How to write a SONG using Music Theory

hey everybody welcome to another live writing session um in case you don't know what's going on also I got to clean my glasses cuz I was just out in the rain but basically I'm going to go live here I'm I am live and I'm just going to write some music I don't have any plans for a specific thing to write um I'm just going to start writing and see what happens and try to shape it into something like a song as I go um I was just out in the rain to get cold before I have to sit under these Hot Lights um and I got some raindrops on my glasses there we go perfect so um there are lots of different ways to write music there's no one right way to do it and I'm just going to guide you through um a nice way to start if you've never written music before so I think what I'm going to start with is I'm going to scoot over to my camera guitar I'm going to grab my iPad my whiteboard and we're going to start by just quickly mapping Out chords in a key that's there we go this button so let's just start with the easiest key and my guitar is a little quieter than I'd like so that seems a little louder can youall hear that okay yeah okay so we're going to make a C scale and um excuse my funky handwriting um basically we'll just scoot these all close together there we go and the way a major scale works is we got whole whole half whole whole whole half this is how you make a major scale here's our root note and we got c d e e f g a b c I can't do both here we [Music] go there you go that is a C major scale whole whole half whole whole whole half right so if we want to make this into a set of chords that we can actually use to make some music the idea here is and I'm having a hard time hearing my guitar it could be because my equipment is failing that's a beetle wow did you see that a beetle just flew by wonder how you got in here bud I have to get you out very carefully so here we have a C scale check out that Circle in the top right corner c d e f g a b c the way we get the chords in a key is we just play every other note till we got three starting on every note of the scale I got lessons about this on my patreon if you want to learn more about it but the idea here is we get a major chord minor chord minor chord major chord major chord minor chord diminished chord and then we're back to a major chord which is awesome so if I go back to my whiteboard here the chords in the key of C are C Major D Minor E minor f g a minor and B diminished those are the chords so once you know what they are you don't have to play them the weird way that I played [Music] them so using this set of chords what I like to do is just make a little this represents a measure of uh or four measures in other words I can either think of this as 1 2 1 2 or I can think of this as 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 again excuse my ridiculously bad handwriting right now um so if I were to just experiment by just plugging some chords in here C here's d minor here's a minor here's F let's see how that sounds and I'm going to pick any random strumming pattern I want C D Minor A minor F you could do a variety of things you could [Music] go that's kind of cool I kind of like that I'm going to stick with it um and then oh I don't know what's going on that bug really threw me off uh I I had a hornet in here the other day so it spooked me cuz I thought maybe it was a hornet so anytime you're writing a chord progression um you can think okay my first section um you could think okay I just made a section we don't have to call it a chorus or a verse or anything yet because when you're writing music you don't have to know what it's going to be until you get into it a little bit further and sometimes it turns into nothing um just as a pause moment here um writing music isn't quite about start like starting writing and ending with a finished song most of the time what happens is you write a ton of just general stuff and then a small portion of that you go hm it feels like this these three out of 10 things maybe could be a song I I like them and I feel like I could see how they where they would go and then of those three maybe one or two of them actually become a finished song and a lot of people don't know this and so they sit down to try writing music and they go oh my gosh I suck at writing music and it's like no you don't suck you just need to practice just like everything else on guitar writing music takes practice so if I want to come up with a second chord progression here we've [Music] got sometimes a nice way to look at your second section is to see what chords you already used C D Minor A minor F and maybe feature some of the chords you haven't used we'll leave this guy out for now now but maybe maybe that chord will make an appearance later so I think I'm going to go g f e minor um G let's see how that sounds I don't know there we go now I've got a nice two-part thing here and it sounds like [Music] that by itself could actually be the chord progression for a whole verse or something I don't know um I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to come back over to this desk over here and I'm going to get a guitar set up for uh some recording software so that I can um have a little more control over the sound cuz I think something's going on with my equipment that hasn't happened before today of course it's always you know when you go when you go big some funky stuff happens so I'm going to sneak into this is the right button to my recording software here I'm going to grab this guitar and we got a little a little something going on here let me see um I got enough gain so I'm going to do some sneaky stuff that you don't need to know about but if you're using any recording software uh this is some some some stuff I like to do and I'm starting to suspect that my headphones might be the issue so I'm going to switch out for some good good headphones real quick here and see if that solves my problem cu the cue the Clown music here let's see so uhhuh I think what's going on is my voice is actually way too loud and everything else isn't loud enough maybe there it is there we go so that's nice that's a nicer balance I think um so what I'm going to do is try to record that little thing that was what was it it was a c E D Minor A minor f g f e minor G and I'm going to practice it for a second here [Music] um that's kind of cool so yeah um yeah so uh Phil o Donahue actually just asked a great question and while I grabed my iPad I'm going to answer it Phil said it's the old chicken or egg question which comes first the melody or the lyrics and for most songwriters I would say there's sort of a cohesive kind of thing that goes on where a lot of really good lyricists um will they'll have a book where they just keep tons of lyric ideas just things that they've been thinking about in lyric form and then when they sit down to write something like this um they'll already have some sense of oh the mood of this you know which I'm going to find a tempo for it while I'm talking here that's a little fast that's probably still a little fast let's see let's see and honestly I'm not in love with with this but I'm going to record it anyway and we'll make a little something out of it and then maybe I'll write something else so I'm going to turn my volume way down so I can really hear this metronome and I'm going to turn up the metronome two [Music] three yeah I think I got a nice Loop [Music] here [Music] yeah I'm going to roll some of that base [Music] off so this could be really interesting um where do I want to go with it I I think personally it would be more fun to write something with drums and bass and a little bit more of a beat but let's just keep working this for a minute and see if we can come up with another second part for it that's kind of nice so I add a little track and I don't know here I'll show you what I'm doing on Guitar let's see let's see if we can make something nice out of this with a little Melody and maybe I want a little more a little more Reverb on my lead guitar here let's see here we go so I'm going to go let's [Music] see I don't know there's some funny little Melody ideas but sometimes this just by itself you know um it's not admitting defeat to say h i don't know I don't love this it's there's something nice about it I don't hate it [Music] but I'd rather write something in a minor key today I'm feeling like I'm in a little bit more of a minor key mood so we'll let that one be what it is if you all like it I'll save it and then I'll move on to something else cuz this is sometimes you know I don't have a specific goal I just want to write something and I want it to be cool and this is nice and nice is good but I want to write something cool so that's a fantastic way by the way to start writing something um another really fun way to start writing something is to get out your old um MIDI controller and make a beat first and I really like making beats um I'll make something quick if I can ooh that's a nice kick drum let's see that's kind of fun oh I don't know about that Liverpool I kind of like this mtown [Music] Kake right it's kind of a little more fun like that you know okay so let's find a good tempo for our beat here okay okay let's see so if you if you weren't um if you weren't a nerd like me and you can't uh you know play you can't play a beat right um You can always type a beat in which I can show you how to do by basically fixing this beat but here's what I want to do I'm going to go R and then I'll pause oh we're going this fast one two three 4 okay so that's pretty fast here's my little beat here I'm going to hit Q to make sure that the beat is is perfect cuz um I just I'm not a drummer and I'm not going to sit here all night trying to make the timing perfect so I can push a button that will just make the timing perfect here's how I