Music Composition 101

Writer's Block :

Rule #1 : There are no Rules. So stop being a wimp and just do anything. It'll lead somewhere and that is a good thing, irrespective of whether the result is right or wrong. Either way you win.

I spent a year with my band doing nothing but spontaneous composition. We said from the outset that our goal was to compose and do a basic recording of 4 songs per night and our hours were 7 to 10pm a few times per week. At the end of the year we had 160 songs. We achieved our goal and our worst night was one song. Were they any good ? Well that depends on your frame of reference.

Here are some of the techniques I used :

I wrote lyrics at work and walked in with a basic idea
I asked the drummer (who wouldn't know a chord if it bit him) for any part of the alphabet between A and G and used that as the chord from which to work.
I asked the drummer to play his favourite drum-beat. (drummers are nuts so the result was always different).
I would ask the guys for their favourite quote and build a lyric off that.
I would chat before we started and listen to what was being said and build a song off the conversation that was going on.
I would play a chord at random and ask someone who wasn't the lead singer to sing the first melody that came to mind.
I would ask any non-pianist to turn their back to the piano and grab any cluster of 3 notes and use that as the starting chord.
I would ask the bassist to jam with the drummer and choose a phrase to be a lick to build a song from.
When I ran I used to invent rhythms or bass lines that fell into the meter of the running.
I had a melody in my head all day that needed to be recorded.
We used open music books and rip off the chords sequences and compose entirely new melodies.
I would open a book of photographs and make up a story or commentary based on what I saw in a picture.
I would make up a ridiculous "rule" and compose within those constraints. For Example : "This song will only have one chord in it and and the drummer has to improvise continuously while the guitarist grabs random clusters of notes based on the scale of the chord and the bassist has to stick to only 3 notes played metronomically yet the melody that is sung has to be pretty and not contain words of more than 3-syllables and it has to have a verse, chorus and middle-8 which has to be carried entirely by the vocalist."

...in other words, it doesn't matter where one starts just so long as you're dedicated to starting and completing the task at hand. It also doesn't matter where it leads. If you desperately want to compose a Metal song but everything comes out sounding Country then go with it. Who knows, perhaps you have a great Country song in you ? No one says it has to be you that sings the song. After all, this is about composition.

If one uses these block-breaking techniques (many composers use them and other techniques even more bizarre) then one will land up composing in many genres. At this point one will realise that all genres have basic rules and this is a great learning curve. It is also important to get out of the syndrome that affects a lot of aspirant composers. i.e...waiting for "Divine Inspiration". That moment where a lightning bolt hits the cranium and you've just channeled the next Platinum Seller. Waiting for this to happen is a sure way of becoming an alcoholic. It will also kill your self-confidence because you can't bottle those magical moments.

What is the Classic Pop Song Format ?

Verse, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Middle Eight, Chorus, Chorus...and fade to black, is about as close an anything to something that can be called "standard". I usually set out the template without the Middle Eight and only put it in as a cherry on top. I believe a song should be able to stand without it. In spite of this there are No Rules.

Most Western music is based on variations of the I-IV-V sequence. It's fundamental to most African, Latin American, European, and North American Music.

If you're in the scale of C major then C = I, F = IV and G = V. (by implication, II = D and IIm = Dm) I've heard it called the Nashville Number System and I've always referred to it as such in spite of the fact that it must pre-date that and have some correct classical reference. So, if you're playing a 12-bar boogie it would be, in bars, C-C-C-C-F-F-C-C-G-F-C-G, or I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-IV-I-V. The elegance of this is that it doesn't matter where one starts because one can communicate a number to a non-schooled player and transpose without too much problem. One just moves everything relative to the root.

So if one is trying to start out as a novice composer then using the basic I-IV-V variations and restricting oneself to them is a good discipline.

When you get more adventurous you can use Minor substitutions. Every Major scale is the equivalent of a Minor scale. i.e. the same notes are played but a different starting point is used. For example ; the white notes on a piano are C Major scale when started at C but are the A Minor scale when started at A. (what scale would it be when started at G ?) Sooooo...when composing a song and you figure the chords are sounding a little bland you could, under some circumstances, substitute the Relative Minor chord. For Example. C-F-G could become C-F-Em, or Am-F-G, C-Dm-G et..ad nauseum. Similarly, one can split the sequence and modulate a little ; the C-F-G can become a standard doo-wop sequence of C-Am-Dm-G. But, at heart, it is still C-F-G that one is playing. That should keep you busy for a while and millions have been made on less theory than that. It is a small step from there into other more interesting chord substitutions and progressions. Nevertheless, an interesting modulation does not a hit make.

Here's a fun one : Play the scale of C major over a chord progression that is Em-F-G-Am. It will sound "Spanish".

Where is the Money ?

The tune is everything. In terms of copyright the words are just as important but people don't hum words in the shower or whistle them in the street. Your "hook" is the melody and it should be as memorable as is possible if one wants to sell the song. And even more important if you want the tune to be generating income when you're old and grey. Any fool can hype crap into the charts. But songs with legs are what composition is all about.

If you have a great tune then put it into the chorus so that it gets as much exposure as it can. It's no use having a great hook that flies by in part of a verse and never re-appears again. What you ultimately really want is a song that is strong from beginning to end, and not something that is padded out by the verses.

