How to Approach Writing Original Music
1. Finding the Landscape ⛰️
For many, writing original music is an appealing prospect. In some respects it is the epitome of what it means to be a musician and not only is there no correct way of doing it, but it is also an incredibly personal experience. The process of creating your own music is one of exploration, going in search of a particular mood or feeling that you want to create and an attempt at representing yourself or a story using the language of music.
While there are no correct way to write music, in the same way that we construct sentiment and meaning using the verbs, adjectives, nouns and tenses in our speech and writing, we can also construct sentiment and meaning using chords, phrasing, texture and tempo in music.
Michelangelo once said; “every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”. In much the same way, we can begin writing music by looking at the blank canvas, the vast array of options and the potential that there is within music and then begin to narrow down our options to find the song or piece within.
Throughout this article, I will ask a series of questions that may be useful for helping to unveil the sculpture within.
Question 1: What experience do you want to have, feel or share when playing your song or piece of music?
The first decision we need to make when writing a piece of music is what key our piece of music is going to be using (in the case of a more contemporary piece of music, maybe you don’t want to specify a key at all!). There are two main ways in which we can decide this. Many musicians associate certain keys with certain feelings, for example, some may feel that the key of F major has a lighter, warmer sound than the key of G major. However, many other musicians don’t feel any distinction between keys at all and think that there is no tangible difference when using one major scale (for example) or another major scale. If you aren’t particularly drawn to any key or scale, then start by finding a single chord that creates the mood that you intend and then base your piece of music on the key associated with this chord (e.g. if you have an F major chord - use the key of F major, if you have a C minor chord - use the key of C minor).
Finding a chord that creates the mood you desire can be difficult if you don’t have experience of different chords and what feelings you associate them with. So here is some chord types and some associated feelings that come along with them. As you gain experience with each chord type, their feeling will become a part of your musical vocabulary when you improvise or write music and you will come to associate them with how you experience them. It’s also important to note that the feeling chords provide can change depending on the context.
2. Surveying the Area 🔎
Once you have a key that you are going to use to write your music and potentially a chord that can get you started, we can make some more specific choices about which direction we would like to take our piece of music.
Within our key we have a choice of 7 triads that can be found within that key. For example in the key of C major we have the notes C D E F G A and B. Forming triads on each of these notes would look like this:
Chord 1: C E G (C major triad)
Chord 2: D F A (D minor triad)
Chord 3: E G B (E minor triad)
Chord 4: F A C (F major triad)
Chord 5: G B D (G major triad)
Chord 6: A C E (A minor triad)
Chord 7: B D F (B diminished triad)
These chords will form the basis of any chords we choose to use. However, we can also choose to add notes to these chords to get us closer to our desired sound.
Question 2: How stable do you want your piece of music to sound?
Adding dissonance to our chords can add a lot of character to our piece of music and can be a great way of creating some interesting sounds. We can think of dissonance in 4 levels.
Level 1: The most consonant form of chords are regular triad chords that fit within the scale, as shown in my C major example. These triads include major triads, minor triads and a diminished triads.
Level 2: The next level of dissonance would be to add some extra notes that are in the scale to these triad chords, we can do this by adding 7ths or playing add2 chords. These chords will give the chords a more specific feeling.
Level 3: Adding notes that don’t belong to the scale. This can add a lot of character but they can also start destabilising the piece of music, so adding notes to chords that don’t belong to the scale should be done through trial and error and really tuning into the quality of sound that it produces and how the chords feel.
Level 4: Using very dissonant chords. Dissonant chords will be chords that clash a lot, these might include consecutive notes on the piano or may be a series of chords that don’t relate to the scale or other chords very much at all. These can definitely have their place and have a very distinct quality of song that can be used for very specific effects.
Question 3: How big do you want your piece of music to sound?
When we write a piece of music, the amount of notes we use or the spread from low to high pitches will also determine how the piece of music is going to feel. A sparse sound can create a sense of vulnerability and isolation whereas a more dense sound can sound intense. Filling a large amount of the frequency range might sound grand or confident whereas using a small frequency range might sound more intimate and introverted.
3. Structure and Character 🗼
Question 4: How strongly would you like your piece of music to be narrated by a melody? (How much room for interpretation would you like there to be?)
A melody generally has the role of guiding a listener through the piece of music and narrating, punctuating and telling the story of the music. If a melody is using notes from the chords that it sits upon, then it will feel much more secure than when it ventures away from the notes within the chord and even less secure if it ventures away from notes in the scale! You can use this to your advantage to add tension and release that tension within your melody.
Some more ambient pieces of music may not include a melody at all and these types of music have much more room for interpretation as our ear isn’t being guided by the strength and weakness of the melody (or the lyrics of a vocal melody) and its relationship to the chords beneath it.
Question 5: Are you conforming to a style of music or creating a free flowing piece of music?
Typically in popular music we use a structure made up of verses, choruses and a bridge section. If you are hoping to write a pop song then it’s worth considering following a similar structure. Many styles also have structures that are common throughout the genre. Alternatively, you could be trying to tell a story with the piece of music and therefore want to design your own structure that fits the story that you are telling. In either case, it’s worth remembering that repetition in music helps to familiarise a listener with an idea and creates security in the music. If the music is constantly changing, then this can sound less stable as we never know what’s going to happen next!
4. Finding Your Sound 🔊
As I stated at the start of this post, creating music is a very personal process and I very much urge you to experiment and explore some of the ideas in this post, but feel free to make your own associations between features of music and how they feel to you. This is how you will find your own unique style of playing.
Every musician has an affinity with different styles of music and has something different to say with their music. One of the great things about music is that there is no wrong answers and when writing your own pieces of music there is no right or wrong…only what you hoped to produce and what you were able to produce, and bridging this gap comes with experimentation and finding musical ideas that resonate with you!
Matthew Cawood
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