played it here's perfect not perfect perfect we could do it slightly less than perfect too if we want but whatever that's a nice [Music] beat [Music] right so we can go in here when you're using midi software um it doesn't really record audio the way like a voice memo or uh a regular recording you can actually change things however you want after the fact with midi which I love so like I can come in here I can add a little ghost note right here so now it goes and I could do a little a little open high hat like this and now we've got a little beat I think that's pretty cool so I think what I want to do from here is I'll go back over to the camera guitar and we will just focus on the relative minor oh now I can hear the guitar really well so guess what C major and a [Music] minor use all the same notes and that means oh all the same chords too we got a minor we got B diminished we got C Major D Minor E minor F major G major and we're back to a minor so if we play this beat let's see I'll get my iPad so you can see our list of chords [Music] here but this gives us a little more energy I don't want to fall asleep during the live stream you know I got to have a little more energetic tune here so let's see let me show you what I'm talking about here's our set of chords in the key of C I'm going to copy them and paste them down here to show you if I take these two and I put them at the front a little better there we go now we've got the chords in the key of A Minor A minor and C major are relative relative major and minor of each other um and that means that they share all the same notes and therefore they share all the same chords um there are other things you can do but if I want to play a one four five chord progression in a minor um well here's all the chords right here Roman numerals always represent chords so here's the one chord the two chord three chord four chord five chord six chord seven chord so I'm going to take a couple chords and I'm going to find something I like here let's see and I think I will here's a minor let's just see how an A Minor sounds over this track that's pretty [Music] nice hey I like that a lot what I just played was um I'm going back to my grid here a minor G C there we go that's kind of [Music] cool I'm playing it a little sloppy cuz I'm just writing music I think that's a cool section let me let me see if I can come up with some chords for another section here um that's kind of cool that's kind of fun um I did F and then C and then we used this funky chord which I just added the seven to it um if you ever want to play a B half diminished chord basically here let's get a little nerdy for a sec I think I remember remember what I played this is a b half diminished chord um it's basically the seventh chord version of uhoh of course my iPad stopped working now well there you go looks like this um but yeah literally iPad just froze so that's okay these kinds of things happen it's a live stream we had my headphones stopped working and then we had my iPad stop working let's just record so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop back in my software here and I'm going to add an audio track and I think I'm going to go for my favorite sort of Nile Rogers kind of sound and it's funny cuz as I'm saying that it really is one of my favorite sounds but I don't have have I don't have a go-to way to get that sound on my on my uh software here I always make it up as I go so I'm going to do an amp but I think I'm going to do something like let's see if this kind of does it what do we have here hey that's pretty nice actually that's that's most of the way there um and then I'm going to throw a limiter on there sorry if I'm blasting anyone's ears not my intention but we got a little something that's pretty cool I like that tone that's too much gain but let's record that let's record that beat and if I remember correctly which my iPad just broke down for some reason so we got a minor G and C and you know if I can't I think what I'd rather do which is more organic for me and then quicker overall and then I'll I'm going to come up with a couple different voicings because a minor G and C there are many ways to play this all over the neck I could play right it's kind of fun um so I might Tinker a bit and it'll probably be kind of sloppy just just so you know um because guess what writing music is not performing music it's sloppy it's messy sometimes you you play some wrong notes because it's how could you possibly practice something that you're just writing so normal part of the process is to be sloppy and messy I'll I'll try to play nice for fun anyway but cuz it's a fun challenge but it's probably going going to be sloppy let's see [Music] um [Music] all right I got something I like um the tone is not as nice as I want um which doesn't always matter when you're writing but it's kind of fun to mess with a little bit oh no it is nice that's pretty cool I like that um so I'm going to keep it and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to remember that other section which um I believe was f b half diminished to E minor F to C to be we'll find out um but what I want to do here is because I'm trying to create two distinct sections of a song this one I think I could Loop a bit um and if it gets a little boring without a Melody maybe I can change the chord progression a little bit but I think it's going to sound pretty nice to have two sections of this right that's pretty [Music] cool so what I I want to do now is I want to either bring this section down or up I think I want to bring it down so I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to remove um I'm going to remove half the Beats so that we have some Dynamic difference let's see how this sounds that's kind of cool actually that it's uh um what I really like about messing with about messing with Dynamics in a song is um it's it's a little bit like like doing a thing where you go um you know this really cool thing happened to me the other day you're not going to believe this like when you get quiet in a section of a song it just kind of makes you go oh wait what's going on here and um if a song's like the same intensity the whole time sometimes it's like uh that you can kind of acclimate to it and get used to it but when you have a section of a song that just brings it in suddenly you kind of go oh tell me more um it's kind of [Music] fun and sometimes you can bring down the intensity by removing beats sometimes you can bring the intensity down just by playing softer so like this right and if I were to bring the intensity down with the guitar as well that would mean instead of strumming a lot I might do some um softer [Music] strums that's kind of cool yeah let's try that um let's see what we can [Music] do [Music] yeah I I like the hard strums better I'm going to do [Music] [Music] that okay I think I need to make that a little double section because I can hear a chord progression that would end that way but it wouldn't have that thing in the middle that I just did this little so I'm going to do a double version of what I just did and then the other thing is if I'm playing down low like [Music] this um which I did change the progression a little bit cuz I like the sound of f b B half diminished a minor um C and then f b half diminished a minor to E minor but if I play it down low the more bass notes I play the less space I give an actual bass player to do something cool so I think what I would rather do is either try to just play on high strings um um which sometimes I forget uh how to play I could do that that's kind of cool there we go this is a cool version of a of this half diminished chord um and this is the power of chord voicings which is when you're playing all the same notes but you're putting them in different places here I've got b f a and d and that gives you certain kind of sound but here I have um f a uh what is it d a b f d a b f and that's a cool sound and if I play an F major 7 [Music] beforehand that's kind of cool uh I like that and then I got a [Music] that's kind of cool so I'm going to try that let's see if it actually [Music] works I already forgot how to play it you know what I'm saying F this happens when you're writing uh it takes sometimes you got to practice stuff that's normal and then we got that's what I'm going to do and then a minor to C and now you can't always recognize the chords you're playing without those bass notes with the bass notes you get this very clear all right but I'm going to save room for the bass player and um so I'm going to play these chords so that so I leave room for that bass player later which it's going to be me playing bass later so I want to be nice to myself later basically okay let's see if I can do this um and uh here we [Music] [Music] go I think I like that so let's see how that sounds and I haven't added a Melody yet I haven't added a baseline I don't even know what I'm going to do for a Melody yet I don't have to know that's okay I just want to hear how these sections crash into each other and maybe while I do that I will show you what I played on the camera guitar and I'll just mute the volume on the camera guitar so it doesn't interact weirdly excuse me shouldn't drink but bubly drinks while I'm live streaming let's see my iPad is still still frozen that's so funny it's been it's been acting funny lately but I guess it died during a live stream of course why wouldn't it so I forgot to no it's muted it's just going to come through a little bit so here's what I played and then I went here [Music] then down to here and then it went and then it [Music] went and then I went to a c chord and then I'm back to F major 7 B half diminished a minor and then I went up to this E minor and you know this is an E minor because well you might not that's what I'm trying to explain this is an E minor because all I'm