Sibelius. Am I right? This program is infuriating, sometimes. It’s taken me years to build up a solid workflow with it. But I don’t want you to have to do that, too.
That’s why I’m sharing 5 useful shortcuts I use when I’m writing with Sibelius. These aren’t crazy in depth or anything, just ones that I find help me get the program out of the way of composing.
Be sure to subscribe to the youtube channel, like the video, and leave a comment with the shortcut that helped you the most; whether it’s on this list or not!
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” This is a common saying, but what does it actually mean? Don’t worry, we're not actually committing a crime or anything like that.
Let's demystify that quote – and I’ll teach you how to “steal” someone else’s music and make it your own. Making you, according to this quote, a great artist! And who doesn’t want that?
Be sure to subscribe to the youtube channel, like the video, and leave a comment if you’ve ever “stolen” music before. I’ve 100% done it and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s an integral part of advancing as a songwriter.
I hope you had an amazing and safe Thanksgiving. If the holidays are hard for you, I hope you were able to successfully cope and administer some self-care.
Today, we're ending our series on using chords like the pros. In part 3, we covered how to prolong your chord progressions to buy us time and keep cadences for when we really want them.
For part 4, we're talking about modal mixture, or using borrowed chords from other keys and scales. We'll also learn how to modulate from one key to another by using pivot chords and tonicization.
This stuff is super fun and can really transform your chord progressions and make them sound super cool. Let me know what you thought of part 4, as well as the whole series, by commenting below.
Finally, I want to ask you a personal favor that will take you literally 1 to 3 seconds. In short, I'm looking to grow the Just Write Music Youtube channel. This is where so much online education takes place and I'm confident we can make a big impact and help support a lot of fellow artists.
But I need your help. If you enjoyed my content, click the title at the top of the video. That will take you to the video on Youtube proper. It would mean the world to me if you'd "Like" the video and subscribe to the channel, if you haven't already.
Engagement is huge and we need to show Youtube that we're worth paying attention to.
Whooo! Alright. Here we are in part three of How to Use Chords Like A Pro. We're talking about prolongation, an invaluable songwriting technique that buys you SO MUCH TIME.
This is a fantastic way to get a lot out of a little material and is often the meat of the chord progression between structurally significant parts. Whoops. There I go again. I got excited. I'll let you check out the video so you can see for yourself.
Bonus: It also allows us to avoid cadences, so we can save them for when we want them to hit.
(couldn't help myself)
Let me know what you think of Part 3 and prolongation down in the comments!
This week, we're into Part 2 of our series on using chords like the pros do. Remember, all of this information is only meant to help you solve problems. The intent isn't to rely solely on these functions to write music. They are analytical structures meant to help us understand music phenomena we hear.
Last time we covered the major scale, the chords built from each scale degree, and how to put together a basic chord progression. Today, we're diving in deeper, learning how to use substitutions for our tonic, subdominant, and dominant, to create more varied atmospheres and expressive qualities. We'll also talk about our naming systems and why we use more than one. It's useful, I promise.
I honestly love talking about this stuff because it was a huge step for me as a musician to understand the music I was listening to, writing, and performing. The better understanding we have of our music, whether it's technical, or emotional, gives us a bigger well to draw from as we express ourselves. It brings more intention into our writing, rather than using trial and error when we hit a snag.
Chords are often the bedrock from which our songs emerge. All it can take is two chords and a simple melody to be the genesis for a whole piece.
When I was first getting started as a songwriter, I would play every chord I knew to see what I liked for the song. Essentially, I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall.
But as I learned more and studied more theory, I learned that each chord in a key has a specific role. More than that, you can achieve a wide variety of atmospheres and effects with a basic understanding of functional harmony.
This is the first of a four part video series where by the end of it, you'll have a solid grasp on how to analyze and create amazing sounding chord progressions, with ease.
Comment below with your process for writing chord progressions and what you think about the video!
Back when I was first getting serious about songwriting, I wanted to gobble up all the theory I could, because I wanted to be good at my craft.
But when I'd try to apply what I'd learned, or write with it, it just didn't work; something was missing.
By the time I was getting my degree in college, I was no closer to solving this problem. That's because I was going about it all wrong.
It turns out, I was making three crucial mistakes that was inhibiting me from using theory effectively in my process. Today, I want to share those mistakes with you. My goal is to help you avoid years of trial and error, of frustration, that I had to go through.
