Songwriting Secrets - Brainstorming New Music

1. Introduction to Music Brainstorming: Welcome my music making friends. In this class, you will learn how to do a brainstorming session to come up with new ideas for your music. I will share my top tips and tricks that I have learned from over 25 years of making music. You will learn about inspiration boosters, creative flow, brainstorming, tools, etc. The goal is to get into the mood and flow of making music and to generate the seed that will then grow into an amazing final piece of music. Are you ready? Let's start learning. 2. Inspiration Boosters: Inspiration boosters. Before you can start creating new music, you need to find your inspiration. I have several tricks I have used over the years to get truly inspired. And when you feel that inspiration kicking in, you will get all kinds of musical ideas coming to you in no time. So here are my favorite inspiration boosters. Visual inspiration. Images and video can be a great source of inspiration before you start brainstorming new music. You can use any images, graphics, or video you want to get that visual atmosphere you need for your new music. I prefer using high resolution images, like for example, computer desktop, wallpaper graphics. You can find images or video in any stronger topic and style. Simply find one that you like to use for your visual inspiration Q, and truly focus on atmosphere and ambience. It creates the mood and emotion it triggers and so on. Then you can start playing whatever comes to your mind on any instrumental like or perhaps humming or singing, if you prefer. Okay, So now let me demonstrate this in action, how I personally use the visual inspiration trick to get my ideas flowing. So my go-to sound for sketching and brainstorming is a piano, or in this case, piano plus pad or a strings like this. Okay. I load that up, I activated. You can use whatever instrument you like to sketch or brainstorm on a guitar, the guitar or whatever. Then you find the image you want to use as the emotional, visual inspiration to come up with your ideas. So I have picked this one, lonely tree and the sunset is very minimal as you can see here. So the kind of emotion gives me is very sparse and lonely. Arrangement, long tomes, but still hopeful, but hopeful. Some major course in there as well. So this just what I feel. You have to pick the visual inspiration you want to use and then just tune into your emotions, what atmosphere you get from that visual cue. And then simply start brainstorming and sketching. Let your ideas flow. From that, those feelings you get. Music moved, Kickstarter. Listening to any music just before you start your own brainstorming is a great way to kick-start your inspiration. I recommend using any type of music that has the kind of mood and energy you are going for. But it does not have to be in the same show anger and style of music. Instead, focus on the atmosphere and emotional impact of the music. Sometimes it can also help to jam along to the music on any instrument. Then you stop the music and immediately start improvising anything you, yourself. It may sound similar or it may sound completely different. Just let that creative spark ignite those new ideas you will get. Alright, so let me demonstrate the music mood Kickstarter technique. So you simply find a track that you want to use as inspiration. So really go for the kind of mood, overall atmosphere, energy, and so on that you want your track to have. So I'm going with this soundtrack from a cover, but this is very exciting. Beads dancing. Started on your wrist. Okay, then you can simply stop and start sketching whatever comes to your mind. Okay, So I want you data that you remember, the melody and the dipeptide. Okay? Don't mimic that completely. Go in a different direction, but keep the overall mood. Okay, that was just me coming up with that just now, in this instant from the music mood Kickstarter technique, find the track you like to use as the starting point to kick-start your music. Mood for creation. Find the atmosphere, the groove, the energy, the overall emotion, and then start to sketch immediately after you stop. That is a great technique and it works almost every time. Harmonic anchor. This is a term I use personally, but most often it is called a drone sound or pedal tone. It is simply one single long note that is sustained for a very long time. A good starting point is to use some kind of pad sound for this. Then you write a long note in any key. For example, VO a for eight bars. If you want, you can even set your music production software to loop those eight bars forever. This drone sound will then act as a harmonic anchor and atmospheric creator, which in turn will give you new ideas for melodies, reefs, themes, and even chord progressions. It almost feels like magic. That's how great it is for boosting your inspiration and creative spark. Okay, So now I will demonstrate to the harmonic anchor technique in action. So I started with this pad sound. I'm using this synthesizer or my sphere. Load up a pad, then just hold down a long note, as you can see here in the piano roll. I looped it. So it's an eight bar note loop. This section, put it on a low a and just heard this sound. And that acts as the harmonic anchor that I can use to sketch from. You don't need to use only a low harmonic anchor. It can be an HAI or monic anger like this, 123. Let's put it up here as well. You can even use Octavius if you want to, even richer, more powerful harmony ganglia. So two ways here, an octave apart, or even adding