using is e g and B the definition of an E minor chord is not a shape that you play on the guitar but it's the notes that the chord is made of and this is why learning a little music theory gives you so much room for creativity because if an E minor chord is just e g and B man there's so many places you can play that so I like this I could try some Melody stuff I love writing Melodies um but I think it would be much more satisfying to play bass first cuz I also love bass and it's really fun to write a melody to a track that feels a little more finished um not that we're going to well maybe we'll finish this tonight who knows I really didn't come with a specific agenda I just uh I just feel like I want to preach the gospel of writing music it's so fun um of course it takes practice to get to a point where you can like live stream simultaneously it takes definitely takes practice but gosh that feels nice I miss this guy okay okay okay I've missed you I've been playing my little blue base over in the corner for a while um which I also love this little uh this blue base right here is a music man and uh I got it I think last year the year before and this one has been neglected but I forgot how much I love it so I'm going to set it up real nice to record some good chunky base and um uh all I really need is to just throw some nice compression on here we'll hit a high ratio we'll do uh somewhere around here with the attack and we'll do instant release and we'll [Music] see and I I remember now [Music] why yeah [Music] okay I'm going to give it a little more gain I switched pickups but man I love this [Music] thing uh well this pickup so here's the cool thing about these old music Master [Music] bases they were just using a guitar pickup basically which is gnarly I think I want to do [Music] this that's that's kind of nice okay and then of course I got to get it in tune real quick so one of my favorite things to do on bass is to make sure that I'm tuning an open string and then also making sure that if I fret something that that's also in tune or as close to In Tune as it can be cuz sometimes I've noticed especially with bases even if you have uh the intonation set where the the 12th fret you know intonation is good sometimes sometimes stuff just gets kind of wonky okay so I like to tune to the area that I'm probably going to be playing if it's a real problem and then I'll just try to evenly tune everywhere if it's like a minor problem so I'm going to go a section at a time because I don't even remember what I played and I'll start with the section I just played because it's probably going to be a much simpler [Music] [Music] Baseline [Music] yeah so those are the chords f b a c f b a e and I could do a a fun slidy thing like [Music] that um roots and fifths are really nice to play on [Music] base but I don't know let's see I'm going to mess with [Music] it that's kind of nice but I want to try something different I don't know maybe I'm going to [Music] go I'm want to [Music] try I don't know maybe I'll just keep it simple yeah that's a little tricky try uh Kenneth said walk on the third though I actually let's see that that could be kind of cool actually to go f a so root third for the F chord and [Music] then [Music] um yeah okay I'm going to try that actually that's cool I'm going to go uh what what am I going to do I'm going to go f g a b d a b c e f g a b d [Music] a okay I got an idea let's try [Music] ah I forgot what I was doing okay I like it though I got the first half I'm going to I'm going to record each each section cuz I'm forgetting so we got so that's the first half now I got to record the second half which [Music] [Music] goes yeah I like that I like that um so I got those parts let's see if they're they're too slot Floy they're certainly too [Music] loud good making my ears bleed yeah I'm remembering why this base isn't doing it for me quite as much I don't I I I wish I chose the other pickup but whatever now now we'll do the fun the the the fun upbeat section what is [Music] it [Music] I don't know that's [Music] something now I got to I got to do some mixing here before my thing before my computer freaks out so hang on a sec here these drums are [Music] too they're too out of control so I'm going to just get them under a little bit of control here nothing crazy I love the quiet [Music] section and then I'm going to turn it down a little bit and then I'm going to mix the base into the drums but I think part of my problem with the bases it doesn't have a distinct enough tone for me and it's it just feels kind [Music] of feels a little flat so I'm going to try to put it through a little fake amp here and see if that helps that helps [Music] already and now I'll get the I like that tone better let's see if we can mix [Music] it also if you got any questions fire them off in the chat and I'll take a little question break in a second [Music] here I like that I like that tone better and now I'm going to mix the guitar to one side just a [Music] little I like that [Music] yeah that's kind of cool so I think I might try writing a Melody over that but first um I could double the guitar Kyo but I don't know if I I don't know if I need to today so let me just search for any questions that might have come up when I was wasn't paying attention to the chat and I'll try to pay better attention from now on hi everybody Welcome to my channel I'm Scott and uh I just want to encourage you to write music because you're missing out if you're not writing music it's the most fun thing ever I I don't even learn songs very often I just write music it's so fun so Pete says do you ever use comping between tracks I do it all the time if you don't know what comping is um I did kind of a lazy version of it here but essentially comping is when you have multiple takes and you go well I'm going to take the first part of this I'm going to take these beats from take seven and then I'm going to take this beat from take nine like [Music] this and that's that's called comping is when you're when you're sort of taking little pieces from different takes so we got take seven take eight take 10 and take nine are all mixed in on this one Baseline and this is how all the pros Do It um I I'm not 100% positive about this but I'm pretty sure um it used to be that they had different takes on different rolls of tape and they would practice getting the take they want by turning the volume down on this one and turning it up on this one really quick to get all the phrasing they wanted on older recordings now you can do it a bit easier with software but um but yeah that's called comping um it's just taking a bunch of different tracks and picking your favorite Parts it's kind of fun um so Elvis Titus says curious what audio interface you use and I use um currently I was trying to find one that that felt like it would last me the rest of my life so I have this one by cranborne Audio um and I think it's called the 500R it's got these little slots here for 500 series preamps or effects and um part of the reason I got it is uh I didn't want to be reliant on any software based pieces of hardware and a lot of audio interfaces right now um they have sort of software that's part of the way they work and when that software stops working they won't work anymore and that kind of freaked me out and so I wanted a piece of Hardware that it just I don't even I think it's just USB 2.0 it's a very simple thing it's it's um but it's very expandable I can add with Adat I can add uh I can have up to 24 or 26 tracks eventually when I when I have space for that um but yeah I love that interface it's my favorite I've ever used so far um even though uh looks like a knob fell off one of my 500 series that's okay that's I just haven't put it back yet um so let's see other questions and then we'll get back into writing music if you've got them throw them on uh Lauren yes um this is the Akai lpk25 where does it say that says it right there also says it right here aai lpk25 I love this little keyboard for me a non-keyboard player that just wants to put in drums and the occasional simple um keyboard stuff it's awesome so then let's see Randy says are all of the different amps and effects part of logic pro software or are they purchased separately I joined your patreon last week and I love it Randy welcome to my patreon thanks for being a member I hope you're learning a lot while you're there for the rest of you I got I do a live stream like this once a week where I answer absolutely every question my patrons ask and um I've got a huge backlog of lessons where you can learn recording software and whatnot but your question was are all the different amps and effects part of logic pro software yes currently the way that I'm using logic um I have previously owned all kinds of effects but right now I'm using just what comes with logic and honestly for my workflow right now which is mainly using this to write songs and then take what I've written to uh a band or to a recording studio to sort of fles out the parts uh there it works perfectly for me um I have done some professional recordings with logic pro as well it's a fantastic software I love it um Josh Johan says if you add a solo would you explain how you chose which Keys sln notes you're playing over the rhythm guitar chords totally gayen Maynard um asked do you ever do vocals on these yeah I'm going to try some vocals on this today we'll see how it happens um any other questions n says hi Scott any tips for perfectionists who find it easier to start a new song then to go back and edit ideas they're not too hot on but still want to finish N I would actually say it this way um you want to have a Boneyard you want to have a big pile of stuff like this that may never become a full song um because uh sort of like there's practicing guitar and then there's practicing like a religion