceptions to this rule, but you won’t need to learn them here.

The Major Scale :

The major scale is a series of seven notes that follow a particular order. The order is as

follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

Root - Tone – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone – Tone – Semitone

This scale is the basis for all musical theory. You would probably recognise it from

your school days as:

Do – Re – Mi – Far – So – La – Ti – Do

The Minor Scale:

Each major key has a corresponding, relative minor key. The minor key will be in the

same key signature, and will contain the same notes as the major key. The only

difference between the two is that the minor key simply STARTS on a different note.

For example, in the key of C Major, the relevant, corresponding minor key is A

minor.

You can always find the relative minor key by counting up six notes from the root of

the Major key. So in the C Major example: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Hence the minor

key starts on the A.

The sequence of a minor scale is different, and goes like this:

Root – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone –Semitone – Tone - Tone

So if as an example we use the A minor scale which is the relative minor scale of C

Major, we have the following sequence of notes:

A B C D E F G A

If we were playing in F Major, the relative minor would again begin on the sixth note

in the key, which would be the D, and the sequence of notes would be:

D E F G A Bb C D

Key Signatures:

A semitone (or half step) is the smallest increment on a western musical instrument.

On a piano, it is represented by moving from one key to the next, and on a guitar, it is

represented by moving from one fret to the next.

As an example, on a piano, moving from middle C to the black key directly next to it

on the right, we would get a C# would be a semitone. Moving from middle C to the

next WHITE key on the right, which is the D, would be a tone from the middle C

(also known as two semitones or a whole step).

On a guitar, moving from the open A string to the first fret on the A string A# would

be a semitone, whilst moving from the open A string to the second fret B would be a

tone (two semitones).

So if we look at the C Major scale, it looks like this:

C (root note)

Then up a TONE to D

Then up a TONE to E

Then up a SEMITONE to F

Then up a TONE to G

Then up a TONE to A

Then up a TONE to B

And finally up a SEMITONE again to finish back on C.

All major keys follow this pattern, and you can start a Major scale on any note.

A couple of things to be aware of: Some notes have the same sound, but different

names depending on which KEY they are in. For example, an A# is the same note as a

Bb as if you move up ONE semitone from A it becomes A# and if you move down

ONE semitone from B it becomes a Bb. Again, you don’t need to worry too much

about this if it’s confusing you as we’re going to stick mainly to simple chords and

keys throughout this site.

Keys :

As a reference, here is a list of all the keys, the notes within them, and the chords

within the key!

C Major :

Notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C

Key signature: (No key signature)

Chords within Key: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B diminished

G Major :

Notes: G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G

Key signature: One sharp on the F line

Chords Within Key: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F# Diminished

D Major:

Notes: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D

Key Signature: Two Sharps on the F line, and C line

Chords Within Key: D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, C# Diminished

A Major:

Notes: A, B, C#, D# E# F#, G#, A

Key Signature: Three sharps on the F line, C line, and G line

Chords Within Key: A, Bm, C#m, D, E, F#m, G# Diminished

E Major:

Notes: E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E

Key Signature: Four sharps on the F line, C line, G line, and D line

Chords within Key: E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D# Diminished

B Major:

Notes: B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#, B

Key Signature: Five sharps on the F line, C line, G line, D line, and A line

Chords within Key: B, C#m, D#m, E, F#, G#m, A# Diminished

F# Major:

Notes: F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#, E#, F#

Key Signature: Six sharps on the F line, C line, G line, D line, A line, and E line.

Chords within Key: F#, G#m, A#m, B, C#, D#m, E# Diminished

And Now The Flat Keys:

F Major:

Notes: F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E, F

Key Signature: One Flat on the B line

Chords within Key: F, Gm, Am, Bb, C, Dm, E Diminished

Bb Major:

Notes: Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A

Key Signature: Two flats on the B line and the E line

Chords within Key: Bb, Cm, Dm, Eb, F, Gm, A Diminished

Eb Major:

Notes: Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb

Key Signature: Three flats on the B line, E line, and A line

Chords within Key: Eb, Fm, Gm, Ab, Bb, Cm, D Diminished

Ab Major:

Notes: Ab, Bb, C, Db, Eb, F, G, Ab

Key Signature: Four flats on the B line, E line, A line, and D line

Chords within Key: Ab, Bbm, Cm, Db, Eb, Fm, G Diminished

Db Major:

Notes: Db, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb, C, Db

Key Signature: Five flats on the B line, E line, A line, D line, and G line.

