Writing music with consistent feel (maybe not the right word)

Harmony & Theory
#1

Hello All,

I’ve been playing guitar for about 20 years now and one thing that I’ve never been able to improve is my writing ability. 99% of the time I come up with something on the guitar that I like, it’s a one off that I can’t expand on. I have written the occasional complete song, but in 20 years, I can count those on one hand. It’s really a big part of the reason I don’t play much these days.

Sometime last year, I dedicated a lot of hours trying to expand on two particular pieces that are each 20-30 seconds long and that I’m very fond of. However, after all that time (at least 15+ hours each), I couldn’t add a single note to either piece that sounded/felt right. I read through this other forum post that seems to be in the same vein but nothing really clicked or was new to me. My problem isn’t necessarily writing more to the piece, but writing more that works. Like, I could play the same thing on different frets (changing some fingering to make it work) but it wouldn’t mesh together. I could add almost random notes that don’t necessarily sound bad… but again, it wouldn’t mesh and doesn’t lead to anything else that has the same sound/feel without just returning to the same melody.

I’m not sure it matters but some of my favorite things to play are Midsummer’s Daydream and A Minor Prelude by Rik Emmett. They flow together nicely but they’re not like a lot of music where vocals go over the top and it’s a plainly structured verse-chorus-bridge-etc.

For reference, here is one of those pieces that I’d like to expand on. I’m hoping there’s some aspect of music theory I can learn and exploit because trying to expand on it by ear/feel/random experimentation just doesn’t cut it for me.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated,
Josh

#2

I’m going through a similar thing in that I’m trying to make music again after almost 20 years. The last music I wrote was in a full band and I’m wanting to make an instrumental record now. I already have a drummer and a bassist lined up to record all of the songs that have yet to be written lol I have all of the backing tracks for 1 (EZDrummer 3 and Xpand bass) and the beginnings of another. That’s it….

Out of the 15 songs my last band wrote during our short time, 12 of them completely ignored the “verse, chorus, verse” type of thing. And I think most of my new stuff will as well. I’ve been bored of standard song structure forever and though I love thousands of songs that use it, I’ve never wanted to do it. Part of that is probably because I can’t, the other is that the idea of a chapter approach has always been my favorite to listen to.

It’s all in the transitions. I think with heavier music, and say what you want about it, but it’s the one style that it’s okay to forego that structure. At this point, it’s about that left to do to be original. With a lot of the newer bands, they’ll have great section after great section but their transitions are a little lacking. It’s makes the ones that do it well that much more interesting.

1 Like
#3

Like in another post on a similar topic, take a melody you came up with, and think of any way you can to come up with as many variations as you can of that one melody.

Then, what you can also do is accompany that melody with chords you think will compliment that melody really well.

There’s countless ways to ornament or dress up a melody like trills, mordents, enclosures, escape notes, vibrato, tremolo picking, passing tones, turns, displacing notes up or down an octave to change the contour of the melody, syncopation, grace notes, arpeggios, the possibilities are really up to you.

Also, there’s no shame in using popular song structures, and it helps to define the scaffolding you’re working with.

There’s also no shame in taking a popular and used chord progression and seeing what you can do to make it yours.

For example, Let’s take a very simple and common progression: vi-ii-V-I.

In F Major, that’s the chords: Dm-Gm-C-F.

Now, there’s several things we can do, just sticking to major keys.

We can change that V chord out for a V7 chord, which is going to create more tension, and thus, more pull to the I chord.

vi-ii-V7-I.

In the key of F Major, that’s the chords:

Dm-Gm-C7-F.

We can emphasize that V7 chord more by playing a V7sus4 chord before it to extend the tension.

vi-ii-V7sus4-V7-I.

With our key of F Major, that’s the chords:

Dm-Gm-C7sus4-C7-F.

We can emphasize that V chord even more by using a secondary dominant.

vi-ii-V7/V7-V7sus4-V7-I.

In F Major, that’s the chords:

Dm-Gm-G7-C7sus4-C7-F.

Or, we can use an augmented 6th chord to emphasize it.

vi-ii-Ger+6-V7sus4-V7-I.

In the key of F Major, that’s the chords:

Dm-Gm-Db7-C7sus4-C7-I.

Maybe, let’s use substitutions, and most often, it’s best to substitute a chord with a chord of a similar function.

So our vi-ii-V-I progression we can substitute the vi chord for a iii chord, the ii chord for a IV chord, and the V chord for a vii° chord.

iii-IV-vii°-I.

In our key of F Major, that’s the chords:

Am-Bb-E°-F.

Or maybe, we keep that vi-ii-V-I progression and substitute the V chord with a tritone substitution.

vi-ii-bII7-I.

In our key of F Major, that’s the chords:

Dm-Gm-Gb7-F.

Which sounds cool, because you have that chromatic step down, and functionally, Gb7 and C7 contain the same tritone and same pull towards F.

Or maybe, let’s play around chord voicings. Like, for a bit, we can start out in our progression, then for the last vi-ii-V-I part, let’s use inversions and secondary dominants for every chord, and let’s extend that V chord with a V7sus4 chord.

So a I-vi-I-V/vi-vi-V/ii-ii-V7/V7-V7sus4-V7-I.

Coming back to the I chord, we might want to use it in first inversion, so in our key of F Major, that’s:

F-Dm-F/A-A7-Dm-D7-Gm-G7-C7sus4-C7-F.

Which, if you think about it is our simple vi-ii-V-I progression, really.

Maybe we prefer minor keys, alright, let’s change it to a bVI-ii°-V-i progression in the parallel minor key, F Minor. That’d be the chords:

Db-G°-C-Fm.

We can do all of the tricks to dress up a chord progression however we wish.

Hell, you can even hang on the Tonic and not change if you want. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Basically, it’s all up to you!

But it all starts with a killer melody. You don’t need all these fancy chord tricks. They have a particular sound, and a particular feeling, so maybe try them out, and if you dig them, use them up!