How To Develop a Musical Idea From Scratch - Recording and Arranging

on today's Everything music I'd like to talk about how to develop an idea I want to kind of uh run you through the process of how I start to generate ideas they could be for a film queue or just for one of these videos the first thing I like to do is just find something whether it's through improvising around I may just lay my hands down on a cord I may go something you know and just play something like that okay that's a um a flat lydian chord I like the sound of that it's like the first thing that I laid my hands on where do I go from there what what kind of a mood am I trying to create is it a [Music] uh I'm going to try let me um uh let's see here uh let me create a little moving line a pulse pulsing line let's say something like this um [Music] okay so I changed a little bit I didn't start on the a ly I started on the B flat so it's B flat d flat D um and I'm thinking of could be uh E flat major that's kind of a sound that that I'm hearing or it could be a flet lyan it could be [Music] F Dorian could be any of these we don't know because there's really no left-hand information yet but that's a good start there but I start on B flat and I have a little little uh moving line on the [Music] top now what am I doing there I'm [Music] going so I've got an E flat spread Triad and here I'm doing it's B B flat d e flat so it's kind of a fragment of a B flat suspended chord with a third it could be a lot of things really but it sounds good but when I go when I go down to that uh a flat major spread Triad and back to the B flat then it really has has a [Music] Vibe okay I'm going to record that now and let's see here I'm going to tap the tempo out it's 110 I'm going to put the put a click on I usually give myself two bars one two [Music] three then I'll take that I'll do a little quantizing on it quantizing means I'm just going to put it right on the grid here cuz once again this is just a sketch so I'm going to quantize it to eighth notes I'm going to listen to it real [Music] fast it needs something that comes in uh I'm going to do it on Pio now but it might be something somewhere else in the orchestra so let me add a track here I'm going to double the length of it so that I have a lot to work with so I'm not going to run out okay so I'm going to let it play for a [Music] second maybe something like this 3 [Music] 4 [Music] repeat that's a good start that sounds cool I like the sound of that I'm going to bring the click down a little bit so it's not [Music] as okay so I want to have a little f line in between these perfect fists where I'm going a flat E flat FC E flat B flat I'm G to have something [Music] try two three in the second phrase I'm going to do a similar thing change the chord though 2 [Music] 3 Okay let's listen to it from the [Music] top so here we go 3 4 answer [Music] again that's a cool start so what am I doing in the low register okay so I started after the [Music] first then I answered with that with a E flat sus two to E flat major and then the second time I did I answered with with a with f sus2 to F minor spread Triads on both so both these uh chords are in the key of E flat major I use the tonic and I use the I use the one chord and the two chord so so now that I listen to it I'm thinking okay well maybe I should reverse the and put the F F minor part first and go to the E flat major part second let's check it [Music] out [Applause] I think I like the first one better now I want to bring in uh maybe a string line that's going to have more of of a sustaining feel because we have since we already have a pulsating uh line in the piano I don't want to do anything that's going to uh distract from that that's kind of a rhythmic element that's propelling the track something with the violins that's going to go uh with the base part try something with six I'm going to come in with a bass something like [Music] [Music] this that sounds cool let's check that out I'm going to turn off the click now so we can kind of hear actually what it sounds [Applause] [Music] like [Applause] [Music] nice then I'm leaving this I'm leaving this space SP for that uh piano line um so now I have three elements in there what you don't want to do is you you never really want to have more than three competing elements everything is always about support So how do you um how do you support the other lines is there something I can do in the low register in the cellos for example to go along with the violins maybe I want to do [Music] all right so I'm going to try that on a different track let try it [Music] [Applause] [Music] here probably want to lengthen that last fifth that I had so it it resonates out a little bit longer than that so I'm just going to go and highlight [Music] that I probably want it to end right on that phrase right where that turnaround is so I'm going to probably take it that long maybe it just needs to go that long you always want to leave space uh for the Reverb tails of the instruments you want to leave space in the arrangement so that things can kind of appear and reappear and then you can have your sudden moves if you're if you're