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Song 3 Analysis - Melodies and Arrangement

OK. Now, we're going to have a look at the melodies in this track, Angel Prey. And the way I wrote the melodies was thinking, first of all, what are the notes in the chord? So I know notes in these chords are basically based around a G minor. So it's a G minor scale, but we're kind of changing the different chords, but it all fits in G minor. There's no modulation, I believe all the melodies just fit in G minor. There's no real clashing notes here. But I'm also thinking, what could I write? That's melodic. What can I write? That's catchy. What can I write the listener will enjoy to listen to? So it's not just all over the place, it's quite repetitive, but it's also, I think it's quite interesting because if it's too repetitive, too predictable, I do think it can sound a bit cheesy. It can sound a bit boring. So I want to create a few different melodies that lock in with each other and a few different elements. This track is very heavily arranged. There's quite a lot going on. It's only...

really based around four chords and a few different melodies, but it's the way of putting it together. Let's find a few of these melodies and explain how I actually wrote this. So you can hear that. There's this one melody here, then there's another melody that's lower that believes kind of the same. Let's try and find this. So we've got this base melody really. And then locking in with this higher melody. So first of all, I play this just to kind of h to in. So you know what's gonna happen? You feel like, oh, there's this riff coming, it repeats again, then it repeats with a bass melody and then we have the big huge melody with kind of hands in the air section. So let's have a look at this part. First of all, so remember the first cup was G minor. So we have the route third, which is the, the GB flat. Then we have the fifth, which is ad back to the roots. So it's really simple stuff. And then up to the D again, down to the C which is the fourth, I say it's just route 3rd, 5th, 4th, simple stuff. Then this riff repeats. But on the third chord, this time, the third chord or the third base note because there isn't really established chord here. It's just a base note which I believe is ac, bass note is ac the third time. So ba just playing the same really. But so we've got the, the G which fits with ac, which is 1/5 B flat, which is the seventh note of a AC minus scale or C dominant scale. Cos we don't really have a chord yet. It's just the base note and the ref so this kind of hints us towards c dominant or C minor. Then we have the, the BF um the D, then we have the sea, then there'd be flats. It's kind of a e because we're not playing this note, either ac dominant or C minor. It's kind of a standard R riff, but we're hinting towards the seventh to add it a bit more flavor, a bit more blue sound, a bit more color. Then we have this kind of count melody or second melody, bass melody. She's the same but just lower really. So it was just dropping the octave. So have a look and that's really it, it's quite simple. So this is plain G two. This one is playing G two but I believe in the, in the sy, it jumped up an octave as well. So that's really all I'm doing. It's not that difficult. So this is in the synthesizer. If we can just say it's octave, don't really worry about this. This is just for me just to work out exactly how I did it. But synthesis and that kind of stuff I recommend um checking out my complete Ableton life course. So yeah, it's just change the octave a little bit and that's basically it. So here you can tell I've gone up the octave in these parts and here I've kept it where it is. So if you're ever stuck with harmonizing parts, just use octaves. You can do a lot with different keyboard sounds, you can pan the sounds out, you can change the sounds, you can do something called EQ where you kind of change the sound frequencies to the space for each part to be heard. But octaves is a really easy one if you just wanna create a really simple harmony. So that's all I already did. It's just base this around notes of the scale, add a few kind of colorful notes like that. The seventh and that's really it. And we've got this lower wrist, she was playing in octaves and it's based around the G for the first chord, which is the G minor. And then we move to this f, the second chord has a root note of an F and A B flat and we're using the F and then they'd be flat just sticking around the notes in the chord, mainly around the root 3rd and 5th. The next one is C and we have some B flat as well. So we're kind of hinting towards this kind of a C seventh code and we're sticking on. Yeah, kind of the same. But it's more about creating something memorable that I like to think of. Rather than thinking, I'm gonna stick to the chords. So a lot of time it's about, yeah, thinking of something that's kind of catchy that just comes to practice and listen to a lot of other music. So, this one I've just realized has ac in the base note. So it's kind of a G minor six plus C. I wouldn't really worry too much about the technicalities, but for my own sake. Uh, so I had to put this in. So the bass net is AC, but really it's a G minor cord kind of a B flat with an F in the base, a kind of