and songwriting is much more like a religion in the sense that um practicing means that uh you're doing it regularly you're actively participating you're making it part of your lifestyle you have some sense of like ritual and ceremony around doing it regularly and kind of take create creating like a Sacred Space almost for yourself to to just regularly do this stuff so most of the time your songs that you start like this don't need to end up as a finished song in order for you to get better at songwriting of course you got to take ideas like this and I'll show you um I'll show you how I would take this and turn it into a full song I think I like this enough that I'll definitely do that um if we got we got time who am I kidding um so yeah totally um any other questions here before I move on Daniel says any new hot bodies and motion songs hitting the airwaves soon and the answer to that that's my band hot Bodies in Motion I know it's a ridiculous name but we we're keeping it um we we have some songs that we're working on um and we were going to release them sooner but we kind of we're trying to do the uh the whole studio band thing and just recently decided no we got to find a drummer and bass player and play some shows so um we've switched gears and we still have those songs and we're still going to finish them up but we're also going to start doing some regular rehearsals and um that'll that'll make recording a lot more fun cuz my favorite thing is to rehearse songs with the band a bunch then get in the studio and do sort of the the dope recording of it um yeah whereas the way I'm writing right now is how a lot of pop stars would um would just like record a whole song which is a cool way to do it too but it get you end up with a different result so let's see um Gizmo Channel says could you do chord over scale um I don't know quite what you mean by that but but um if you can explain it sure Caesar says have you read the creative act by Rick Ruben um no I haven't should I I'll have I'll have to check it out I'd love to meet Rick Rubin I want to talk to him I want to see what what what Rick's deal is so what I'm going to do now is I'll set up a little vocal track here and we'll see we'll see if any ideas come to mind this is a definitely a little bit more more vulnerable um but I'll just put some fun effects on here let me mute myself so you can hear check oh that's very quiet right now check check too loud check okay give me a sec you can't hear me very well but you will hear me very well once I do this fast attack fast release somewhere around here check check check check check check check check check check check you know I think this mic is oh yeah this mic is messed up I see let me get a better mic one sec I'm going to get a better mic okay that one is not it's like everything's breaking today but I have a pretty cool mic over here where'd you go there you are this is a very nice little mic so although I got to say let's use the the Pod mic oh no I remember this one needs a a funky cable so hang on a sec here what am I doing okay and you can keep firing off questions and I'll just take a break soon and I'll get to your next set of questions okay all that's what I'm here for I'm here to teach and ask answer questions otherwise what's the point of doing this live you know all right let me set up this microphone here check aha I I think something's being weird okay oh let's let's see [Music] [Laughter] okay check check check my everything oh I feel like my ears are getting blasted oh but if that's not happening to you then we're fine so I'm going to throw I'm going to throw my voice voice into the same check check is it the microphone cable no it's not what's going on okay oh yeah that is the right mic well ah let's see here check I see I I missed a key feature here check oh [Music] well let's see what happens can you hear me oh I know what's [Music] happening I just realized what's happening I have a setting that I have to fix real quick here and aha ah everything was weird so give me a sec here ready we're going to fix everything I was wondering why my levels were weird now they're back to normal so give me a sec here here's my voice now it feels crazy loud to me so I'm going to turn it down can you oh I know it's happening how's that sound to everybody there we go we had some weird issues and uh live streaming live streaming is crazy because you can be so prepared and then just some weird stuff will happen and then you'll be like why can't I hear myself and then suddenly an hour into the stream you realize just one knob was just turned wrong just one knob was turned wrong so now if the volume is not blasting you um which hopefully you're ear is not being blasted right now I'm going to now I can hear this better and I like it and I'm happy about that and when I hit this button this magic button and I mute my other microphone now I can hear myself much better wow that's all it took check and now we've got some beautiful check Che check oh check check yeah there we go let's just let's see if we can come up with some kind of a Melody here okay yeah um Robo phonic you're exactly right just one knob was tuned wrong I can't hear myself very well but hey we're trying so I'm I don't like this vocal tone at all this is ugly let's do something nice now that we know what the problem we now that we all know my problems now that we all know what I did wrong which is great um now I'm going to make it sound nice to me check check [Music] check okay that's better I forgot how Bassy this microphone is so I'm going to turn up some little sizzly high frequencies here and I think I'm going to do a little check check that's much nicer yeah and then just for fun um maybe I'll throw a little delay on there so that we got something weird how about little tape delay see if this is too intense too intense yes extremely extremely intense more [Laughter] feedback oh hey I forgot that I'm live streaming to 400,000 people my bad I'll take this more seriously woo okay okay no yeah that's better check check check check all right let's see what we got here I'm going to listen first one knob was tuned wrong and I don't care about this melody it's way too proper I don't [Music] know this makes it feel a little more intimate doesn't it um wow I'm not going to do that to you uh so now that we did this hang on a sec where did my mouse go I got too many freaking monitors okay so now that I did try something I'm going to I going to make something up on guitar because I don't like anything that I've come up with so far and I know that I could come up with something better um so I'm just going to do it and gosh darn it I bet that everything's going to work the way I expect it to now let's see let's see yeah now I can hear really well and hopefully you can too so I want to write a melody and here's a really cool thing yeah we're going to do it on the camera guitar can't help it so anytime anytime you're writing a melody and you're singing there's a really important thing that can either make you feel really bad if you don't know what you're doing um and it can make you feel really good if you know you know what you're doing wow what a long way for me to say nothing um here's the deal vocal range in other words how high or low you can comfortably sing has a massive impact on your ability to write Melodies um that that feel really good for you to sing for example um it is pretty late in my office and I don't think anyone's around so I may end up yelling tonight but if you take a simple C scale here we've got c d e f g a b c generally speaking my personal vocal range is I'm comfortable singing a c and then when we start getting lower I can't I can't sing an a very comfortably I don't have a very deep voice um so C is a nice comfortable low note for me and then as I start getting higher um and you can do this at home as well finding your vocal range can be a GameChanger for writing Melodies even just pitching songs in the right key for your voice a lot of people think they're a bad singer and it's no you just don't know your range and you got to get your range in there so let's see c d e f g a b c c I can sing Comfortably D I got to start yelling and then e is not going to sound very good so what I want to do in this melody is only sing an e if I really have to or if I have to yell so I'm going to try to find some notes in here that feel better for my voice and I'm actually going to find my mouse again which keeps disappearing and I'm just going to focus in on my a minor chords here so let's see here's my a minor cord so if I go that's a nice [Music] melody so I can go c b a a e and now I've got a nice phrase c b a a e that's kind of cool and what I'm doing here by the way the reason I outlined the actual notes in the chord is the way you write Melodies usually is to start on a chord tone and then walk either if you're going to walk you got to walk to another chord tone C B A and then I just jumped down to e another chord tone which if you're going to jump jump to a chord tone so I got c b a a e e f g a that could be two little phrases over this a minor let's see so I got c d a e e f G A that works but it is a little too proper I agree um I might instead want to [Music] go um and the other thing is I only got two bars and this is two [Music] bars so what I might do instead is I just might keep that as my first phrase and then my next two phas which is uh two chords uh which would be what are my two chords they're G and C which we got here's our G chord right here here's our c chord so we got and now we've got we're starting on a G [Music] chord what we n so here again I'm starting on a note in the G chord [Music] now I don't know I don't like that let's try it I don't have much space so I got to [Music] go what does that sound like that's all I have time for let's say that works [Music] so so