scoring a q you want to have have these things move with some type of uh of of uh movement on the screen that's going on in in whatever queue you're doing so let's listen to that from the top again and see what it sounds like check it [Music] out so here we [Music] go [Applause] [Music] I think one of my notes is getting CLI a little [Music] bit I think I want to [Music] go I'm going to move back this to here and then see what this sounds like yeah that's better uh anytime you're coming into a break uh you want to have a little uh swell with a little Crescendo into a um into a stop uh it's very common to do that so that it um emphasizes the suddenness of The Brak so I'm going to ride the string part here so right there if I go into touch mode here and I [Applause] go so I've done a volume ride here on my strings still needs to be clipped off a little bit earlier see if this sounds better that's better [Music] now what I would do is I would put Dynamics in the string part here too because you're not going to want them to be static this is the problem with when you're programming things like this this is where real instruments are far superior than than uh the sound libraries but the sound libraries are great to give you an idea of what it's going to sound like not only give you an idea if you're writing a q for a director you want to give them the idea of what it's going to sound like so I'm going to want to make it sound as close as I can to how it would sound with real instruments and I'm going to want to put some more Dynamics in the um in my string part here by by doing volume rides there are certain uh sounds that will have crescendos in them but you can simply do crescendos with a volume ride like you would do it's not kind of the same tone as if I'm actually playing and I'm digging in harder with the boat and increasing my ver maybe at the end of the line um at the end end of the note I mean it's not going to have the same sound but it will it will get across the same idea I could also hear a French horn part that comes in maybe a two-part French horn idea that comes in before the strings check this out see if this works may be right [Music] here then [Music] together that's pretty cool let's listen to it so it comes [Music] in I probably want to increase the the velocity on those so they have a little bit more attack on it check it out the last note needs to be a little bit quieter and what I'm going to do I want to taper it I'm going to hold it a little bit longer I'm going to taper it again with a volume ride so I'm going to go into touch mode here touch mode is when I can ride the part I'm going to do a crescendo on the horn horns as well so I go in here and do this and just [Music] hit but then I want to get out fast because the notes hanging over a little long they're proba want to get out right about there so the swell should happen sound like [Music] this might be a bit [Music] much next [Music] [Applause] part now I have a little bit of CounterPoint going on here in this uh on this one check it [Music] out once again I want to uh I want to do that volume ride on that part so I'm going to do that let's check it out from the the top with the [Music] [Music] horns great that's a very simple beginning of a queue um I started with a a basic idea of a chord I started with a a flat lydian chord and started to layer ideas on there I did the answer line in the piano then I did the doubling of the cellos with the low base part of the piano uh I had the violins up in six moving um could be the violins and the violas up in sixth playing up in the higher register uh it probably actually be the violin split and then the transition when I get into the mid-range where I'd bring in the viola and then I added my French horns in there and that's like the beginning part of a of an of an idea and I think there could be a couple other layers on here but this is really I wanted to give you an idea of my creative process process and a way to jumpstart your ideas just uh by by experimenting jumping in sometimes I'll go through three or four ideas before I hit on something sometimes it's not immediate where I just play something my hands just hit something on the piano or the guitar uh on the guitar a lot of times it might be something with an effect or you know and a couple notes or some type of rhythmic figure or something but this was a uh I did that pulsating piano part and then I said okay well what needs to go with that that's going to provide the rhythmic element now I need to to add some other melodic um uh counter Melodies to give it even more weight add Dynamics and then you're really starting to be begin to develop the idea that's all for now please subscribe here to My Everything music YouTube channel and if you're interested in the Bato book you can write me at rickb number [e-mail] thanks for watching

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 359,237

Keywords: Rick Beato, everything music, how to write a song, film scoring, recording and arranging, how to layer and arrage instruments, music arranging, orchestration

Id: 5CXnU9NQyaM

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 24 2017