Questions tagged [songwriting]
For questions about writing a song from end to start and the ideas and techniques behind it.
168 questions
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What do you call something that is repeated after every line in a song?
Examples I can think of is "Do the Creep" in The Creep by the Lonely Island, "You're in a loop" in the theme song of the show Looped, those notes after the first line of American ...
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Play and write piano music
How would someone write a 3/4 bar correctly if it included a 2 and 1/2 beat (tied or as one note) and an 8th note.
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Is it better or even possible to use one syllable for vocal improv (scatting) or is there a benefit to using multiple syllables?
I really want to be able to focus on just the pitch instead of lyrics of changing syllables when I do vocal improv. I’ve noticed that certain rhythms do not seem to flow as smoothly with one syllable ...
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Why does "Fall Again" by Michael Jackson/Robin Thicke/Walter Afanasieff sound kind of sad?
It's a romantic ballad, with lyrics like "I need you around for every day to start", but, to me at least, there is a sad undertone to it.
Is it just because he sings a lot of the song in a ...
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What is going on theory-wise with this passage of music?
A long time ago I wrote a song, and I am just now putting it through Hookpad to see how it works musically, and there’s this one part that I have no idea how it works but it does.
It goes like this:
C ...
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Improvising if I don't hear anything in my "mind's ear"?
Ever since I recently discovered my total aphantasia, I've been really curious as to whether or not I can achieve musical success. Part of this, at least to me, is creating music. So far I've learned (...
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Are 3 - 5 - 1 resolutions rare, or is it just me? [duplicate]
Asking this question feels stupid, but I used this 3 - 5 - 1 resolution in a song I'm making, and it sounds heartbreakingly beautiful, but when I search up this resolution online to see if anyone else ...
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Is adapting existing melodies a useful way to improve composition skill?
As the saying goes ‘immature talents borrow; mature ones steal’. When I write songs I normally start with chord changes and try to sing something over them, but this often results in uninteresting ...
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Wouldn’t there be an advantage to songwriting beginning with just one vowel or syllable and are there examples of this historically?
Isn’t this sort of the idea behind Solfege? Not focusing on the assigned pitch aspect of it right now, but the use of syllables with no intent to form words. Also, I am aware that there has been ...
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Can step-away structural tones have Neighbor tones?
As far as I understand, Neighbor tones(Upper and Lower tones) can only occur between repetition of structural tones as in the picture below.
but another picture suggests that between structure tones ...
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Is it possible to write a song “pitch first” or “key first”?
I believe there are 3 possible main elements to a song (not minding dynamics, articulation etc):
The Type of Sounds + their order & The Amount of Sounds (Vowels, Consonants & Syllables & ...
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If you write a song by doing the lyrics first isn’t that technically starting with time (rhythm) rather than with pitch? Is the term for it phrasing?
If you write a song by doing the lyrics first isn’t that technically starting with time (rhythm) rather than with pitch, and would the term for that be musical phrasing?
E.g, if you write out a 4 ...
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Writing a Bridge for a Song
I am considering a bridge in a song I am writing in the key of C. Is it customary to change keys by going up a whole step or half step?
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Writing songs on piano that are meant for a guitar-led band
I am a keyboardist in a rock band. I run into a problem a lot when introducing new songs to the rest of the band members. It might be my lack of skill as a piano player, I don't know. It's been ...
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Program similar to getharmony.net [closed]
getharmony.net was a very interesting web page where you could get the notes of a song with guitar through a spectogram and make a tab to interpret it. Unfortunately it is down, but I would like to ...
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I like to sing lyrics as I come up with them. What is this called?
As I write lyrics, I just start singing & turn them into full verses/choruses.
What is this called? melody?
What is my next step into turning them into pop songs?
Do i turn each syllable into ...
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How to Identify Song Genres
I write a fair bit of music in my spare time but I don't really listen to any all too much, so I'm not very familiar with what falls under what genres.
I've starting posting my work, but I dont really ...
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Do I need 88 keys to produce film soundtracks?
This question is motivated by the following reality:
The Brazillian real is a very depreciated currency compared with US dollar; 1 US dollar = 5 Reals.
I want to compose orchestrated soundtracks and ...
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Question on the formation of the Harmonic field in general
Given a key note, you can build up any sort of scale, for scales are just patterns of whole and half steps. The minor and major are examples.
Now, if the scale is the set of notes, the harmonic field ...
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Can my scale have two whole steps of distance?
I want to create scales. I would like to do that to create the most original music as possible.
Now, as a beginner, I don't see why the scales that I studied are composed just by whole steps (W) and ...
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The nature of rhyme in _Surrender_? [closed]
Consider the priceless Surrender, written by Rick Neilsen, 1977.
Mother told me, yes she told me
In a sense, the me/me rhymes.
I'd meet girls like you
She also told me stay away
You'll never know what ...
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The reading of a song: what a beginner in composition needs to pay attention when reading a song? [closed]
Firstly, I'm a beginner in composition and all of my songs were quite "intuitive". I'm at a stage where I really need to know music theory in order to produce better songs.
I) Introduction
...
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Doubt on scale shape creation and plagiarism
First of all,
-Tone := T
-Semi-Tone:= ST.
Suppose you have the well know C major scale pattern:
T T ST T T T ST
Well, this is just one example of what we can do in music: ...
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It is possible to get the drum progression only by listening?
I want to get the drum progression from this
song on youtube at the minute 3:24, but I am unable to get the things very clearly, I can hear a Hi Tom on it, but no much more?
It is possible to get the ...
