Write Something Simple

Each week I've been asking my Patrons to write some music! In my opinion, writing music is the key to loving and learning music your whole life. Of course it's valuable to learn songs, practice technique, learn theory, etc - but writing music is where all the magic happens. Thats when you step into ownership. The feeling of "I made this" is just such a powerful feeling.

This feeling is so powerful, that I think the more you write, the more you want to understand how music works and the more inspired you are to work on all the tedious things. Writing music gives you a context for practice.

You don't have to write music with the intention of being a frontman, a songwriter, a singer, etc. All of those things are more specific than just writing music. If you want to be a bass player, a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarists - etc - WRITING MUSIC HELPS WITH ALL OF THOSE SKILLS.

In any band, you'll be more valuable if you can write music - even if that just means writing your own parts. Even if you want to play other people's music for the rest of your life, being able to write music will still make you a more flexible player.

If you want to learn to speak a second language, the ultimate goal is to able to say what's on your mind as freely as possible. Writing music is kind of like that, the more you write, the more you'll be able to write the way you want and find the kinds of sounds you want.

Write Anything!

This week I've been in the studio with my band! We've already worked on four new songs and I'm very excited. So excited, in fact, that I forgot to post this week's community challenge.

Since I'm in the studio writing all day I thought it would be fun to give you the opportunity to write anything you want.

The rules here are incredibly straight forward: Write something new after reading this post.

You're welcome to write just a melody, just a chord progression, just a riff, just a bassline, etc - it doesn't have to be a complete song. It doesn't have to be recorded with fancy software. But if you want to write a whole song with drums, guitar, bass, etc, you're more than welcome.

Write A Melody Over One Chord

I was inspired by the Community Song Analysis Challenge Rock Steady, because the verse is mainly a one-chord vamp. Stevie Wonder's Superstition also has a verse with just one chord!

For this assignment, you're free to write a whole song where one section (either verse, chorus, intro, etc) only contains one chord with a melody over the top.

This melody could be a riff or a melodic line. As long as there is a melody (something like ABAC) over a progression that consists of one chord in some section of the song, you're doing it right!

Write A Riff

A riff is essentially just a melody. As usual, for melody writing lessons, check out MTM 17, 18 & 19for melody making basics.

Generally, when I think of a riff, I think of an intro riff like in MGMT's Kids or The Black Keys I Got Mine but a riff can also be used in place of (or alongside) the chords in a song, like in the verse of the Beatle's Daytripper, or as a riff/chords combo like in Seven Nation Army.

There are other uses for riffs, but try to focus on this type of riff for this exercise! Generally, a riff used for an intro or as a chord replacement has simple, memorable phrasing. If it gets too fancy or the phrases get too long, it might not have that anthemic effect. Also, this is a great opportunity to try a phrase scheme like ABAC or AABC or ABCC.

As usual, your riff can be an on-the-fly 8 second phone recording or part of a full fledged, multi-layered song recording in your DAW. Whatever you have time for. Whatever doesn't stress you out. The idea is to have fun!

Write something sparse

Sometimes I write a challenge involving a specific music theory concept and sometimes I write a more vague challenge. This one is in the second camp.

The dictionary definition of sparse is "having widely spaced intervals" but that might seem too specific to music so lets define sparse this way:

Sparse music:
1. gives room for empty space
2. favors utility and simplicity over ornamentation and "extra" notes

Ways to approach this challenge (you could focus on one or two or all of these things)

Tonal sparseness:
In tonality, sparseness could mean vagueness. Like, you could barely provide enough information to figure out what key you're in. For example, the guitar could play just roots, or roots and thirds. Or if you're playing bass on your track, the bass could play roots and the guitar could just play fifths or thirds and fifths. If you're sticking to just guitar, you could think of spread out chords and only playing the minimum number of strings possible.

Rhythmic sparseness:
Instead of strumming the entire time, you could try strumming once at the beginning of the measure. Or doing something like ::root strum root root root:: where you're keeping rhythm with just the root note and occasionally (maybe once a measure?) revealing the chord. This might be a fun opportunity to mess with a pedal tone (keeping the same bass note going with different chords over the top) as well, since it keeps things sparse too.

Aesthetic Sparseness:
You are welcome to explore your own ways of being sparse, wether thats a guitar tone that feels sparse, lyrical content that feels sparse, or some other part of the song that feels sparse. If you've got other ideas, go for it!

Write something in the key of Eb Major

You can write anything you want! Sad, happy, weird, folk, rock - I don't care! As long as it's in the key of Eb Major, anything is welcome.

As usual, keep in mind that what you write can be really fancy using a DAW or full blown recording studio OR you can write a partial, half-baked concept that takes 5 seconds to play into your voice memos on your phone. I'll gladly accept both extremes and everything in between because this isn't about performance, but about being creative.

Along with the audio of your creation, please write a little explanation of what you've written and why you're convinced it's in the key of Eb.

Post your creations to THE COMMUNITY FORUM

All you need to know is:

A) how to make an Eb major scale (Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb)
B) how to turn that scale into a set of chords

I = Eb Maj
ii = Fm
iii = Gm
IV = Ab Maj
V = Bb Maj
vi = Cm
vii° = D°

From there you can write a chord progression, and create a melody over it if you like.

For those of you who want to get a little fancier (and maybe apply some of the things you've learned from the first Community Song Analysis) I'd happily accept some mixolydian modal stuff in your Eb Major composition.