Comment below with your experience trying to implement theory in your process. I'm very curious to hear if you guys made the same mistakes I did!
Inspiration is often a tough concept to talk about. We all know what it feels like, but we feel totally powerless about when it comes and goes. Today, we're going to redefine inspiration.
By doing this, we're changing our perspective on it. This in turn allows us to get to the bottom of what inspiration actually does for our music. Or, more specifically, the underlying process it catalyzes.
When we get to the heart of inspiration and the physical process that helps us create our music more efficiently, we're able to bring awareness to it. Then, we can understand and learn to tap back into it, more often than not.
One thing is for sure, it feels good to have more control over your creative process, and it's a big step up from just waiting around for inspiration to strike.
Comment below with your thoughts on inspiration, and what you think about redefining it to empower ourselves and take control of our process.
We are officially back in gear after a few months of production hiatus due to the pandemic. Thanks so much for being part of Just Write Music, it means a ton.
You probably already know the answer to the question in the title. Of course, knowledge of music theory isn't necessary to write a song, but I'd still argue that it will only elevate your music.
Even when you don't use theory to write, you're often still using the same concepts when following your ear. It's inescapable!
In the video, I'll give you three reasons why your music will be better off if you start learning theory. To be honest, I am 100% on my high horse about this. I get that.
I'm also passionate about songwriters having the tools of their craft and tired of pretentious academics hoarding them, in all but name.
Let me know what you think by commenting below...or if you want me to make that ear training video :)
Intervals, in my opinion, are the basic building blocks of music theory. They're what give you the understanding of how to dive into the deeper pool of more advanced musical concepts.
For this reason, I think they're an invaluable tool in any songwriter, composer, or musician's arsenal.
That's why I want to go over them in detail, how they work, and how they can help, as well as how you can integrate them into your practice routine and know them like the back of your hand.
Intervals were the point when music theory really clicked for me and I hope they'll be the same for you.
I want to talk to you today about improvisation. It's an incredibly important skill as a musician, particularly if you're a guitarist, or interested in songwriting. Check out the video:
In the video, we go over the how, what, and why of improvisation AND I give you a special gift at the end of the video to get you improvising TODAY.
Even if you're already doing it, it's never a bad thing to add another resource to aid you in your growth and learning.
Let me know what you think about improvisation, or the video, by commenting below.
Apologies for the radio silence. The current pandemic has left me busier than usual (which is common for many in the online space).
For now, you may only be see a video every other week. But, I'm going to try my hardest to make that content as valuable to you as possible. To that end...
I want to tackle something really controversial today, something that really eats at me whenever I hear it. And maybe you've heard this phrase from someone you know, or even said it to yourself:
"I don't have any musical talent."
I hate this so much, because it's simply not true. First of all, talent is the wrong word to use. You'll find out why in the video :)
We give ourselves a lot of reasons to keep us from doing the things we want to do; whether that's writing a song, symphony, or anything that could be a positive force in our lives.
Is there something you've always wanted to learn how to do, whether that's musically or otherwise, that you've put off or told yourself you simply couldn't do? Let me know in the comments.
Let's discuss why talent doesn't actually exist, at least, not in the way that we think it does, and why you have everything you need to make your dreams come true, TODAY.
Today, I'd like to talk about a simple tool that all beginners learn, but is immensely valuable that we'll use all the time as guitar players: Chord Charts.
Learning to read a chord chart is a must if you're looking to be a proficient guitar player. Throughout our journeys we'll come across chords that we either don't know, or have heard of, but don't know how to play. That's where a chord chart comes in.
It's a simple and effective way to learn how to play any chord you could possibly want.
If you've been playing for awhile, you certainly know how to read these. But, as a teacher, I'm always curious to hear what people's beginning days were like! So I'd love to know:
What was the first few chords you learned on the guitar?
Mine were a G5, Cadd9, Dm, and Em...basically all you need to play "Time of Your Life" by Green Day!
I have a confession to make: I hate capos. Truly, there's only a couple of reasons that will make me pull one out.
Capos can be used as a crutch, and the last thing we want is to become overly dependent on a tool, because that means we've stopped growing as guitarists, musicians, and songwriters.
This week, I want to discuss when we shouldn't use a capo, but also when we absolutely should out of necessity. It can a little bit nuanced, so check out the video to get all the answers you need.
Last week, we covered a method called "Follow The Chords," where we wrote out a chord progression first and then wrote a melody to it. This takes away a lot of options in terms of the notes we can hit that will sound good, which helps us make better use of the ones that do.