What is the test of a good tune ? This would be if you could sing just the tune to someone without a backing and it makes sense, and is memorable, and the person actually likes it. I test all my tunes out with only a guitar and voice. If it doesn't hold together like that then it is obviously not worth it.

It is no use making excuses and saying "Oh, but the bass-riff makes it all happen !" or "Wait until you hear the backing arrangement." You don't have The Tune. Face it and move on. Another test of a good tune is to imagine with different instrumentation. For example : Imagine the tune "Yesterday" played by a string quartet. It works, doesn't it ? That's because it's an awesomely good tune. Most people when asked to hum or whistle "Yesterday" can get through the entire tune without getting any of the notes wrong. Even if they haven't heard it in years. It also works as a Jazz or Country tune.

Great tunes are not constrained to genre. So all those "Country" tunes you've been writing will work as Metal if they were worth a damn.

It's a great party trick to see how many songs can withstand a change in genre or instrumentation. I can imagine "Stairway to Heaven" played on harmonica around the campfire at the end of a cattle-drive in Texas right now. Rolf Harris recently reworked it as Reggae.

A lot of musos can't figure out why their "great" tunes just don't grab the imagination after they've composed it on guitar or piano. The error here is usually that they'll create a tune that spans a few octaves. Big Mistake. Most people have about an octave they can work with if they need to hum or sing. Outside of that and they'll strain and feel like an idiot at the Karaoke Bar. Which is why one doesn't find much call for Operatic backing on Karaoke machines. There's a good reason that Pavarotti gets the bucks he does.

If, on the other hand, one had such a monstrous tune and needed to arrange it for a rock band with a lead singer of limited range then one of my tricks is to get the harmony singers to take the high part of the tune when it is needed as the lead singer either drops to the lower octave or takes the harmony of the "lead" melody which is now being carried by the backing singers. (A real bugger is if the listener's ears then follows the tune of the lead singer, who is singing the "wrong" tune.)

Words

If you're Bob Dylan you'll be taken seriously as a poet by the man in the street. "Real" poets find this irritating. I wouldn't know a real poem from doggy-doo. So I land up seeing everything as rhyming fucklets.

The first big mistake writers make is trying to get their songs to "make sense". Forget it, people will read into what you're saying what they want to hear. They are more likely to be triggered by the attitude with which you say something than the actual words being used. Also, the musical backing will colour their perception.

I've used random collections of phrases and people found that it made sense to them. If you read the words to some of the songs on David Bowie's "Lodger" album you'll find he sometimes uses words purely for phonetic reasons. He has also used "cut-ups" as a method. (A technique once used by William Burroughs I believe.) Recently he created a software program that'll generate random rhymes out of phrases he likes. These are all radical techniques and a way to get past writer's block.

My favourite technique is to adopt a persona with a vocal style to match. Then I'll "be" that person while writing and singing the song. These tend to be songs of a narrative type.

There is a tendency at first get one's songs to rhyme too much. This can land up being very sing-songy and make one's songs sound like nursery rhymes. Truthfully, it can be really boring to hear. Unexpected rhymes and meters can help a song to breath.

The man in the street often believes that good songs are from the heart and that the writer suffered in the process. If only they knew. Where "from the heart" counts is in the vocal performance. Take, for example, the difference in performance between Ringo's performance of "With a little help from my friends" and Joe Cocker's version. The song was originally composed as a "throwaway" for Ringo to sing but Joe Cocker sang it as if he meant every word. His passionate rendition of it at Woodstock made his entire career.

Hits have been made out of almost every style of arrangement but the truth of the matter is that the songs with the longest legs are almost always composed in a "classic" style and conform to the pop template. So one's choice is always between creating something that might fit the fashion of the day and perhaps have a one-hit wonder or stick to the discipline of verses and choruses and middle-eights.

Something to bear in mind

The songs that sell the best are positive and uplifting and fun. They are also the rarest types of songs because one is always driven to write when one is feeling down. If you are REALLY HAPPY the odds are that you'll be in bed with someone or at the beach and not inclined to write a damn thing.

What are the technical specs behind a Happy Song ? Well, they tend to be written with major chords. There won't be too many chords. They'll have simple, catchy, melodies in both verse and chorus. And, most difficult of all, these will be ascending melodies. It's a real bugger to try and write that way when all one wants to do it is suck on another bottle of cough mixture and curl up into a foetal position.

Nevertheless, interesting things can result if you're stuck with depressing lyrics but compose in a more "happy" style. See, for example, what John Lennon did with "Help!". The lyrics are depressing and were composed while he was feeling bad but he packaged it in a more positive and "poppy" arrangement. And it became a hit. What got people off was the memorable tune that would have accommodated almost any type of lyric.

A Composer's most valuable Tool

...is a portable recording device. Record all your basic ideas. Don't get hung up on completing everything because fragments that are good tunes or lyrics or concepts can always be used later. Let your brain mull it over for a bit while you sleep.

Mostly, one should be recording everything that you think is a song. Put it away and listen to it a week later after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. If it sounds good at that point then you're on to something. Trust me, any weaknesses will stick out like a sore thumb if you've left some distance between initial conception and the re-listen. In other words, don't always be in a rush to immerse yourself until you are certain. There's nothing worse than spending your time or your band's rehearsal time on what turns out to be a turkey when people first hear it in public.