we [Music] got uh uh uh uh uh [Music] so the way I like to write Melodies which by the way what we just wrote We hi what we just wrote takes up uh four measures so if we repeat it here and change it a little bit the second time we've have got a really nice little Melody going so we [Applause] [Music] got [Music] so the second time around what I want to do is a slightly different Melody because Oh wrong button excuse me when you repeat things um for example I'm calling this my a melody and then I'm calling this my B Melody when you only have an A and A B if you just repeat them you can you can do that but the listener starts to assume that you're going to repeat things so if you change it a little bit the second time through um it kind of helps people lean in a little bit so if we've [Music] got something like that you know I don't know um I'm going to try to record that we'll see what happens um and uh wish me luck I'm going to need it writing songs live is always a weird thing here we go I'm going to mute myself [Music] hello it's too fun to mess with [Music] mics [Music] [Music] that's kind of cool so one of my favorite things to do to make it feel this is like a clown music what's going on there we go now you got my regular voice um this works really nice sometimes a Melody like this if you just put sort of fake words to it um for example uh let me find a Wikipedia article here is one of my favorite tricks here um I don't know let's do Fender guitar so now I've I'm just looking at random words on this Wikipedia article um and I've got headstock logo um yeah I don't know amplifiers became St like it's not even real words but there's something about putting um like wordy sounding stuff um in your uh in your song that just suddenly makes it feel like oh I see how this could be a song yeah scrambled eggs exactly so if we've got you know some random words in there I'll I'll try we'll see what happens um let's do it California hoping someday i' get lost in the forest I found that Beetle that was flying California found the beat that was lost California trees are coming don't get so something like that it's fine I don't know it it works um and we've got uh it's a start can you take me serious ly with this delay Echo Reverb thing I don't think so um Mini Cooper yeah so then in California found the Beet that was [Music] lost yeah I really did find that oh yeah I found that Beetle it's uh I can't remember what kind of beetle it is but uh he's just climbing on my light man that really freaked me out earlier this has been quite a quite a a stream a lot of Firsts um things just breaking down and we're making it work let's see if we can find something for the next section here I don't know I don't know let's see winging it oh no I can't wow that's pretty [Music] bad it's funny cuz the more you do this sometimes like I I mean you may or may not believe me sometimes most of the time I feel like I can come up with something pretty quickly but um not today that's how it goes uh uh even if you're really well uh practiced songwriter sometimes you can't think of a Melody very quickly and you got to use your guitar for help so now I'm going to go what do we [Music] got I like something like [Music] that I'm actually kind of miming the Basse a little bit there oh exactly that's actually kind of cool if I can mimic the bass to be honest that because the Baseline is [Music] nice I'm going to I'm going to actually mimic the Baseline I want to see how that sounds let's see here kind of cool ah I should have seen you I know doesn't have to be exact I should have seen you that's kind of fun oh let me sleeping I been The Stranger in this town let me sleep in I've been a stranger I've been sleeping in this town in the stranger way I don't know it's not my favorite but it works let's hear let's hear this whole thing you can't hear me you can't hear me very well there we go let's hear this whole thing I'm not in love with it but it's fun it's always fun to write music even if it doesn't turn out magically the way you want it to every time that's totally fine and I like I like it I just am not in love in love with it you know so let's [Music] see found the Beet that was lost the trees are coming don't get lost I've been a stranger I've been sleeping in this town in the stranger so because of my takes here this is a good time to go back and do a little comping to just get rid of that first there we go now we have a nice [Music] little and then what's our ending here let's see [Music] let's see if this actually com uh uh I've been a stranger I've been sleeping in this town in the stranger way California so now kind of cool kind of fun yeah I'm having a good time I hope you're having a good time um I don't see any more questions so I'm just going to keep going through but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask um yeah yep cool cool uh also I'm going to pause to say hey um if you are feeling like you're getting something out of this and you want to learn how to do this yourself it's kind of like I guess at this point I've been teaching guitar since I was like 14 years old and this is my favorite thing to do and it's my favorite thing to help other people learn how to do and it's the thing that I want my online school to be about I do have some lessons in there about the cage system about soloing I can totally do a guitar solo over this um and talk about the note choices that I would make which I'll do as well but this kind of stuff just like making music is so awesome um so Elvis says any tips on the transitions like when you went from the a part to the B part I usually have trouble with that yeah I mean the transitions are tricky um let's work on it let's work on it together cuz I think the next step that I want to do with this song is to arrange it into what if it was a real song basically um cuz it could be so I feel like my sections here are a little short for example if this was supposed to be Verse Chorus Verse Chorus we are only at a minute long with uh Verse Chorus Verse Chorus and if I was going to just do a stand in for a bridge chorus chorus like this this is uh this would be an extremely short minute and 43 second song so I might want to rethink if if I want to double this section and add something in there to make it more interesting or if I want to add maybe the second half of this section is a little pre chorus or maybe this is the pre chorus and then we just haven't written A Chorus yet uh I'm going to listen to it as if this is a verse and a pre chorus California found the Beet that was lost California trees are coming uh uh I've been a stranger i' been sleeping in this town in the stranger way I actually think this could work really well as a verse pre chorus section like this um I I think that's a pretty cool idea so in that case maybe I need to write a chorus um so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my beat here and I'm going to see how I can make it bigger um Robo phonic my voice probably could go up to e on sleeping in this town but I don't want to do it too high also Daniel um had a really good question which is do you ever write lyrics without a backing track yeah totally um but I will say uh if you have these kind of dummy these are dummy L these are not real lyrics don't look into them don't take them seriously I literally looked up and saw a beetle on my light and I was singing about it but I would what I love about dummy lyrics is they give you an easy way to look at the meter of your song and what I mean by that is um Let me let me see what these lyrics even are I forgot um well okay I know the SE the the second section right um let's go to my little notes in logic pro here so if I go I've been a stranger I've been a sleeping in this town Hey look it's a Christmas song In A Manger um but these lyrics are absolutely meaningless but if we count the syllables one I've been a stranger that's five and then this one is I've been asleeping in this town I've been asleeping in this town that's eight I'm a stranger now that's five so for a chorus you could find a five syllable phrase um you could you know this is where you get to play around on paper without the song you could go oh I'm in danger um how could I keep you uh going round I don't know like that's also meaningless but you see how I'm just taking the same meter and kind of making a new chorus like the idea here is that once you get your syllables that helps you do it on paper much better much easier it's really nice um so I I strongly recommend that um yeah so uh that that's all I'm trying to say is That's The Power of lyrics right there but I want to I want to try to write a little chorus here let's see so so if we've got this section that's kind of constant and we got this section strer and it kind of brings it down maybe this section can be a little more Dancy a little more upbeat or something and I think I'm going to get my base plugged back in here and see what I can [Music] do so come here [Music] base I forgot what input my base was in was it this one yeah Chris Mulla scratch vocal track is very handy just for just for being able to screw around and have some sense of uh you know the lyrics could sound like this if if I wrote real words but right now they're just very much placeholder just to sound good so I'm just going to mess around I'm [Music] going [Music] that's kind of [Music] cool yeah but [Music] H that's [Music] better H [Music] almost [Music] I don't like [Music] that I kind of like that and here's what I'm picturing I'm picturing um some guitar that's kind of doing stabs and then um so we kind of have a mix of both sections where our first section is pretty constant and then our second section has those just uh uh like the sustained chords but if we have a little [Music] uh I'll show you I'm talking about and then I might actually double that riff with