Chords within Key: Db, Ebm, Fm, Gb, Ab, Bbm, C Diminished.

Intervals and chords :

Without covering the gamut of musical theory, I want you to have a basic

understanding of intervals and chord structure. An interval is simply the difference

between one note and another, in particular how they relate to each other in a

particular key.

If we start in the key of C Major as it’s the easiest key, with no sharps or flats. If we

move from C to C#, that interval is a Semitone. This equates to one fret on the guitar,

or one key on the piano. If we move from C to D, that is a TONE. 2 frets, or two keys.

Below is a table comtaining a list of the intervals available if we start on the note C:

Original

note:

New

note: Interval name:

Number of

Keys/frets/Semitones

higher than original note:

C C#/Db Semitone (minor 2 nd) 1

C D Tone (Major 2nd) 2

C D#/Eb Minor 3 rd 3

C E Major 3 rd 4

C F Perfect 4 th 5

C F#/Gb Augmented 4 th/diminished 5 th 6

C G Perfect 5 th 7

C G#/Ab Augmented 5 th/Minor 6 th 8

C A Major 6 th 9

C A#/Bb Minor 7 th 10

C B Major 7 th 11

C C Octave 12

I’ve displayed the intervals only in the Key of C Major here.

This is the same for all keys. So if for example you were playing in Bb Major, and

you wanted to find the Major 3 rd, you just count up five semitones (frets or keys) and

you’ll land on D. Always take the root note (the one you’re starting on) as number 1.

Music Test:

A) What is the minor 3 rd from G?

B) What is the Perfect 4th of Eb?

Answers:

Bb

Ab

If you got these wrong, go over this section again, but don’t spend too much time on

it, you’ll begin to understand it a little more as we go along, and it’s just a matter of

counting up the keys or frets.

The Structure Of Chords:

Now we come on to chords. Again, without going too much into depth, MOST chords

are made up of three notes, which is the root of the chord, the third, and the fifth. For

example, if we take C major again, and write out the scale:

C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and attribute a number to each of the letters

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1

This is what we end up with. So if we take the numbers 1, 3, and 5, we get the letters

C, E, and G. These are the notes that make up a C chord.

Taking the second chord in C major (See Key section above), we have a Dm chord.

This time, as D is the ROOT note, we class D as number 1, and count up again.

So D becomes 1, F becomes 3, and A becomes 5 and so on. This is how nearly all

chords are formed; again, you needn’t worry TOO much about this, as you won’t need

to know it in great detail.

What notes make up an F Major chord?

Answer:

F A C

Musical Timing:

The purpose of a time signature is to show you what type of feel, rhythm, and speed

you should play certain notes, phrases and bars.

There are various time signatures in music. The two most common are Four-Four

time, and Three- Four time.

The first number in the time signature denotes the NUMBER of notes you will be

playing, PER BAR and the second number tells you what TYPE of note you’ll be

playing.

So if we’re playing in Four-Four time, you would have four even beats of quarter

notes, and count like this: One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two Three, Four etc.

If you were playing in three four time, you’d be using the same length notes, but only

count three of them per bar, for example: One, Two, Three, One, Two, Three etc.

The following are the most common types of note found in Western music, and each

of these notes also has a corresponding rest that has the same duration. These are also

found on the examples below.

Semi-breve:

These last for a full count of four beats and would normally last a whole bar in Four-

Four time.

Minim :

These last for two beats each, also known as a half note as each one of these notes

lasts for half a bar in 4/4 time.

Crotchet : These last for one beat each and are also known as a quarter note as each one of these

notes lasts for a quarter of a bar in 4/4 time.

Quaver : These last for half a beat each and are also known as an 8 th note as each of these lasts

for an 8 th of a bar in 4/4 time.

