Hey everyone. I wanted to show you a demo that I wrote a short while ago and talk a bit about how you can make your own with guitar, bass, and drums. This is a track I made to have fun with variations of “Four Chords” progressions that goes from dark to hopeful. Let’s give it a listen then discuss it.
Listen here:
How did I write this?
I started out with the clean guitar part all the way through and was kind of treating it as a guitar and writing exercise playing lines and inversions through typical chords in an effort to just reach the solo section so I could have some fun.
Here are the basic chords and the form for the song:
- Intro: Em | C | Am | D | Em | C | Am | D |
- Verse: Em | C | Am | D | repeat 3 times | Em | C | Am | Bm |
- Prechorus: C | D | Bm | Em | C | Am | Bm | C, D/F# |
- Chorus: G | D | Em | C | repeat | G | D/F# | Em | C | Bm | C | G | D/F# |
- Post chorus: Bm7/E, Em | Em | repeat 2 times | Bm, C | C |
- Verse: Em | C | Am | D | repeat
- Prechorus 2: Em | C | Am | D/F# | Em, Bm | Em, Bm || G | Bm | G | D |
- Chorus: Same as first
- Post Chorus: Bm7/E, Em | Em | repeat 2 times | Bm | C, D |
- Solo: G | G | D | D | Em | Em | C| C | G | G | Bm7 | Bm7 | Em | D | C | C || repeat
- Chorus: Same as before but with distortion
- Post chorus: Same as first time through
In the second verse on the guitar I worked a melody into the guitar line that moves diatonically from G down to A and back up again over the course of 4 bars. Little things like that can be fun to use as exercises so you can figure out what kinds of notes fit against each chord and what kinds of lines you can work into a simple chord progression while keeping it musical. It also gives you a good chance to practice finger dexterity and navigating the fretboard.
The prechoruses differ in length and material because, why not? It doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t, be a copy paste scenario where you just repeat the same thing over and over. This allows a change of tone in the music and also forces you to make more/different material that still fits the theme of the composition.
The chorus is a pretty typical endeavour. Chords are 1 | 5 | 6 | 4 and work their way through in a pretty safe fashion. There are some finger stretches and other examples where, instead of a melody line moving through a chord, the bass note changes while the rest of the chord stays the same. Again, just more little things to work on finger dexterity.
As far as the drums and bass go; I always write my drums and bass in Guitar Pro then export those to Logic Pro and add plugins to them. Since I live in an apartment, I can’t really have my own drum set, even electronic. Luckily there are great plugins out there like EZDrummer etc. that you can use. For bass, I record myself playing and also use a plugin. The plugin has a better tone because I don’t have a very good bass and never change the strings because they’re $1,234,567.89 for a new set.
The guitar solo was actually a first take improvisation. I recorded a few dozen takes after that but always came back to the first one. That’s a very common thing with improvisational solos, you end up coming back to or working off of the first one 99% of the time.
Parting thoughts
To summarize all of this: just write the music to a form typical for a song and don’t add lyrics.
That’s about it. This is just a fun tune that isn’t a song because it doesn’t have lyrics/singing. I’ll probably release this one with vocals at some point, but I like the music as it is without the need for any singing.
Thanks for your time. If you want to learn more then contact me here, email me here, or leave a comment. I teach a lot more in depth in lessons and can go through everything from the beginning to the end of the songwriting process and how to improve your chops/practice routine to get there. The thing is, you have to put in the work. You can have every tool at your disposal, but you don’t put in the effort to use them then you’re just wasting your time. Time is precious. Use it wisely.
Take care, be kind to yourself, and have an amazing rest of your week.
All the best,
– Matt