another guitar so it feels a little thicker uh let's see here let's try this so I'm going to [Music] go [Music] [Music] m so basically what I'm doing is I got an A Minor and I'm trying to decide if I want to go and then come in [Music] on I kind of like [Music] that [Music] that's kind of cool but it's a lot of space and it's kind of scary to have that much space for a vocalist but also it's cool to have that much space for a vocalist cuz that gives you room to go oh no I'm trying not to find you which I think that's some there's something in there that's pretty cool oh I was going to say uh I want to double I want to double that Baseline with a kind of R your guitar um because that's going to really beef up that that tone and make it feel a little more chusy because it's just a little thicker it's also going to make the Baseline feel more important if that makes sense um I don't know if a fuzz pedal is right let's see what this guy does come on oh it's very party there you go all right that's kind of cool I'm going to turn this level down I'm going to drive it way much and uh let's see [Music] yeah let's see if that does it uh yeah hey [Music] yeah [Music] that's cool I like that I'll take it um and then now we've got some sections I love space in a song um yeah yeah this is kind of like that okay okay okay so here's what we're doing now we've got this stuff here and I know I want two of these [Music] and honestly I love choruses they're like too short cuz then you're like go it's gone already I want I want to hear it again and then that makes him listen to the next verse in my humble opinion let's [Music] see [Music] that doesn't really matter that much I'm getting too picky um I am going to pan that on the other side though so we got yeah that's [Music] nice I think that's sick [Music] honestly now all I want to do is um see if the the the drum part could be any bigger oh hang [Music] on um I don't know if it [Music] can I don't think we [Music] want maybe we have a little a crash at the end like this let's [Music] see I think we need that the crashes to happen on those but up yeah like this so now we've got [Music] this that's pretty cool I like [Music] it who said who said cowbell who's got a fever right now who's who's got a freaking fever I think what I'd rather do is is just do some uh some tambourine however this is where it's kind of a cheat but honestly sometimes when it works it works so well there's freaking tambourine Loops in here and when they're sick they're so sick that's not the one I like the recordings I don't know let's [Music] see honestly that's sick I'm going to put it in and then um now we've got honestly it's a pretty sick chor I'm happy with that I'm going to pan it a little bit to a funky Direction like [Music] this and then I think what I'm going to have to do is I think I need a little cool down section at the end of the chorus I just have a hunch I will but I don't know what I need so let's just throw some vocals in there see what happens um this is another thing that actually happens to me pretty often by the way is I'll write a song and I'll be like eh it's kind of cool and then I'll write a new um a new part and I'll be like oh that's my favorite part of the whole song um hey yeah so oh so remember how I was saying I might yell tonight I might I might yell so let me go back to the camera guitar I forgot I'm supposed to be teaching right I'm having so much fun I forget um so I'll clear all this extra stuff off here so I was saying before comfortable rrange is down here this is a doable note and then I tried to keep my melody here but I can yeah if I sing louder yeah and so maybe my chorus will have to go up here cuz usually choruses sound better when uh choruses feel more chusy when you're really freaking serious about it and usually that means singing a little louder and more intensely um I don't know I don't know how it will go but we'll we'll try it um I'm just preaching the songw writing you know yeah let's [Music] see oh no I've been understanding try oh no this is all you got is all going to be that's kind of cool actually let's try this again oh no if it's all you want I got to take it down oh if it's all you want I can't be wrong again now there's something cool there there's something going on that I like um Let me let me listen to what I have and then I'll tell you the parts I don't like and we'll see we'll see what we can do about that let's see although something I don't like about logic pro at all is sometimes it just like deletes takes in a weird way so I'm actually going to undo what I just did and uh it's going to be totally fine here yeah okay you can't see anything I'm doing I'm just BL staring blankly into a screen let's try this again I there are parts of it I like but I got to just fiddle around with it um so yeah welcome to me fiddling around this is what it looks like sometimes to figure out a Melody I'll just keep riffing on it [Music] my voice is a little tired from talking all day I think oh no I'm out of water let me get my [Music] water oh no there we go oh no I've been all here I've been trying and I oh know if it's all you got I guess I'll have to go try it again oh no if it's all I got I guess it's got to go oh no if it's all I've got all I've got to do that's that don't work um so here's a cool thing um yeah by the way uh if any of you out there are like ooh that was kind of cringe to hear so blatantly singing a you know voice cracking or whatever this is this happens in songwriting sessions all the time when you're thinking about the like uh you know legendary people or like um you know you're only hearing like the polished finished product but people do like flounder all the time where they while they're writing it's a normal part of the process because as people who we're just used to hearing all the final products the things people actually wanted to put on their album you're not hearing the voice memos where they're like oh get like oh can we turn this into a song which totally happens and honestly if you do that with your own voice memos where you're just like oh wait I got an idea [Music] it's like people put that like people have that in their phone and they're like that will be a song one day it's basically a bookmark for an idea um I I don't feel bad by the way I'm just I'm just letting you know if it feels cringe I'm just letting you know that this is going to happen to you when you're songw writing too and it's part of the process and it it's honestly the more you laugh about it the the easier it is to write songs so now I've got this little this little song seed here it's 48 seconds um and I kind of like it and what I have here is a little sometimes I call this like a a I guess people call it a post chorus or a chorus outro um and I don't know what to do with it yet I'm going to listen to this chorus and then I'm going to see how it sounds for the chorus to loop back to the verse just like this and I'll go halfway through I don't I don't need to listen to the whole thing because we just heard it but here we go oh no if it's all I've got all I've got to [Music] go California that's honestly sick just like that um I might want to bring the Dynamics down a bit by removing the uh symbols like this um and maybe even turning this these into um if we wanted to make it a little more dramatic we could do something like like this and now we have [Music] um and that can really help um that can really help meld a section together instead of doing something like this where you're going uh let's see it's just like a little breathing room oh no if it's all i' got all I've got to go California you see what I'm saying it's kind of cool to just have that Breathing Room it might even be cool to just have a measure of breathing room let's see if we do this no two measures is cool and I like it that way I was going to see if I want to add like base to it got to go I mean it would be pretty sick to just add that du at the front like this um and go like [Music] this let's see that I think this is going to be pretty cool actually you see what I just did I took the little these and I put them at the end of the chorus like this yeah I like that okay so this is 48 seconds and we've got sort of this whole versy thing that's kind of like verse pre chorus but it's really it's really just like a verse that's in two parts it doesn't really matter how how to call it but um let's just Loop it through here now we've got Verse Chorus Verse Chorus and we're up to a minute and 30 seconds and the only thing I really need to do different between these two sections is maybe um I would want to to do lower Dynamics the second time through or even part of the second time through and then I could go to a bridge which one of the coolest things here is um I don't need to write something new I can just use this as my bridge and one of my favorite sort of bridge oh yeah I think this alone is enough space to do some kind of a bridge if I did if I started with this B and then uh uh I'm going to I'm going to wing it okay I don't know what I'm going to do but I know that I want it to be really low chill quiet right here and then you expect a verse to happen and and it doesn't happen and we'll see we'll see what we can do here I don't know yeah a good building kind of section though for sure whoever just said that Randy yeah you're in um so I like that so let's see I'll let you see what's going on here cuz I'm trying to craft these Dynamics I literally have no clue so I'm going [Music] to honestly uh that bridge could just keep going I actually really like that Baseline I just came up with and if we did it just three times that would be that' be pretty tight like as in um short and sweet [Music] but [Music] yeah that's kind of cool I like that I'm I think I'm going to do it so but I'm going to I'm going to start really quiet