a fifth. So let's see a, we are going to E here. If you want a really rich. In most cases, I would recommend using gas, a low drone sounds or low long note or Octavius. So let's see. Let's keep it at that. And I will start to sketch now on this brainstorming track, just some piano and strings. The melody. As you can hear, ideas to start, to immediately pop into my head because I just hear this amazing atmospheric drone sound, which act as the harmonic anchor. So try this technique out for yourself as well. 3. Creative Flow: Creative flow. To find that elusive creative flow of making music is so important. And I have found that the best way to do this after you have found your inspiration is to keep things simple, remove restrictions and distractions, and focus on being as free as you can in your musical expression when you start brainstorming new musical ideas. Here, or my favorite creative flow techniques. The power of your voice. Even if you are a skilled musician on any instrument, there is one instrument that has the most expressive range and created freedom of all your voice. You can use your voice to come up with new musical ideas, from melodies to riffs and even percussive grooves. I'm not talking about singing or lyrics here. I am talking about everything from harming melodies to beat, boxing, a beat, or even a mix of both. I recommend that you mix a range of syllables when using your voice to come up With musical ideas. A good starting point is the classic la, la, la, nana and doo, doo doo. But you can have anything really, even weird sounds. And you can also add expression and emotion into your humming. For example, gliding between some nodes, adding vibrato, Accents, crescendos, and dynamic contrast, etc. I always have an audio track in my music production software dedicated for this, for my voice, which are used to record musical ideas in the most expressive and free way there is, right? So now let me demonstrate using the power of your voice for brainstorming ideas for new music. So some people prefer to use an audio recording app on your smartphone. You can do that, of course, if you're on the go or in your living room by your piano or guitar and so on. I like to do it as well in my music recordings offer, as you can see, I have this voice track on top. I simply solo this and record ideas. You can use a click track if you aren't already just completely free. Try to just whatever comes into your mind. So a ticket, ticket, getter then dentin and learn and learn, and then you have something a seed for new track data and ran ticket ticket. You heard there I'm using some rhythmic percussive syllables because I want to feel that grooved could be muted Paul muted guitar or some percussive element in the track and so on. I even had some glides and so on. It doesn't remove, remove this. Now I will demonstrate another technique is when you use it in combination with another sound, especially using the harmonic anchor, I find it's great for that. Or if you're simply have a chord progression, it can migrate without just solo the chord progression and a ham with your voice freely like this. So if you use this harmonic anchor technique, then I like to add, for example, if reverb to get into the right five, Let's try something here. Oh, okay, so not perfect here, but you get something at least with the reverb. Let's have a listen. What's legal? So as you can see, using the power of your voice is so much more free than having to use record your guitar or whatever instrument you use, or using midi plug-in instruments and then having to adjust a midi nodes quantize automation and a modulation to make that expression your voice has all that built in. And that is why you should use the power of your own voice for recording ideas like this. In your brainstorming sessions, switching instruments. Every instrument in the world has its own tone, mood, style, and character. Not only in the way it sounds, but also how you play it. From pressing keys on a piano to plucking strings on a guitar, to blowing air into a flute and so on. This is why you can get completely different ideas by simply switching which instrument you use for brainstorming in your music-making session, you will get the most benefit from this technique if you actually play real instruments. But even if you only can play a midi keyboard, you can use the instruments switching technique by simply changing what sound or preset you play inside your music software. Alright, so how I personally use the instruments switching technique is I have this folder here in my music software. And then I just add various kinds of instruments in different categories. So plucked instruments like acoustic guitar, struck keys like piano, Bolden instruments like violins and so on. And just switch between them to get different ideas. A piano will give me certain ideas. It's a Ford type instruments and company instruments you play block chords or patios a lot. It's just a sustained pedal. Ideas like that come easily on the piano, acoustic guitar, they plucked acoustic guitar. Instrument here. Give me a sudden vibes and emotions here and ideas. Bowed instruments like violins. Beautiful lyrical song. Trumpets are brass instruments. Horns can give me that fanfare. Or guess. Woodwinds like fluids. How about loneliness? Gives you more sweet melodies perhaps as ideas. So you can add whatever you want. Just fill this up, this instrument folder and switch instruments in your brainstorming sessions. Or even better if you have some real instruments to use as well. If I sit by my