LMMS • Forums

Does anyone have any tips to share on how to compose music?

For instance, how do you start off writing your songs... with a bassline and beat, a short melody, or something else?

How do you build up the song and add parts?

I'm musical illiterate, so eacuse my lack of proper terminology.

The way I do it, is trying. I try things then delete things or keep things.

I usually start with a chord progression to get the "sound" or "mood" I'm looking for, then a simple drum line for the beat. After that, it's just adding, subtracting and modifying until it gets into shape.

If you are new to composing music and want to develop your skills, I suggest the following 2 books; "Music Theory" and "Music Composition", both by Michael Miller. Excellent information, fun to read and easy to understand. While some folks can "wing it" and compose by ear, I've always thought the better compositions showed an understanding of keys, chords and melody relationships. Anyone can bang out a "4 on the floor" cadence, toss in some pads and throw a lead over it. And a lot of those tunes are boring as dirt. A little music theory can go a long ways ...

Cheers and good luck.

Step 1 - decide what SORT of music you want to compose.

Step 2 is going to depend on the answer to step 1. You don't really use the same techniques to build a dance track, an avant-garde electronic track and a folk song with guitar backing. E.g. a solid four on the floor beat ain't going to work for a quiet ambient piece.

Steve

i made a track on soundcloud where i explain what i did and why
But otherwise i just start with a tiny block that works well, and then build on that (and thats also what the sc. thing shows btw :p
Imo you do not have to buy books to learn theory
Pages like http://www.8notes.com/theory/
will do just fine

Hmm. What i do is learn from my mistakes, but not regret them.