Semi-quaver: These last for a quarter of a beat each and arealso known as a 16 th note as each one

lasts a 16 th of a bar in 4/4 time.

As always, there is a lot that I have left out when it comes to timing, and again, this is

done on purpose as you won’t need to get any more complicated during this course.

Dotted Notes: If there is a dot directly next to the note, that means that it lasts HALF AGAIN the

value of itself.

For example, if you have a dotted Minim, it will last for three beats as 2 (the normal

value of a minim) + 1 (half the value of the minim) = 3.

There are other time signatures, and note values but you won’t need them on this

course, so we don’t need to go into them here.

How to count:

The easiest way I’ve learnt to count is using the “ta-fi-ti-fi” method.

Basically what you do is:

Count “Ta” (pronounced “ta” as in “tap”) if it falls on the beat

Count “Ti” (pronounced “ti” as in “tin”) if it’s a quarter note

Count “Fi” (pronounced “Fee”) if it’s a sixteenth note. Here’s an example:

Well I’m glad to say that’s about as complicated as it’s going to get. . . In FACT, it’s

all going to be a LOT easier from now on!

What we’ve covered:

Key signatures

The Major scale

Intervals

Basic chord theory

Counting

You now have a reference to use as and when you need it.

Pinch A Rhythm To get Writing Music Quicker!!

What you should get from this technique:

After learning this technique, you should be able to take a song of your choice (or a

combination of songs) and by simply copying the rhythm, create an original piece of

music of your own. I know this sounds a bit like cheating, and TECHNICALLY it is, but

if you read through the exercises and try it out, you’ll see that it’s a very good way

of quickly and easily coming up with something you can use, and when you add different

notes to an old rhythm, it genuinely does become original.

The Technique:

If you can HEAR a piece of music then you can WRITE a piece of music. This is one of

my favourite techniques, and it’s SO easy to incorporate that you should have a lot of

fun with this, even if you just experiment with it for a bit. Basically, this is what

you do:

Take a piece of music you are already familiar with, and that you like, and

write down the rhythm of it WITHOUT COPYING THE NOTES!

Add your own notes to the rhythm

Add harmony, embellishments, and backing to the piece you’ve just written.

That’s it.

Isolating The Rhythm:

The first thing we need to do is isolate the rhythm you want to copy. Listen to any

piece of music that you like, and decide on the rhythm section you want to copy.

The easiest way to copy it, is to either clap or tap it out, or use the “ta-fi-ti-fi”

method I explained earlier.

Once you have isolated the rhythm, either write it down on your manuscript paper, or

record it as a sequence of taps or claps, but with no melody or harmonic structure

whatsoever. Here is an example:

This example, (below) is taken from the intro of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusic”. A

VERY well know piece of music, but I BET that had you just listened to the tune that I

created from it, without knowing what I was up to, you wouldn’t have been able to

guess that I’d copied the rhythm. I’ve changed the individual notes and chords so much

that it’s become totally unrecognisable as the previous tune. Here is the Mozart

version:

And here is what I did with it. You’ll notice that the top line rhythm is EXACTLY the

same, but the notes are completely different:

So if you look at the top line in the example above, it’s an identical rhythm to the

Mozart piece. What I’ve done there is add some bass notes, (as a harmony, which we

shall be working on later), change the key, and hey presto, we have a brand new piece

of original music!

Just from that simple example, I’m sure you can see how easy that was to do, and also

how effective it is.

Let’s look at another example. This is the intro section to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

song “Don’t Forget Me”. It’s an awesome song, yet the whole thing is built on a simple

rhythm like so:

We shall be going through this song in greater detail later, but for now, I just want

you to think of the rhythm.

Now I’m going to use exactly the same technique, but instead of creating some new

chords or melody, I’m going to create a new bass line instead. Now that I’ve got the

rhythm, I simply created a basic bass line using the same rhythmic structure, again

just changing the notes I’m playing.

I could just as easily have used this rhythm for a bass line, a melody line, a chord

progression, or a vocal line, lead breaks, pretty much anything you like.

One of the great things about this technique, is that it doesn’t have to be limited to

just one rhythm from one piece of music either. Let’s say for example you heard a

couple of pieces of music you liked, and thought the rhythm’s gelled well together.