This week we're diving right into the deep end and talking about using established forms to write a melody. Forms have been around for a long time and take a bit of front-end music theory in order to use them to their fullest degree, but that doesn't mean you can't understand and utilize them if you don't.
Forms are extremely useful, especially if you're in a tight spot. They explicitly outline exactly what to do to make a melody that sounds fantastic. Think about it like a formula; all you have to do is start punching things in.
In this video, we're going to discuss how a Sentence is constructed and how we can use it to create a melody that sounds fantastic. A musical sentence consists of two basic phases, each with it's own parts:
Presentation Phase – This consists of a basic idea, a one or two measure phrase, that will then be restated.
Continuation Phase – This phase cuts up the basic idea using fragmentation, and then we throw everything away to get to our cadence, a type of musical pause.
What did you think of form? Do you think these forms can be useful outside of composing classical music? Leave a comment below and let me know!
Last week, we covered an extremely popular and versatile technique for writing melodies. I called it, Follow The Notes.
Today, we're going to cover another popular technique, one that you may not even know that you're using:
Follow The Chords.
This is a very common technique among songwriters, particularly those who play multi-string instruments capable of playing chords, like keyboard and guitar. While it may seem similar to Follow The Notes, it has some pretty key limitations that will result in drastically different results.
(No, I'm not sorry for the pun XD)
With this technique, you write the chord progression first, and then write the melody to go along to it.
This is far more limiting than Follow the Notes. But that's not a bad thing. Limitations are actually a really powerful tool; they allow us to limit our options, which in turn lets us use those options more creatively. In other words, it focuses the melody to what will sound good with the chords.
What did you think of this technique? Have you used it before?
Leave a comment below with any thoughts, feelings, or observations you may have. Any and all feedback you have is welcome, as it helps me provide you with better content.
For the next part of our "How To Write A Melody" series, we're talking about an extremely common method for writing melodies. In fact, if you've written any amount of music at all, I can almost guarantee you've already used this method.
So, what gives, why talk about it?
Because, when you do something with intention, the result can be extraordinary.
I like to call this method "Follow The Notes," because that's exactly what this method consists of:
You just start hitting notes and see where they take you.
This may seem basic, but remains one of the most popular methods of music and melody making among beginners and professionals alike.
The difference between those two groups, however, is that professionals don't rely solely on it; but when they do, they have a well-developed inner ear––how you "hear" music inside your head––to guide them in the process. This means the notes they're following aren't the ones they're playing on an instrument, but the ones in their head. This key difference, and the ability to use your inner ear, is often what separates a beginner from a professional.
Following the notes is partly an exercise in developing your inner ear, which is integral to taking the music in your head and putting it out into the real world.
Check out the video:
What did you think? Have you ever used this method for writing a melody? If not, will you now?
Let me know in the comments! Thoughts, feelings, observations; all feedback is welcome.
Welcome to the new Musical Engineering! After taking a couple years off, I decided to get back in the game and pivot to focus more on the in's and out's of songwriting and composing, rather than focusing mostly on audio engineering. Here's why: It's what I'm truly passionate about.
Now, that doesn't mean we won't cover any audio engineering at all; but, we'll focus mostly on composing in a DAW using MIDI, basic recording and editing, but also getting your music––whatever genre it's in––to sound professional in the audio world.
This is a necessity if we're going to get our music out there on a budget!
Without further ado...
One of the hardest parts of getting started writing music that I actually thought was good and enjoyed listening to was writing a melody. It tends to be the first thing people latch onto when listening to music, so it's important to make sure our melodies are up to snuff.
In this first part of a multi-part series, I go over the very basics of melodic structure. Understanding the parts of a melody, even at the most basic level, is helpful in figuring out what a melody we wrote might actually need to be more effective.
In the video, I go over three basic aspects of a melody:
The Set Up
The Climax
The Resolution
Melodies are like stories, and you can think of these structures as a kind of beginning, middle, and end.You can find these three parts in a ton of melodies, but it's important to note that not every melody will have this type of structure. But, for the most part, you'll find these structures in much of popular music and classical music that's considered "tonal."
Check out the video:
If you want to know more about what is or isn't "tonal," or if there's anything else you want to know about in terms of songwriting, composing, or audio engineering, shoot me a comment or email:
Musical Engineering is a collaboration and I want to hear from you!
Thanks so much for being here. We're all in this together.