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Comping over the Cmaj7 in "My Favorite Things"
I am wondering if someone can give advice on how to make comping over the Cmaj7 chord in bars 5 through 8 sound more interesting.
In the first 4 bars I play E-7 to F#-7 to E-7/G back to F#-7 and that ...
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Songwriting and music theory questions
In a 4/4 instrumental for example: If I have to put stressed syllables on the strong beats of the instrumental, What happens to the other beats that might get stressed acedentally since it's ...
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If The Beatles didn't know music theory, how did they construct whole songs flawlessly? [duplicate]
It is said that the 4 beatle never learned music theory, and is proven by many interviews from them. They are known for writing rock hits that had always hit the charts and the songs they had written ...
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How do song credits work on Spotify?
I haven't been able to figure out whether this question is on-topic, hopefully it is.
I have recently been wondering about how credits are given to the people who contributed to a song. To be more ...
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Did Agnetha and Anni-Frid always sing in unison? [closed]
I was listening to some ABBA songs that I hadn't paid much attention to since my childhood, and it occurred to me that, even though they are known for being a multi-singer group, they never really ...
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two alternatives for one song in a bookpart
I am making a music book where each song is on its own page. The code for each song is:
title = ...
music = ...
\bookpart {
\header {
title = \title
}
\score {
\music
\layout { }
}
...
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What exactly is the concept of returning to the one?
In riff writing, Tom Morello mentions his style with Tim Commerford was returning to the one. Is this basically just using the tonic chord as a drone? What exactly is meant by that? I believe I can ...
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Any tips on writing the structure of a song for a band which does not read music?
I am starting to play some pre-written songs with a band. These are written by the vocalist and we are trying to make a demo out of them. We (as a band) are having a hard time trying to remember he ...
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Why is (vocal) melody usually written in quarter notes? [closed]
While writing melody, I was trying to stretch short verses into 16 bars by using too many whole and half notes, and now I think it was equal to having tempo at half speed. Most melody is written with ...
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How "hard" to read is this rhythm? A rhythmic comparison
I've recently heard a rhythm that sounded like this
It seems slightly tricky to play it perfectly, so I wonder if I could somehow improve this writing to make it more natural and "readable"....
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Help! How would you write this rhythm (audio linked below)? [closed]
The audio source can be found here. I'm interested in the section highlighted in blue.
There is naturally some freedom in the artist's interpretation, but I would like to transcribe it in a relatively ...
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Does the starting note for a song have to be the starting note of its scale?
Does a scale always have to start off with the note it is named after? For example, the Dm scale is defgab♭cd`. If I wanted to sing a song in D minor, would I have to start with the note D? Or could ...
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What is it about the 9th that gets used so much over minor triads by songwriters? [closed]
I have come across an uncanny amount of examples in song analysis where the 9th (or 2nd) is used over a minor triad in an important way. I don't just mean as a passing tone but as a, beginning notes, ...
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Can transposing my song help me understand what's wrong with it?
When writing, recording, or making music on the computer, I write what sounds good to me. I listen to it 1000 times in the process, so I'm afraid that I end up losing my ability to judge it.
To ...
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What are the key ideas behind a good bassline?
Hello fellow musicians,
I trying to figure out how to write a good bassline to a pop-ish song (no specific genre, but think Selfless by The Strokes and Lost in Time by The Living Tombstone). I have ...
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Songwriting and improvisation HowTos
Are there any actual rules of how to write music? I mean there're guides everywhere in the Internet like "so you have scale, shapes of scale, chord progression over scale - let's go, do whatever ...
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How to write long melodic licks on Guitar?
Please share your method/approach to write long melodic licks/runs/sequences/phrases on your instrument(preferably guitar). I can write short melodic short phrases like in Blues, for example, but ...
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In your opinion, what song structure does Glasvegas's "Geraldine" follow?
I would argue that the song "Geraldine" by Glasvegas (embedded below) follows an AABA structure, as there is variation in the second A repeat; however, a melody from the original repeats ...
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What is the significance of learning ''cadences" in music composition?
What is the significance in understanding this concept if I wanted to write music?
If I understood cadences, then would that mean I would be able to structure my compositions?
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Finding my song's registration with a Performing Rights Organization
So, many years ago, I entered a songwriting competition. As a prerequisite, I had to register my song with a PRO. I know I did it, but I don't remember which PRO --it was either ASCAP or BMI.
I don't ...
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Is this chord progression really iii-V-I?
I've found a really cool chord progression that I've been playing on guitar that goes Bm-D-G-G. I'm trying to create a chorus to go with that chord progression, and I've settled that I'm playing in ...
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Songwriting and Chord Progressions like Elton John
I know this might be a weird question, but bear with me. Recently I've been listening and analyzing Elton John's songs. I really loved the songwriting, chord progressions and chord voicing. In an ...
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A vocalist musician beginner: hearing song structure
How to tell the parts of a song when I hear a beat?
I mean if I find a beat that I love, how can I tell in which seconds the chorus, verses,bridge...?
For example, what distinguishes the different ...
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What key does the chord progression E, D, C#, B, E, D, C#, G belong to?
I noticed while playing guitar recently that the chords E, D, C#, B, and then E, D, C#, G sound good together although to my knowledge those chords can’t be in the same key because of the E and the C#....
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Is there a name for this kind of a transition in songs?
In ALL ABOUT THAT BASE parody (Star Wars Parody - Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass), there's a certain transition / change near the linked time after "places" (the video has lyrics shown)...
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How to practice hearing what other people hear and techniques to detect I'm diverging
I'm not hearing sound objectively.
For example when I produce music, even after the final mixdown, I think my brain is actually adding things that aren't objectively there. Not entire instruments and ...
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