You can by all means take the rhythm’s of several sections, from several songs, and

incorporate them into yours, adding individual bars from as many songs as you like,

until you have what you want. Practicing this technique will make you realise that

it’s EASY to create rhythms to bass (like the pun?) your music on.

What we’ve covered:

How to take a piece of music and isolate the rhythm

How to take multiple pieces of music and combine the rhythms within various

bars to make your own combination

Adding your own melody and harmony to already well known rhythms

Exercises:

Find five pieces of music you like, isolate the rhythms and either write them

down or clap them out onto your recording equipment.

See if any of them make a good combination (rhythmically only) and combine them

if they do.

Add your own notes to the rhythms to create something new.

Create a simple bass line using one of the above rhythms.

Practicing Your Instrument

I recently watched a video on Youtube all about Kendo masters in Japan. For those of

you who don't know Kendo, it's the Japanese art of Sword fighting, what would have

been the Samurai long ago.

What on earth has that got to do with music I hear you ask?

Actually, quite a lot.

The documentary was about an hour long, and it showed the build up to the 8th Dan

gradings that take place twice a year in Japan.

What was interesting was this..

To even be accepted to TAKE the exam, you have to have been a 7th Dan for 7 years,

and you have to be a minimum of 48 YEARS OLD!!

A MINIMUM!

There were guys there in their 80's taking the exam, and had been taking it for about

20 years in a row and failing 20 years in a row.

Still they practiced daily, and came back year after year.

So what??

What can WE learn from this?

Discipline With Practice

1) Discipline. How often do we actually practice the important things?

One of the guys on the documentary practised just ONE single strike for an hour per

day. If he can do it,

so can you, and gues what, you're going to be pretty damn good at something if you

practice it for an

hour each day!

So even when your practice "seems" boring, just remember the long term goal, and

focus on that. I met a

violinist the other day that was absolutely amazing. I asked him how long he'd been

playing, and how long

it took him to join an orchestra.

It took him 11 years to be good enough to join an orchestra and he's now been playing

for around 47 years. Guess what.... He STILL practices his scales. That's why he's so

good.

Be Patient While Practicing

2) Patience. In the West, we always want the quick fix and the instant result.

Sometimes, the ONLY way to get good at something is practice, practice, practice and

practice some more.

If you're getting frustrated with your composing or music skills, just remember the

little old 80 year olds that have been doing the same moves for DECADES.

And think about the violinist. Would YOU wait 11 years to get good at something?

Mental Rehearsal

Did you know that you don't even need your instrument to practice?

Many professional athletes and musicians practice IN THEIR MIND the moves and

techniques that they want to master.

It's a scientific FACT that your brain cannot distinguish between what happens inside

your mind, with what happens out in the real world.

The same neurological pathways are fired when you do something in your mind, as

when you do something for real. This is why when we think about things that were

sad, we sart to feel sad, and when we think about happy times, we smile.

Here's a little routine you can do to get even better at your music.

1) When you get into bed, decide on ONE thing you want to improve

on your instrument or composing skills.

2) Spend just five minutes, mentally rehearsing it, MAKING SURE

YOU PRACTICE IT PERFECTLY IN YOUR HEAD WITH NO MISTAKES.

3) Make sure that when you do your mental rehearsal, you are associated

into the image. Basically what this means, is that you feel yourself

doing it, rather than looking at an image with yourself in the image

(I hope that made sense).

4) Repeat daily.

5) See how much of a difference it makes in your playing/writing

skills.

The great thing about this exercise, is that you can apply it to

any area of your life that you want to improve.

Putting Chords to an Existing Melody

What you should get from this section:

After completing this section, you should be able to take an existing melody and put

chords, and a bass line to it to create a strong structure.

There are several things you can do to help you put a chord progression to an existing

melody that will make your life a lot easier. Here are a few of them:

The first thing you should try to do is work out what key it’s in. This will make

it a lot easier, as if you know what key you’re playing in, you can pick chords

from that key (see section on theory). How do you do this?

