Ableton Forum

But the classical stuff is all Vai as well...

hey guys thanks again for your input. you are very helpful.

i played my guitar and put it in ableton and i am really happy with the results which is really surprising.


i just wondered if some of you could give me some advice on structure...

i am playing a little melody with about 5 chords over and over again. obviously that is gonna get boring... so would you be able to recommend things i could do with it.

i.e if you take a really basic structure... would the intro comprise of the same chords, but with a different melody, what would you change for the chorus? how do you rise it to a crescendo?

now i know there is not one set way to make a song but i have real mental blocks as some of you may know. and if you could just exlpain some really basic structures it would really help me a lot.

thanks.

Thanks Silverlulu for asking those questions, I'm in the same boat, some very helpful answers there!

And thanks to zsazsa for the links.

And another thanks to all for some great tips & advice.

You say you have a chord change of five chords you play over and over again, so it get's boring after some time. Well, then you should try to invent a second part with different chord changes. Try to shuffle the chords, or pick only two or three of them in a different order. now you have a second part.

Jazz songs often have a scheme like this

A A B A

(Two verses, one chorus, then another verse - and then repeat) - if you listen to standard jazz tunes you will find this nearly everywhere. After one time playing AABA with the whole group playing the melody in a nice arrangement the solos start. Each solist plays a complete AABA section. The last AABA section contains the whole group playing the melody again.

Popmusic (as in Beatles) often has a scheme like

Verse 1
Chorus
Verse 2
Chorus
C-part (or middle 8 - 8 bars of a different chord change)
Verse 3
Chorus, repeating until end ...


Electronic dance music typically has just one chord-change that loops over and over, and all 8 or 16 bas another element gets added or muted. Then there might be a breakdown where everything but one lement stops and then builds up for a final.


But those are schemes that you do not necessarily have to use for your own songwriting. Often enough it gets interesting when you break with those schemes.

+1 for the above.

Also, understand what chords are available to you in the key you are playing in. This is the starting point for working out your changes, middle 8, chorus etc.

here's some other tricks, cliched or not:

Key change
Borrowing chords from parallel minor key
timely use of recognised cadences, like IV V I and ii V I to resolve.
Modal playing over drones

One of the strongest methods to use is simply using the same chords but change the order as PepeZ said. So many great songs have been written that way just using three chords and moving the melody over the top.

both of you are total legends...

pep that was exactly the kind of thing i was looking for! thank you!

UK russ you have put a sexy cherry on top. i think i'll learn some more about music theory as well.

thank you very much! YES!!!!