#music tutorial

Improvise a riff, an ostinato. Or loop a short sequence of notes.

Write a bassline. Maybe make an alternative pattern.

Add drums.

Extract kick, snare, hihats etc. to individual channels.

Put in a chord progression on strings or pads to follow the bass.

Add a second voice on an octave from the first riff, harmonize.

Some people get more inspired by starting with the drums (so you can change order of point 1-3). Anyway, by now you have a few bars repeating over a few seconds. Copy and paste this sequence with all channels active. It's then time to arrange a song structure by removing channels.

Perhaps begin with an intro of the riff, build up with drums, add bass, mute the riff, let bass and drum play together for a few bars, add a new lead, bring in the original riff, mute bass and kick, put in a breakdown with only chords, make a drop with everything you got, mute some of the instruments, add others, change instrument for an already played sequence, change octave for bass for a brief moment etc. Remember to split the full drum pattern and mute different drums on different parts of the track.

Depending of what kind of orchestration your after, but maybe keep it simple – like a real five man band, where the drummer only have two hands and two feet, so don't hit all cymbals and toms at once even if you can electronically. And each other band member plays only one instrument at a time.

In other words write a few bars of music with five different instruments that sound good together, then just mute and unmute over time.

-that I kinda just pulled out of my ass right now.

Okay, first you take a scale, which is a series of notes in a certain order, and looks kinda like this

Different scales start on different notes, and there are different kinds of scales but usually you just gotta know Major and minor. This example is a Major scale. Every Major scale shares the same pattern of steps between notes, just like every minor scale shares their different step pattern. 

What’s a step? The difference between keys that are next to each other on the piano, or notes on the piano roll like 1 and 2 in this image

Here’s a Major scale starting on a different note

See, different note, different keys, same step pattern. 

For the record, a minor scale starting on the same note (C ) as the first scale looks like this:

Copy that step pattern beginning on any note and you get a new minor scale. yay! 

And if you want a name for your scale it’s the name of the first note plus the type of scale. So the scale we started with starts with the note named C and is a Major scale. So our scale is “C Major.” 

Okay so back to chords. Let's number the notes in the (C Major) scale. 

There are different kinds of cords but, again, musicians mostly focus on the Major and minor ones. To get a Major chord you use a Major scale and to get a minor chord you use a minor scale. 

So to actually get a chord. You start with note 1 in the scale and skip every other note on the way up. For a standard chord, just take the first three. (you can add the fourth one if you want to be jazzy)

So take the first three odd numbers (1 3 5) and put the notes together. 

There you go, that’s a chord.  Which cord? Just take the name of the scale and add chord to it. “C Major chord”  

Though they usually take out the “Major” bit when talking about Major chords for whatever reason. No other chords, just Major ones. So this can also be called a “C chord.” (abbreviated as C or CM. minor chords get a lowercase m so Cm= C minor) 

Now I know you can probably just use that last step pattern on any note and get a different Major chord, but scales are important! 

Also I didn’t remember that until I already wrote the scales thing and didn’t want to go back and erase it. So yay extra music knowledge.

I could go on about how chords and scales go together but I’m tired now so this is what you’re getting

I don’t often post original things here, but I made a ukulele instrumental based on the How to Train Your Dragon movies a while ago, and now there’s finally a tutorial!

Watch the original video, and if you want to learn it, there’s a link to the tutorial in the description. :)

heyyyy hello i am a person who maybe exists now, i think, i don’t know i’m kind of having trouble with that.

i didn’t plan on having a tumblr but i suddenly thought what am i even doing by being a trans youtuber and NOT having a tumblr so i now have a tumblr.

anyway if you are an individual who is interested in writing music, especially videogame-style music, check out my channel and you too will perhaps maybe be on your way to being your very own toby fox. this particular series has 6 parts to it and guides you through a full songwriting process and i will be posting more music tutorials as i make them.

Okay so the last article was about why I don't use DAW templates – how I prefer starting from scratch without any predefined workspace to save time – this time I'm going to tell you what I actually usually do when writing music.

Firstly, everything starts out of passion – a will to create. I don't need to make music to be able to put food on the table, or I don't need to release stuff because anyone says so. I do this simply because I enjoy it.

Right, I usually begin by setting up a few rules and limitations for myself to help define the track, and to drive creativity; it could be deciding on what expression I'm pursuing – tone and atmosphere, or what style of music I’m after.  It could also be about limiting the amount of sound sources/synths. Which equipment to use, e.g. compressors, limiters, saturation units etc.

Sometimes I write music with only a basic piano sound (those tracks tend to have a more traditional musical structure and rhythm).

But more often, I start by making a sound, a patch on a synth, and write music around it. I’m finding use for it, improvising a riff or musical motif and then building a context. This rough draft is done rather quickly, but may be reconstructed later on during the process of music making.

Here's a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action:

Make a patch, design a sound.

Sequence a loop using this patch.

Find a context, decide on what kind of track you want to do.

Program a 8-16 bar drum pattern, at this point, not too advanced.

Compose a rough structure.

Fill out the song, e.g. bassline, chords, harmonies.

Change and layer sounds, make new patches to fit the song as you go.

Repeat step 5-7 until you're happy with the result.

Make a final mix (this won't be final but mix the song as it was the last).

Do your mastering process.

Reference your track on several sound systems, both on hi-fi and on cheaper speakers (don't forget headphones and on different volume levels).