Well, first of all, play the melody. Are there lots of sharps or flats in there? If

so, look at the key signatures in the theory section and see what ones match the

notes you’re playing. Do they match any particular key? If there are F#’s in the

melody, but C naturals, then it might be in G. If there are lots of Bb’s and Eb’s

but natural A’s it may be in Bb major.

If that hasn’t helped, then see what note the melody starts and finishes on.

Quite often a melody will start and/or end on the note of the dominant chord in

the key. So if it’s in A for example, it will quite often start on that note and/or

end on that note.

It could be in the relative minor key. Every Major key has a relative minor key,

which contains the same notes, and the same chords as the Major; it simply

starts on a different note. For example, in the Key of C Major, the relative

minor is Am. So if the piece looks like it’s in C, but starts and/or finishes on A,

it’s probably in A minor. The way to find the relative minor key from each

Major key is to simply count up 6 notes from the root. For example in C Major:

C=1, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=6 (And this is the minor key). Note how it’s

different from the A Major key.

Try putting a simple bass line to the melody. As bass lines are fairly easy to

write, you should have no problem with this. Once you’ve got the bass line,

take the root notes and use the chords that they correspond to. See if it fits.

Try putting a standard chord progression to the melody. For example, I, IV, I,

V (In C this would be C, F, C, G). The reason this might work is that the way

our Western musical ears are “tuned”, we automatically follow certain musical

patterns without even thinking about it, subconsciously creating melodies that

fit in with the “norm”.

Strip the melody down to its bare essentials. Take out all the notes that aren’t

totally necessary to the overall feel of the melody, and see if that makes it

easier once you’ve got down to the core of the melody.

Here is an Example of how I’d put chords to a melody. Let’s start with a melody that

everybody knows. Amazing grace:

Well it’s in the Key of C Major for a start (it’s easy as I wrote it down in that key, but

I DID work it out...honest)

So the notes in the 2nd bar are C and E. So it’s in C Major, the first accented note is a

C, and the notes in the bar are a C, and an E which are the root and third of the C

Major chord. Do you think a C chord might work here? Let’s try it…Ok, that works!

Next bar. The notes are an E and a D. The E lasts for the majority of the bar however,

so let’s concentrate on that note. We’ll try an Em as it’s the obvious choice, but if you

play it, it doesn’t sound very good so let’s discard that chord. Am also has an E in it,

so let’s try that chord. Ahhhhh much nicer, so we’ll stick with that!

The next bar contains a C and an A so Am could work again here, but I have a hunch

that we should go back to C. Ok that works well.

Where did my hunch come from? I thought it was an appropriate place to change the

chord, and we’d just been on Am so I assumed that C would work, and as the main

note in the bar is a C it stood to reason that it would fit.

Next bar only contains the note G. As the chord G is in our key, and it seems obvious,

let’s try it. . . Bingo! It works.

The next bar is the same as the 2 nd bar so I think it’s safe to try a C there.. Yep, it

fits.

Next bar again, same as the third so we’ll stick an Am in there and it works a treat.

The next TWO bars seem to stay on G, so let’s try a G chord holding it for two bars.

Do you think that worked? Yes it did, so it seems we have a chord progression here

that’s working. If we play the second half of the song using exactly the same chords, it

works fine.

The only difference is the last two bars where we need to finish up with two bars of C

Major, instead of two bars of G Major.

So this is what it looks like with the chords added:

So what guidelines did this melody follow??

We ascertained the key as C Major.

All the notes were in the key, which made it easy. No accidental sharps or flats.

The first AND last chords were C Major, so it followed that basic rule.

All the chords were within the key.

By taking the main notes of the melody, we were able to attribute chords to

them pretty easily.

So what did you learn in this section?

How to take a basic melody and break it down bar by bar to find out what

chords would fit.

Different methods of working out the chords within a melody.

How to ascertain the key a melody is being played in.

How to work out the relative minor keys of the Major key.

Exercise:

Take a couple of melodies, either well known ones, or ones of your own

creation, and using the techniques above, work out what chords would fit with

the melody. Then using your composing skills, add nuances to it to make it a

little more interesting.

Creating A Winning Song Structure

What you should get from this section:

After this section you should have a basic understanding of the key elements of a song

structure, and how to create a song structure using the basic elements.