a different kind of G minor. So I just put the fifth up to 1/6 with AC in the base and another G minor with AC in the base. So it's a lot of, it is creating a bit of tension and then release, creating a bit of tension and release. And then the whole track is really just about arrangement, some intricate parts, like a lot of washes, tempo changes effects different kind of instruments, a lot of instrumentation in this or there's a maybe 30 instruments quite a lot going on, but they're never all playing at the same time. There's parts where there'll be one instrument playing or maybe five instruments playing and then one instrument to play another instrument's part, another instrument to play another instrument's part by an octave up or octave down or harmonizing different kind of sounds going on. But all based really around the same kind of thing. Are these vocal samples planned? I really like this part. It's called, uh Ref Spacey. Let's work out what I'm doing here. I re I remember writing this and thinking this was a really nice part. So this is kind of a can't really notice we are leading up. So it's a little bit out of tune. Sounds a bit strange, but just to give that kind of covered leading up. So playing there, the seventh and the root and the third, the first chord, which is a G minor, the second chord, which is a kind of a B flat with an F in the base. We're playing the D. So this is, yeah, the fifth, then we've got an A sharp or B flat. The third chord is kind of a G mind. We have ac in the base, we're playing the third and then we're playing the root. So it's just really simple. Root, 3rd and 5th, which I think sounds really nice for the rest of the track. They're just layering on the other melodies, making sure they don't clash too much. So not trying to play different melodies with the same frequencies at the same time. Just think of that. Like I said, this isn't really a mix in class, but when you're writing different parts, try not to have them clashing or too muddy because you want to have space for every instrument to be heard. So if you do want to play several different instruments, think about just layering different octaves, different harmonies and fifths, that kind of thing. So there's space for every instrument to be heard. Now they're bringing back the other refer from before if you recall and a different instrument. So it's just really about layering new things in hinting different instruments. And this time, I actually put it through an amplifier. So you get more of a crunchy sound. That's a technique called a ramping something you might wanna look into if you wanna kind of create some more unique sounds, but that's more about mixing rather than arrangements, but it's different things to think about. Of course, you wanna think about straight away what notes can you play? What chords can you play? How can they make this work? How can they make this catchy? How can they make this memorable? And then you want to think about more of the intricate parts like layering different sections, putting the different melodies and riffs on different instruments and not making it too predictable. You want a constant sound for out something the listener can latch onto. But at the same time, you don't want it too repetitive. You don't want it too boring, which is where arrangement comes in. So I'd recommend if you are new to write music to start with a chord sequence or chord progression, then write a few melodies on top of this and then think about stuff like drums and bass parts and then mix in and plugins. Think about that after, but without the core fundamentals of this core progression and these different melodies, this track wouldn't really work. And Ableton Live, you can write in the session view. You can see here there's tons of different parts. So each one of these is basically just a little clip and then you can just go through and play the little clips. Some of them work, some of them don't work as well. Um But you don't really know about experimenting. So, uh what I basically did is I wrote loads of little riffs, loads of different melodies, loads of different drum parts. A lot of them I didn't even use, say I didn't actually use this on the track this. So and then I kind of arranged it and recorded it to this part and I went through and changed all of this, but it all came from writing a nice chord progression or I think is a nice chord progression, writing a load of different melodies and then going through and just arrangement, arrangement, arrangement. I know this is a music theory class, but arrangement is so important, but you need to know what notes fit together. You need to train your ear to realize not also what fits well together. What you think sounds interesting what the listener will latch on to what a listener will be humming in their head. After be singing along a day later after hearing your tracks. So it's really a combination of knowing what works and thinking of the listener thinking, what would they want? How can you make this interesting? How can you make this really exciting for the listener and not for them not to get bored and to be hooked in for the whole two minutes, 10 minutes, 50 minutes of your track. So, thank you for watching this lecture. I hope you found it useful and I'll see you in the next one.