What Makes a GREAT Intro? - How to Write Music

hello everybody hello everybody hello everybody hello everybody hello everybody how you doing and hello everybody because today we're talking about openings how to start your song how to start your piece of music in a really gripping way and i'm going to be giving you five actually i've got 11 written on this piece of paper but i've got five everybody always says five ways to do this so we're gonna do five but it just might be more than five okay five ways which you can start your song and make it work and because we listen to hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music coming in from students all the time and actually getting going is one of the things which they're not so great at so look the first thing you know the first almost obvious way is you go straight up there um with your with your with your riff um and there's just hundreds and hundreds of examples of this smoke on the water yep smoke on the water and what else have we got things like oh um how about clocks by coldplay the uh how does this go [Music] put your riff right up front let people know what you're gonna do grab their attention but of course the riff has to be absolutely blindingly good um like now there's a bloke who knew a thing or two about a riff and he puts it right up front grabs people's interest then develops it and that's really what we're going to be looking at we're going to be doing some examples of this um in in a minute i'm just going to sort of have a little sort of fertile through um the um the sort of archives and and look at these these different ways of doing things um you can start with your rhythm first and there's lots and lots of examples of that um i mean i mean think of bolero that's a bit loud hang on turn that now it's a terrible this does not sound like an orchestral snare drum [Music] don't unsubscribe i'll stop singing i'm sorry i'm sorry i won't i won't do that again um toto by africa africa by total i mean i mean this you know aha take on me lots and lots of people come in with their drum uh with a beat first um bass lines um there's quite a lot of those um where's my bass going i've got i've got a nice one here uprising here we go oh no that is a string let's find the upright bass from there we are that one up there [Music] oh i i promised i wouldn't sing so i'm not going to do that okay anyway um you can start with um soft and growing um i don't know where you bring things in very gently um and there's tons and tons of those um how about oh around the world by daft punk around the world around the world that one hang on let me try we can have a go at this oh come on we can have a quick go this around the world around the world around the world around the world around oh it's sort of like that and then they have this filter which they uh have i got a filter let's get a filter up and does this sound anything like it i'm so sorry to hold these people who spent their lives you know loving these tunes and i'm just kind of wrecking them for them sorry here we go here's a bit of a fab filter filter that'll do right uh where's my little thing here's my here's my epic vocal it's it is epic let's turn the click off because it was not even remotely in time around the world around oh what okay enough said guy i think that's far enough with that one but um but you can think of quite a lot of that um there's you can start with sound design element you can keep it really short um i mean and then there's quite a lot of examples where um you just it's literally like two bars or something like um um kate bush at worthing heights no i did promise you the singing thing i wasn't going to do that again but just literally two bars straight in that works as well i mean a lot of these things they all work if what you're doing is really really really really good and that's really where we're gonna you know cut to the chase and you can come straight in with everything just in one go i mean think of the beginning of star wars yeah i mean so okay so what can we draw from all this so far because i mean i've been wittering on and absolutely slaughtering some of your favorite tunes um what we can conclude from this is um you need you can lead with almost any one of the elements chord progression you know the for with the you can you know things like um uh house of the rising sun [Music] in you et cetera start with a chord progression um adele's hello does the same thing um but whatever you're going to start with it's got to be really really good so you need you can't just start with any old nonsense so if you take something like tubular bells [Music] the cl it's really clever riff actually because not only is it harmonically just wandering around [Music] it's the way it drops uh a half a beat every other bar so it goes [Music] sorry [Music] it and that kind of just throws it off slightly it's really clever that boy knew what he was up to launched the entire virgin records label right so this is all very well guy you've rabbited on um quite unnecessarily frankly um and now we need to get into it and show people how to actually do it okay so let's start with a riff because that i think is the most common way of starting anything um and we're gonna i now have to write a riff ah okay okay that's that's not the worst thing [Music] ever okay i actually don't mind that all right way too fast way way way too fast the danger here is in fact about with this i will then forget that'll do [Laughter] grown man falls