Creating a song structure can be as easy or as complicated as you like. For the

purposes of this course, the idea is to get you to learn basic composition skills, so

we’ll keep it pretty straightforward.

The good news is, that MOST songs in popular genres normally only utilise between

3 and 6 different sections or parts. This makes your job a lot easier as you won’t have

to try and create 10 different sections for each song you write, and it can be a

relatively quick process. I think the quickest I ever wrote a song was in about 4

minutes (not the lyrics).

So let’s look at the different elements of a song structure, and then we’ll take a look at

three well know songs, break them down, and examine them as well.

Intro : This is quite often the same chords/dynamics as the verse or chorus, mainly

the verse. (“When You Were Young” by the Killers is an example of the chorus being

used as an intro).

Verse : Normally a pretty straightforward structure, containing four to 8 chords.

Chorus : Again, normally pretty straight forward, and consisting of four to eight

chords. There is normally a change in the dynamics of a chorus to make it stand out.

These include volume, intensity, catchyness (is that a real word?), and timbre.

Bridge : This is often literally a bridge-between the verse and the chorus, or the

chorus and the verse. This is especially useful when you have a key change from one

to the other, or the transition from verse to chorus or vice versa isn’t particularly

smooth.

Middle 8: This section is used to break up the song so it isn’t just a sequence of

Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus. Can change the whole feel of the song, and if used

properly can make or break it. Again, the dynamics are normally different to add

variety.

Outro : Finally, like the intro, this can often simply be a repeat of the verse or chorus

chords/structure, but can also be totally different. Remember, there are no rules.

Building intensity during a song!

As mentioned earlier, MOST choruses have a more intense feel about them, with

more dynamicness (another new word), going on! There are many ways to achieve

this, using various different methods and different instruments, so let’s take a look at

some of them now:

Crescendo/Diminuendo

These are simply musical terms for an increase or decrease in volume. Building the

overall volume will obviously increase the intensity (though be careful to make sure

you don’t just use volume for volume’s sake and lose the feel, and nuances of the

music). Decreasing the volume will lower the intensity of the music, and is a

technique often employed when leaving a chorus and returning to a verse. (Listen to

CREEP by Radiohead). You can obviously reverse this effect if you want a more

chilled out chorus.

Drums

The Drums play a MASSIVE part in building the intensity of your music, and they

have many different ways of doing so. Here are a few examples:

Adding more fills on the toms, snare, kick drum, leading into, or out of a

chorus/bridges. This lets the listener know that something is coming and they’d better

be ready!

Doubling your beats on the high hat from quarter notes to half or eighth notes. This

gives the impression of increased speed.

Changing the beat altogether. This works wonders as it completely changes the feel of

the piece.

Doubling speed, halving speed, etc. Again, this lets the listener know that something

is changing.

Change from a closed high hat to an open high hat for a louder, more open sound.

Move from the closed high hat to the ride for a different sound.

Guitars and Bass

Again, the guitars can play a MAJOR role in changing the dynamics of a piece of

music, and helping to travel from a verse into a chorus or vice versa. Here are just a

few of the things you can do with it to change the way the music carries.

Increase volume

Move from simple picking to full chords. Again, will boost the volume, and increase

the intensity. Likewise, changing back to simple picking will have the opposite effect.

(Coldplay’s Politik is an excellent example of this).

Adding effects such as distortion, chorus, flange, delay, reverb, will alter the sound

and can be used to increased or decrease the intensity. (Radiohead’s Creep is a perfect

example)

Changing octave. Moving from one octave to either a higher register, or lower register

will change the feel of what you’re doing, and can be employed to good effect.

Frequency of notes. By playing more of the same thing per bar, it’s going to sound

“busier” so will add intensity. The opposite is also true.

Adding bass notes to your melodies/chords will also boost the sound and add

intensity.

Keyboards/Piano.

Piano or keyboards, like guitar can totally change the effect and intensity when used

correctly. Here are some examples: Moving from playing single notes or harmonies to

full, rich chords will boost the sound and add intensity and depth. Heavy bass notes

will do the same.