and maybe I'll use my little um lead guitar thing that was doing this shenan again I'll have it double this like the second time and then we'll build intensity and then we'll build right back into that chorus riff that'll be cool oh I forgot how it goes [Music] now [Music] I played something different but I kind of liked that too but let's see which one's more iconic holy Nitro Max thank you for the 20 bucks Nitro Max says dude you are the best you're the best thank you wow I appreciate that and Mark G4 54 gave me 50 bucks thank thank you I appreciate that that wow thank you so much um this bridge is now called uh the Nitro Max and marbridge uh I want to see which Baseline I like better though let's see here wow thank you guys that's so nice uh-oh there we [Music] go so do I like that better than this [Music] oh I kind of like that second one so what I'm doing here is I'm playing uh a e a g f F uh that's [Music] cool [Music] yeah yeah that's kind of fun so go [Music] there's something about that Baseline I want to adjust it's almost there and I think it'll be a a cool bridge but I'm going to go uh uh uh uh so if I'm going [Music] a that could be [Music] cool [Music] yeah maybe I'll do that instead [Music] uh yeah I'm going to Tinker with it a bit but I like it then we got this [Music] I think that'll be nice and then we'll we'll add the guitar and see how that goes um it's funny to turn down my volume only to unplug and have that thing click sweet um and then we'll put ourselves in the right thing here um I think this will really sound good once the um once the rhythm guitar is in there but I'm going to do the I'm going to do the uh lead guitar first um because I have a cool idea I want to see if it [Music] works [Music] I don't know if this will work [Music] I [Music] nah that's kind of sick actually so [Music] oh yeah I'll just play the Riff got to go [Music] oh well okay part of the problem is I played the Baseline as if it was improvised so I think I'm going to scratch the lead guitar until I get the rhythm guitar in there and I'm going to go let's see what am I doing what am I doing I'm going to do the rhythm guitar next I'm going leave that lead out for now because it's a little wonk uh sometimes if you don't know if if you try a few things and they don't work rather than just trying over and over and over sometimes it's like well I need more support uh or it's too open-ended and if I record a different part that'll kind of close some doors forcing to make some decisions and if I try a few things and um and I feel like I have too many options I want to go to the place where where it'll clamp down it give me fewer options also I've been going for two hours I can't believe some of you are still here um I will come back to that riff I won't forget it don't you worry Kenneth thanks for hanging hanging out thanks everybody for hanging out I'm having such so much fun so let me see how I want to do [Music] this there's something there so I really like that I like that so let me tell you what I'm doing here um there's some sneaky stuff going [Music] on um first of all I'm playing an A minor chord here and then I'm playing uh F major 7 instead of just an F chord and then I'm playing a C major 7 and then here's the coolest thing I'm playing a D major chord instead of a D Minor which you can do in a minor key it's basically called uh melodic minor um or it's Dorian mode depending on the situation but I think I'm going to keep tinkering with that so now I'm going to do [Music] this [Music] yeah that's kind of cool let's see how that sounds uh I kind of like that [Music] [Music] so you know what I just remembered someone earlier can't remember who said hey if you make a solo in this song um I want you to explain what chords you're using so I think what I'll do is I'll I'll play this rhythm part a little simply so that I can um play a solo over it and explain what I'm doing why not so let's do that so now I'm going to [Music] um I keep forgetting the chords this happens a minor F C D major and at the very end it scoots up to E major so I've got to go so now I'm going to do a little [Music] bit cool that's cool um let's play a solo and uh what are we going to do here so should I I think I'll play a solo first and then I'll talk about what I did on the camera guitar [Music] I don't know we'll see we'll see let's see I'll zoom in on my guitar so you can see the kind of stuff I'm doing here um let me get a nice soloy tone and a soloy volume here and I think uh let's [Music] see um before I go Elvis Titus cool name said um do you add lib in a bridge usually it depends on the bridge the way I like to think of it is some bridges are lean into the feeling kind of bridges usually the lyrics help you figure out if you want to lean into the lean into the feeling of the brid of the song so the bridge is like I'll have more of that thank you and then other bridges are a however it could be and that's when you go to like a different place tonally and a different place lyrically that's kind of the idea so let's not get too shreddy here but let's um figure figure out which of my four monitors the mouse is there it is and then um I'm going to just get used to this progression for a minute um let's [Music] [Music] see [Music] [Music] yeah uh guitar is way too loud now all of a sudden so I think what I want to do is I'll I'll have my little BM at the at the [Music] end and now we're going [Music] to [Music] oh yeah yeah so that's [Music] fun so there's a couple tricky things going on with this progression and we'll scoot over to the camera guitar to talk about them and that's a really dangerous spot for that guitar I'll put it here instead um so woo and uh this is why I'm eventually upgrading to a wireless system here cuz I almost tripped so here's the deal oh you can't hear that at all so when it comes to minor Keys when it comes to soloing in general you want to focus on chord tones and if those chords are going by fast you can get away with not focusing on them as much but when I'm focusing on my a minor chord that little intro riff that I did [Music] or I'm trying to Accent notes in that chord but then the chord shifts to an F chord which is almost the same so if I'm going and I want to Accent the difference between those chords I might go right and then the trick here is um that it goes to a c chord which is [Music] cool but then it goes to to a freaking D major [Applause] [Music] chord um and at the very end of the song it actually also goes to um an E major chord just for such a split second but it has this this G sharp in it so I want to try to tag that g Shar just at the last second and I think what I'm going to do here is I'm I'm going to rewire a couple things so that I can plug this camera guitar into my recording software so that you can see the notes I'm playing while I'm soloing is that worth it I think that's probably worth it I just have to do some funny looking stuff here what do I have to do I have to take this cable ha haa and I'll just mute that cuz we don't need it anymore and then I got to take this cable wow I'm rewiring stuff Live 2 hours into a live stream you must think I'm a crazy person this is I'm having so much [Music] fun so here's what I'm going to do just for fun so you can kind of see what I'm talking about is I'll try to keep my solo just in here [Music] and what I want you to do is look out for the times when I'm going to use this note I'm going to accent that note and times I'm going to accent that note at the very end so let's see I have no idea how got some gnarly stuff in here I'm going to throw a Little Noise Gate on there real quick so that we don't have [Music] I don't need full there we go so let's try [Music] this so I'm going to [Music] go [Music] yeah and then I would go that's when I would maybe like solo over or do like a a part over that final chorus um but that's kind of a fun little solo I'm going to do I'm going to do a couple more takes just so you get the idea um yeah yeah Paul says obviously you know what's going on but does watching yourself play on the camera guitar help you navigate the fretboard yeah sometimes it's confusing cuz it's um sort of backwards uh uh yeah but it's pretty helpful it's cool um sometimes I get like dyslexic or something I don't maybe that's not the right word but I get messed up [Music] so so then we got this [Music] yeah it almost feels like it go longer but I kind of like when a section just isn't it in my opinion it's always better for a section to go too short than to go too long so I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to have my part just crash into uh like a little double chorus or something here um I'll show you what I'm doing here I'm I just copied and pasted my previous chorus over here and then I think what I want to do is I'm going to put this vocal part here and I think I see that I could cut my last little phrase my last vocal phrase um it's going to feel wrong to do this but I think if I cut this here and pop this here then I'm going to just sort of bring my solo into the last chorus we'll see how that goes I don't know maybe this a good way to end it too all I've got to [Music] [Music] go [Music] oh no it's all got I guess it's got to go oh no so I don't like soloing over the final Chorus at all but if I had a nice riff that ended that just kind of like bled over into the last [Music] section um yeah if it just cut off right there that would be pretty cool I think and you know if I was being a perfectionist I would um I would probably um do like quite a few more takes but at the moment I'm just I'm happy this is fine um the only thing that isn't fine is I took my last little thing here there we [Music] go [Music] oh no if it's all I got I guess it's got to go oh no if it's all I've got all I've got oh no if it's all I got I guess it's got to go oh no if it's all