Creating the musical composition takes, patience, experimentation, and a desire to improve. This page will hopefully show all three. I am going to cover what decisions I made and why I made them, the mechanics of what I’m doing, what direction I hope to go in, and much more.
To kick things off I knew I wanted a very simple drumbeat to keep me in time and to keep the song moving, I played around with tempos but decided that 105BPM suited me and how I felt. The drumbeat consisted of a very simple kick and snare which had room for expansion but provided a solid foundation.
While watching an interesting video by Rachel Collier about this type of performance, I saw her use a little salt shaker as part of a percussive loop. I really quite liked this sound and so I have used a sample of a shaker in my song.
One thing I played around with instead of that shaker was to actually just scratch one of the bass’ strings to a rhythm, it is faint here but if you listen carefully you can make it out. I figured it would be an interesting use of the bass that could potentially sound quite cool, unfortunately I don’t believe it fits the song so it won’t be making it any further than this. Good to try however!
I made two mistakes here, the first was to not boost the scratch in the mix so that it is easily audible, the second was to delete the track and original file which prevents me from going back to it easily. I have learnt from this and I will do my best to remember not to repeat those errors.
After spending some time with this drum loop, I found it to be a little slow compared to the melody I had in mind, so I figured out what tempo the melody was and sped up the percussion to 120BPM instead, making a more active song that fit my melody.
These days I am predominantly a bassist and so for instruments I can actually play outside of MIDI, this is where I started! I had a mess around with some notes and some rhythms and landed on a little riff that I thought was in the D Major key. Technically, I wasn’t wrong. But if we are to be more accurate in regards to music theory, I was actually in the relative minor key of B Minor; all of the notes in the key are the same but as I lead with B, that becomes the tonic and the “home” note (and Bm becomes the tonic chord when I come to add keys). This also changes the tonality from a major key to a minor key; if we are to look at it from a basic standpoint, this changes the song to make it a little more gloomy perhaps. I believe that this would work thematically within my piece, as the subject matter can touch on some melancholy themes. This helped me understand a bit more about the song and I am grateful to have learnt about this as I enjoy finding out more and more about theory.
After listening back to this, I realised that each note is played at the same time as each drum hit – which is rather boring. To rectify this, I altered the rhythm and so that only some of the notes match the drums, making for a more interesting and somewhat groovier bass line.
Combining my quickened drums with my rethought bass line gives us what I think is an excellent start; it is simple and easy to play but offers a decent amount for the listener to enjoy. Plenty to add yet, however.
What I thought to add here was a small extra bassline playing quarter notes using B, A, and G notes to create a secondary line that matches the ascent and descent of the first bassline. It will be further back in the mix but adds a bit more momentum and fills empty spaces that could appear.
Having just one section would get a little tedious, not only for the audience but for myself who has to listen to and perform the piece over and over, so I came up with a second bassline to groove up the last half. I originally had many more notes in the first version but Lewis recommended I removed some to make it a touch more interesting, which I tried and I think it was successful, so I stuck with the altered version.
By this point I was very pleased with Section A but it felt rather empty, my solution here was to add keys. In the spirit of synthpop I opted for synths, clearly. I played around a few chords in the key of Bm and landed on a few chords which I believed worked quite well, the progression I made was somewhat unusual in that it was i-iv-i-VI. All minor chords until the last, which is a major, this makes for a chord progression that ends with a bit more of a lift. The below image was a very helpful guide in figuring out what chords I should begin looking at.
Whilst this progression sounded fine, it felt somewhat lacking and I couldn’t play it easily, which is something I was looking for as I’m not an experienced pianist. My solution to this was to play around with inversions. Inversions occur when you take the 1st, the 3rd, and the 5th chords (at a minimum) and move at least one of them to a different position to give a new colour to the chord. I started with a Bm and was switching to an F♯m, those two chords share and F♯ so I anchored around that, moving the A and the C♯ to a lower octave. Then for the second half of my progression I used a very popular method, which is to keep the bass note the same when you change chords as this creates a smoother transition between them. Here, I return to Bmin but as I switch to G/B, I am only moving one finger from F♯ to G, changing the chord subtly but it remains noticeable enough to make a difference. M final chord progression ended as Bm > F#m/A > Bm > G/B. Learning about inversions was fascinating to me and really helped me understand chords much better; I feel that it makes the composition of my track more interesting and even helped me to play it live with ease, as I’m hardly moving my hand position play it.
At this stage, I had realised that the new basslines didn’t fit the melody I wanted to use for section B, so they had to be scrapped. I will be keeping them for possible use in future projects however, as I still do enjoy them. I will be thinking of where to go with section B’s bassline.
Here I introduced a small guitar riff, it is my first guitar riff so it wasn’t out of this world but I felt it could’ve been a nice addition to the song. What I intended to do was to have two bars of vocals and two bars of the riff, to keep the first section interesting and not overly repetitive. However, after listening back to it a few times, I decided that it didn’t quite fit into the sound I was aiming for so it was a nice experiment but not suitable sadly.