Frequency of notes

For example, doubling the amount of notes you play per bar will give the impression

of acceleration. If using a keyboard, adding effects will do the same thing as adding

guitar effects. (Listen to Keane for examples of this).

I’m not going to go through each instrument, as I’m sure you get the idea. Try

experimenting and see what works for your particular style, and your particular sound.

Ok, so now we have the basic ingredients, let’s take a look at three well-known songs,

break them down, and examine the structure. You’ll see just how easy it is to write a

song after this section. I strongly suggest listening to these songs so you get an

understanding of how they’ve applied what they have to them, and get a better

understanding of the ideas behind them. You should be able to find the chord

progressions online somewhere. Google them and I’m sure you’ll find them.

Song Number One:

Don’t Forget Me by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers

This song is a PERFECT example of how simple it can be to write a song. It only

consists of four chords, and always played in the same order But this song is a

MASTERCLASS of using dynamics to create an effect. Listen to how each

instrument changes the way it’s played during each section to increase or decrease

intensity. If we look at it in a little more detail then, this is the structure of the song:

Intro – Verse – Bridge – Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Verse – Chorus – Solo – Verse

And the chords throughout the whole song are: Am F C G

Song Number Two:

Give In To Me by Michael Jackson

Another great example of simple song writing, simple structure, and a great use of

dynamics. Again, just a few chords used here, but very effective. The chords used are

as follows: Intro and verse: Em – C D Chorus: Em – C D Bridge: (From verse into

chorus) B5 – A5 – B5 – D5 (Chords with just the root and 5 th. No 3 rd) Middle 8:

Am – G – Em – Em – Am – G – F – B So as you can see, pretty straight forward. I

told you composing was easy :-)

Song Number Three: Space Oddity by David Bowie

Going back a bit here. A lot of you probably won’t remember this song, but it’s

definitely worth checking out. We get a little bit more complicated here, and start

going out of key, and throwing chords in that SHOULDN’T fit if we followed the

rules, but we’re not always going to do that remember.

The chords in this song are as follows:

Intro: C – Em – C – Em – Am – Am7/G (G on the bass) – D7

Verse: C – Em – C – Em – Am – Am7/G (G on the bass) – D7

Chorus: C – E7 – F – Fm – C – F – Fm – C – F

Bridge: FM7 – Em7 – FM7 – Em7 – BbM7 – Am – G – F

Middle 8 : C – F – G – A – A – C – F – G – A – A – FM7 – Em7 – A – C – D – E

This song goes out of key several times, using Fm chords, and Bb Major chords, but it

works, and remember that the only rule you really want to follow, is whether or not is

sounds good!

So what have we covered in this section?

The basic elements of a structure

How to use your instruments to build or decrease intensity

How simple it can be to create a structure

How to use a few simple chords to create a song structure

Using just a few chords, create a VERY BASIC song structure

Once you’ve successfully completed exercise 1, create a verse, chorus, and

bridge/middle 8 using chords from the same key, and put them all together to form a

new song.

Now using technique number 4, break the verses down to create a more varied set

of dynamics for your song

Experiment with using chords that aren’t within the key, to make an even more

varied chord progression for your song.

Decide on the type of dynamics you want to employ within your song to give it

colour, variety, and depth.

Learn The Simple Way To Write Melodies.

What you should get from this section:

The basics on how to write a melody.

Some guidelines on things what to do, and what NOT to do, though remember

that they are only guidelines, and there are no hard and fast rules.

Now that we’ve covered creating an actual song structure, and we have a foundation

in place, we’re going to need a melody line. You may want the melody line for the

vocals, the guitar, the piano’s, or whatever, so let’s look at some of the keys to

creating a melody, and examine some of the basic guidelines.

Repetition.

For a melody to really work, it has to have some degree of repetition. For example,

THIS wouldn’t work as a melody:

Although we need repetition, we don’t want to be TOO repetitive. It’s a fine line

between catchy, and annoying so we need to give it SOME variety as well. Here is an

example of a basic melody with JUST enough repetition to be memorable, but not too

much to get on your nerves.

Tings you can do to keep it memorable, but not boring, while still following the theme

are:

Change the dynamics within the melody. I.e. Increase the volume of some of

the notes within the melody, decrease the force to make them quieter, and stand

out.