I've got all I've got to go that's kind of a fun [Laughter] outro okay so people um thanks for hanging out uh this has been fun I think oh nitrox thank thanks for the the second donation okay I'll take it thank you I appreciate that um wow thanks to the 90 people watching right now um thanks for being here I'm I'm having a blast and um I got room for a couple more questions if anyone's interested in asking a few more um yeah uh I just want to remind you that uh I do this for a living I'm I got an online school it just happens to be hosted on patreon it's only 1167 a month um I do weekly live stream weekly lesson and um also check out this scratch paper very useful just hanging out at the bottom of the page here if you hit the all notes button that that's the best thank you to my Patron Graham who made this super cool thing um yeah anyhow um and I don't see any questions but um yeah oh Elvis yeah that software is something I made me and my video editor friend um made that together and uh I like it too it's pretty cool um let's see uh oh the three W says at what point do you think it's a good time to join my patreon currently still a beginner so if you're a complete beginner I always recommend taking private lessons um but uh I think my patreon is a great supplement if you want to learn music theory and you want to learn how to write songs I just don't recommend it on its own if you're a beginner it's great supplemental stuff but um it's it doesn't teach you any technique doesn't teach you how to play any songs it just teaches you how to learn music theory how to make music with it learning how to write baselines how to write Melodies how to use recording software um and just generally uh soloing to there's a lot of soloing content on there um and then I do a weekly Q&A with the camera guitar like this where you can ask me any anything you want to ask um Nitro Max yeah I made the overlays uh I made all those uh all those files myself um all those Graphics are made by me personally very timec consuming um yeah so so cool I don't see any other questions I'll totally I'll totally answer them if you if you type them um I'll give you another 30 seconds here if you got any questions for me um oh Jamie Gail a guitar says great stuff man appreciate your stream I'm a high school music teacher and I'm constantly referring students to your channel thank you I really appreciate that that's so nice to hear n you signed up today thank you you that's awesome Mark G I live in the greater Seattle area um in Washington state the Great Pacific Northwest um yeah okay cool um I don't see any other questions so uh oh gayen mayard says how often do you do these live streams on YouTube rarely although I've been going roughly once a month is if I feel like it recently but I also you know before a month ago hadn't done a stream on this YouTube channel in a few years um yeah yeah cool yeah Paul Seattle's the best I hope you move somewhere kind of nice Eli Merill says how much should I focus on mixing in my production it really depends Eli if you are trying to do a finished product yourself or if you're just trying to get it to a mixing engineer when you're done recording but doing some mixing as you go helps you get a sense of how well your pieces work together and um so it doesn't hurt to do a little bit but if you're trying to just be creative um if the mixing is going to distract you while you're being creative don't do any of it um it doesn't distract me because I have just slowly done a little bit of EQ a little bit of compression and then sometimes I've had writing sessions where I'm just focused on getting the hang of that stuff so the mix between creative stuff with a little bit of effects mixed in with lessons just focused on uh my own personal learning how to use EQ and compression and stuff combined means I've slowly sort of just put that into my writing process but if it's just distracting you from being creative just focus on being creative um that's what I would say uh let's see the 3w says should we expect any new videos similar to your T tutorials you uploaded long ago well yeah I put out a new video uh on soloing just a couple months ago um and uh you know I don't have one for YouTube in the works at the moment I'm really digging the live streaming thing and I'm really focused on um building out some lessons for my patreon at the moment and if you really hate patreon part of what I'm working on too is um some of the core essential uh courses that I've put a lot of time into I I eventually want to make those available for sale separately on my website so if you don't like subscription services and you don't want to be part of patreon um I will eventually have some courses for sale on my website um yeah let's see um yeah Elvis there are not that many Beatles in Seattle but for some reason in my area there's a lot of these little um they're like the flat um almost like Pentagon shaped beetles pretty cool um Randy says did you have formal training or music schooling yes Randy I um I went I I studied music composition I learned how to write like string quartets and choir music and or orchestra music and then immediately after college I uh started like a funk soul rock band and never wrote any sheet music ever again but I learned all the theory in college and then I have continu learning on my own since then um Paul says I'm sub to the patreon but I really like these live streams well Paul I do live streams every week on patreon and if you want me to write more stuff on patreon let me know um yeah Daniel says maybe a dumb question but do you have a favorite key to write in yeah Daniel um I really like on acoustic guitar I really like writing in um like the key of D major whoa wrong direction um I think D is a really beautiful [Music] [Applause] key oh right I think I think D is a beautiful key um I also love the key of C if I'm playing like funky Soul kind of stuff I like [Music] um I like the key of C [Music] minor yeah um those are all great Keys um and then hook hookus hus hoes says how important are Triads um Triads I would say are as important as scales um all of the music I played tonight uh I had Triads in mind the entire time um Triads are the the are how you make chord progressions and chord progressions basically a chord progression is the distilled concept of an entire song um if I'm talking to a band about learning a a song and jamming with them on stage in a few minutes the best way I can convey what they ought to do on their instruments is to tell them the chord progression in other words to tell them which Triads and in which order so Triads are extremely important um and Triads are just a specific kind of chord uh it's just a specifically a three note chord um yeah super important yeah Nesh says I've been playing guitar for years now but I still can't manage to change chords smoothly any advice yes I got big advice for you um uh and that advice is keep this hand going no matter what um a lot of people prioritize this hand and [Music] they'll and they'll they'll wait to strum and what you want to practice doing is you want to not even with any chords just get that strumming pattern [Music] going and then get a chord in there and just keep that going even if you don't make it to that next chord even if it takes you half the pattern like this if you end up it going uh it took me a while to get that chord there [Applause] um it's it's much much more important to just keep this hand going no matter what and it'll train this hand um it's kind of like when you have a dog and you just let them do whatever they want um you you're training yourself to just let them do whatever they want but if you just say no I'm going through the door first or I'm just going to keep walking and you need to get out of the way um don't hurt your animals of course I love my dog but um you know you got to make sure that your right hand is the boss at all times that's the rule um yeah um doc Mr Elmore says do you find yourself using inversions way more playing by yourself on an acoustic for example I know I do um I I play inversions all the time I don't even think of it as inversions I just think of it as different chord voicings um but especially if I'm playing with a bass player I'm not really worried about uh even keeping the root in there sometimes so yeah I love inversions okay it looks like oh Mark G did ask what is that guitar this is a cute little student Model Guitar from the ' 50s it's a Gibson es125t 3/4 size so yeah usually ES1 125s are significantly bigger than this um and the t means it's the thin model and then the the 3/4 size indicates that not only is the body smaller but the neck is a 22 1/2 in scale length it's tiny and I love this thing um and I got it for cheap cuz the the neck broke off at one point and someone glued it back on and it works perfectly I'm not precious about you know perfect perfect guitars um okay everybody thank you for hanging out for two and a half hours I can't believe that people are still here um I got to get going okay fine one more question because it's a good one low says what picks are great for beginners and the answer is um um I think it's great for beginners to have a thick pick because it keeps you from having that death grip you're forced to to hold it more gently and that's nice yeah okay so um join my patreon and and ask me on a live Q&A and I'll go through everything you want to know about picks um goodbye everyone take it easy have a lovely uh rest of your day or evening wherever you are in the world and um good [Music] night

Channel: Scott Paul Johnson

Views: 32,946

Keywords: guitar lessons, guitar tutorial, music theory, guitar theory, minor key, natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor, chord progression

Id: cYuo4_0ZZdk

Length: 148min 9sec (8889 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023