acoustic guitar, I get some ideas. If I sit by my Irish whistles and fluids, yet completed different ideas. So try this out for yourself as well as switching instruments a lot when you create your ideas and sketch and brainstorm your new music, focus on the essence. All music has something within it that feels like the very core essence that makes you feel it and remember it. This is usually a melody or riff, but it can even be a coup, baseline or any type of hook that catches the listener's attention. When you brainstorm new music, I would encourage you to come up with ideas like that, musical ideas that creates the essence of a new track. A great way to do this is to keep it very simple. Sketch ideas, one instrument only, or use your voice that if you prefer. This core idea might even feel too simple on his own. But remember that it is only this seed that will lead to grow into a big, strong tree. That is your final music production, backed up with chords and harmony, layering instruments in the arrangement and so on. So please focus on finding the essence of your new song first. However small and simple that seed may be. 4. Brainstorming Tools: Brainstorming tools. There are of course, a lot of tools you can use in your music brainstorming sessions. However, in order to stay in that creative flow you want to be in when making music. I suggest that you don't use too many of them. And try to only use tools that are super quick and easy to use. Since you want to avoid any technical frustrations when brainstorming music ideas. Here are my favorite personal brainstorming tools that I highly recommend to try audio recording apps. When I started making music back in the late 1990s, I used to have an analog tape recorder, which I use to record musical ideas. But these days you have something even better and simpler your smartphone. So try using a super simple audio recording app on your smartphone. And then you sing the beat box or play an instrument to record any ideas you come up with. The best part is that most of us basically always have our smartphone with us. So you can pick it up and record an idea anywhere. I have done it on my daily walks on many occasions and even in the supermarket, then you can transfer that audio file into your music production software once you're back in your studio, again, chord progressions software. There are apps that can help you come up with chord progressions, both on your smartphone but also on your computer. My favorite is a software plug-in that you install into your music production software called scalar. A nice app on your smartphone is called suggestion. You can try any chord progression app you want. The main point here is to use it as a starting point to simply try out different chord progressions that you can then jam to own your instrument or harm or sing-a-long to, if you prefer. If you don't like it, it is often very easy to change out the core progression to something else. Midi sketching stack. Something I like to do is to have a group of instruments in a folder at the top of my music recording software that I use for sketching and brainstorming. There are two advantages of this that I use. The first Being that I can have various types of instruments in that track and very quickly use the instruments switching technique that you already learned about to get new ideas from the tone and a character that instrument has. The second advantage is that this makes it very quick and easy to lay your various instruments in order to create a overall new sound. This sound will also feel bigger and more immersive from the layering. And when you have a deep and powerful stake or instrument like this, I find that you get a huge motivation, boost your music-making and sketching process. And of course, you can try different stacks to get new ideas as well. So if you have an instrument group with lots of different sounds and instruments, you can start using the instrument switching techniques immediately or using the stacking technique. So for example, if I stack a piano plus a choir, that will give me completely, you can find and try out different stacks. So let's say strings plus a piano. For example. Base widths. Some breaths here. I'm playing in the lower parts. Quieter that you can go all in and use an entire massive stack. Select every instrument you have in your instrument group and just go crazy. But whatever instruments used in a stack, you will get a different vibe, different atmosphere, and that will kick-start your creative mind to brainstorm new ideas, to try out the sketching stack technique for your brainstorming sessions as well. 5. Action - Brainstorming Session: Congratulations, you have now learned all my favorite tips and tricks for boosting your inspiration, creative flow, and efficiency when you sketch and brainstorm new music. Now it's time for you to take action and learn by doing a one hour brainstorming session to come up with the essence, this seed of a near music composition. Use any of the tips and techniques you have learned in this class or any other cool tricks the already know yourself. But the final result should be a short sketch of the absolute essence to a new music composition. I recommend keeping it to the main melody or riff, plus a chord progression and a baseline, perhaps a simple drumbeat as well. If you have time for that and keep it short, 16 bars or so of music is a good start. Good luck, and have fun as you start using the power of creative flow and speed when doing a brainstorming session to come up with the seed of a new track.