Harmonic changes. Add slides (if on guitar), add ghost notes and notes in

between, chromatics etc.

Rhythmic changes. Speed it up, slow it down, pauses, play some sections in a

different rhythm while keeping the same notes etc.

Add harmony to some of the notes to create texture

Add sound effects

Change which instrument is playing the melody.

The Shape of the Melody

A melody will NORMALLY follow a pattern of up’s and downs, and tends to FLOW.

If it just climbs up the stave, or descends down the stave, it’s going to sound more like

a scale than a melody. This is fine during solos but as a CORE melody of a song, it

should have some sort of up and down pattern. If we look at the last melody we

played, I’ve drawn it out so that you can see what I’m talking about.

Notice that it kind of flows, and doesn’t just jump all over the place from one end of

the stave to the other. Doing that could be effective for creating a certain type of

sound, but wouldn’t really work most of the time if you want a nice, smooth sounding

melody.

A melody will normally be contained within ONE octave. As always, there is no hard

and fast rule with regards to this, but as a general guideline, this would normally make

sense. It loses its “catchyness” (there’s that word again) if it goes too far between

ranges.

Here’s the other melody with no shape, or repetition with the shape also drawn on.

Notice how erratic and shapeless it looks.

Length of the melody

The length of your melody will obviously depend upon its purpose, but as a general

guideline, you would want to keep it short enough to be catchy, but long enough to

have variety. There’s probably not much call for a 57 bar melody unless you’re

playing some kind of weird Avant Garde music.

If you’re playing the melody over an intro, verse, chorus, or bridge, it’s going to have

to be the same length or shorter, so bear that in mind.

Coming up with the melody

There are many different ways of actually creating your melody. The way I normally

do it is to improvise, and play along to whatever chord progression the melody is

going over. Once I know what key I’m going to be playing in, I can work out what

scale or scales I need to use (without paying TOO much attention to the rules). Also,

knowing the chords gives me good starting references, and it normally just flows.

Another way is to use one of the earlier techniques to create your melody, then just

transpose it (Change it’s key) and fit it to your song structure.

If you’re having any trouble coming up with melody ideas, go and make a cup of tea

or coffee, listen to something else to give you inspiration, and then come back to it.

What we’ve covered in this section:

The basic SHAPE of a melody

Repetition guidelines

How to keep your melody following a basic theme, while maintaining variety

Determining the length of your melody

How to put an existing melody to a song structure

Exercises:

Using the above ideas, create a new melody or set of melodies for your new

song structure/s that you created during the last section.

Experiment with using harmony and harmonic changes within the melody to

give it variety.

Tips On Writing Lyrics

If I’m going to be 100% honest, lyric writing isn’t something I’ve had to do very

much as with all the bands I’ve been in, this was the vocalist’s job. HOWEVER, I do

know enough about it to give you a few tips and pointers.

There are obviously many ways to get inspiration for lyrics. Some people write

poetry, some tell stories, some just talk absolute nonsense, and they all have their

places, and their fans.

A few pointers:

Do you have a specific audience? If you do, you need to tailor it towards them.

If your audience are teenagers, you’re going to need different lyrical content

than if you’re writing for the over 50’s.

Is there a theme you’re trying to get across? If so, obviously you need to stick

to it.

If you’re going for the story telling option, you need to have a start, middle, and

an end to the story.

Do you want it to rhyme? If so, get your thesaurus out.

Is there a hidden message in your song? If so, define it, and think about how

you’re going to convey it to your audience.

Some lyricists write their lyrics first, and the music second.

Others prefer to write the music first so that they have a feel for what they’re going to

be putting into the song.

There is no specific, set way of doing this.

Other things to consider:

Do you want the chorus’s to all be the same, or do you want to change them to

keep it more interesting?

Is it going to be a serious song, or do you want some humour in there?

Does it sound too much like somebody else?

Another technique used by a lot of clever lyricists, is to slightly change the words

during the various sections of the song, yet keep the meaning the same. A good

example of this is “Trouble” by Coldplay. If you listen throughout, he keeps the theme

going, yet changes the words. Very clever.