I then also introduced a new bassline for section B which followed the melody I had in mind really closely. This would mean that I had help staying in time when performing vocals, and would create greater cohesion between two points of the composition. A different arrangement of the same bassline was also attempted, using what Lewis had mentioned before, by taking out some notes and also changing the timing ever so slightly, however I felt it became too much and I preferred the simplicity of the original line.
Lastly, I also brought in a small arpeggio for the final portion of the song, just to keep things interesting and to make use of the guitar, which I knew I wanted to have at some point. This feels like the most suitable place for it to appear and the arpeggio adds a really nice high end to an otherwise fairly low composition. The arpeggio uses the notes that make up a B chord, to fit in with the rest of my song.
I was fairly happy with how my composition had evolved and where I was at by this point, but I felt that my final verse needed a bit of extra spice which came around in the form of adding a crash cymbal to build up the energy. This will hopefully add to the atmosphere and get the audience involved a little as the final few moments come around in the performance.
As I headed into the final stage of production, I wanted to arrange my composition in a way that reflects how I would actually construct it on stage. To do this, I introduced each instrument one-by-one in the same order that I’ll be playing them live, before dropping some out in the middle phase, and then reintroducing different tracks in the same way as the first section. The order I would be playing things in this arrangement is as follows:
- Section A: add drums, shaker, first bassline, secondary bassline, keys
- Transition stage: remove both basslines
- Section B: add bassline, guitar arpeggio, cymbals
After completing Stage 4, I began rehearsals. During rehearsals I got valuable feedback from those around me with two distinct differences between Stage 4 and what will eventually be performed on the night.
The first change is in relation to my guitar arpeggio as I was accidentally creating dissonance. While I am a fan of dissonance, it needs to fit thematically and sonically, an argument could be made for it to fit with the themes within my lyrics but it just doesn’t sound right when listening to it, unfortunately. The arpeggio I was using was that of a B Major chord (B, D♯, F♯) so I was recommended to change it to that of a B Minor chord. This was a mistake on my part as I didn’t realise quite what I was playing in relation to the key signature of my piece – in future I will just take a bit more time to think over these things so I actually know what I am playing. Anyway, to create a minor chord you flatten the third note of the scale, meaning the D# changed to a D. I also moved the position of where I played the chord, so it was easier to play. Now, we no longer have unwanted dissonance between a B Major chord on guitar and a B minor chord on the keys (and a bassline using the B Minor scale).
One minor change that I should note is the removal of the cymbals. I found that, when performing, it was harder than I anticipated to perform vocals and also introduce a new drum pattern, even one as simple as the one I had planned. I would make mistakes with the timing so I decided to cut it.
The second major change comes in how I arrange the song. What I’ve decided to do for the showcase is to use the Ableton Push 2 more effectively when it comes to triggering things and removing them. After section A is completed and we move into the transition, I will also be taking out the shaker to leave just drums and keys, and then reintroducing it to signal the start of section B. Then, at the end of the song, I will use it to remove the shaker and bass, with drums, keys, and guitar remaining. What I plan to do here is take out the drums first, then the keys, and I will finish by using the inbuilt mixer on the Push to fade out the guitar arpeggio. I believe this will make for a much smoother finale and look much more professional than simply ending it somewhat abruptly.
Final Thoughts
The first thing I can improve is my understanding of music theory, as this is hugely important for how I like to compose. I appreciate theory very much and, though I lack understanding in many areas, I try my best to apply it where possible. What I will be doing in the future is committing more time to learning theory to give me the tools to compose more efficiently and effectively.
I also believe that I can improve with my experimentation and the time I dedicate to creating the piece. For the most part, once I had an idea that worked, I stuck with it. The only major thing to be cut was the original bassline for section B, although that was all that was in the section at the time, so during this entire process I had no major restructures. This isn’t something I aim for but I feel that it could show a lack of experimentation over the course of the project; next time I take on something like this I will still try new things, even when I have something that works well already.
Alternatively to the first point, I think I applied my preexisting knowledge well and for the brand new pieces of information, I took them onboard and used them to good effect when composing the song. For example, when I was learning about inversions on the keyboard, I took it and ran, using them to improve the sound of my song and making it easier for me to play.
I also believe that I created a rather interesting track when given limitations I haven’t worked within before, and technology I haven’t used before. I had never attempted a looping project before so composing with the knowledge that everything you do will be looped indefinitely is somewhat intimidating at first, as it could be tough to keep things interesting. However, I feel confident that I achieved that. The way I introduced and removed certain instruments at certain points felt very effective, so I am pleased with how I handled that. I was also composing a song to perform live, playing all the instruments, so I had to make sure I didn’t compose anything too complicated for me to actually play. This is a limitation that didn’t restrict me too much, but where it did restrict me, I believe I worked well within it; the simplicity of what I played had a key role in how successful the song was as it never became overbearing and had a nice flow to it.
Overall, I am really pleased with the way I handled my composition! Yes, I made mistakes along the way but that is simply part of the creative process. I have already learnt plenty from said mistakes and they will only improve future work. Whilst the song could’ve been better, and it could’ve sounded a bit closer to that original synth pop brief, I am pleased, the process is what I’m focusing on here and I firmly believe that that went well.