to pieces in front of his uh subscribers and oh why do i like this [Music] a minor c m say major with a sus4 then it goes up to b flat i just like that riff because it's got a number of little sort of suspensions in there as well because look [Music] now that's a sort of a minor sixth that's a c major um second inversion with a sus4 on it [Music] then i'll keep this one this note in common and go to the b flat [Music] which becomes a sus two because there's b p flat there's the second of note of the chord suspended two and then it drops down to first inversion of f major okay i quite like it let's do it [Music] okay second times we worked all right now are we going to like that enough to keep it most always when you're playing stuff in you play it better in second time turn around so record it twice and then chop the first one off so it's a straight four bar loop okay two three four [Music] okay we'll take that down i'm gonna i quite like the sort of octaves thing i know i'm sorry chris martin there we go so what we've done is i've copied it in on to a different track and transposed it down an octave and then merged it back i'm going to bring all the volumes down a bit because it's a bit on the shouty side okay um just before we go any further can i just remind you um that we do a really wonderful course called how to write music and there's a free download underneath this video which will induct you into the world of how to write music no it's really useful people find it really good so why don't you give that a go let's let's find a nice simple uh okay i'm gonna find a nice simple synth bass um or something like that that's a bit that's a bit bangy let's go for bases let's find a simple [Music] now something simple that's pretty simple [Music] i can make anything simple just by putting a filter on it and making it where i say there we go let's take envelope keep it around the pump how's this gonna sound now what okay we're talking about where we start but [Music] where so where's this going to come in are we literally just going to start like that um is it good enough is it a bit kind of flat do we need to speed up a little bit is this a bit feeling a little bit mournful let's put some [Music] that's better okay now i'm going to now i'm going to um send this stuff to timeless okay i've already done that here we go we just need to turn it up i'm going to put some delay on it [Music] that's quite nice [Music] what have i got here drum loop guys i just threw some stuff in before i knew what i was going to do it's a bit loud um and thumpy and i'm definitely not going to bring it in there that's a bit too much um i think okay [Music] okay i'll go back to june um it's i'm sorry every time i play that note it's kind of just a bit big and loud isn't it i'm so sorry it's just it's the default patch it's it's actually it's ridiculous because it's it's an entire it's an impatient song listen [Music] and it just goes on like this except it's running a bit slowly because i've got this okay let's go back no no no no no no no no no no again i should really just do a okay initialize patch uh let's have uh where's my site i'm going to go for a pulse and we're going to go frequency wise we're going to go [Music] okay let's try that [Music] okay so if then we would have um let's have a let's just [Music] we're going to have a reverse one of those so i'm going to render that out and then going to normalize it and then i'm going to reverse it there you go it is as quick as that and then i'm just going to take the front off the end let's take this back a bit okay there we go okay we gone and we're gonna have that coming up to the okay so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna [Music] [Music] okay that's that might work um what about kick drums let's choose a kick drum right bit bit aggressive i'll put three in here yeah that will do that's a bit much let's go with this one all right let's turn back on my snapping there we go and i've got some kind of tambourine or something because i thought the actual full loop was a bit on the on my god side when i was doing it before so let's [Music] let's turn that on is this going to be too much what's this snare clap [Music] what we could do is chop that off and have your standard dumb dumb chip so i'm going to put that the next dump hang on let's snap to beats uh actually smacked uh quantize because we want to put it on the offbeat there we go so get bomb chick bomb chip there we go as it's known in the trade [Music] okay there we go now what we're going to try is starting with another element in a minute [Music] i'm not sure how i feel about all this right now but right um here we go bomb chick bomb chick there we go [Music] let's turn this down a bit [Music] not sure about that at all [Music] okay i like that suddenly i felt this little piece come to life this is cinematic studio solo strings ensemble patch [Music] so right now move that up to there so we start with our slightly chris martiny thing [Music] okay that's gonna work so um the drums are not working at all at the moment they are absolutely nowhere near contributing to this little party yeah um let's get that [Music] that however does work that simple little kind of weird snarey thing okay so i am talking about starting things and does this is this the best way to start it [Music] um straight in with a riff [Music] working up to the intro and [Music] okay so let's try a different way of starting it let's mute this off and start with the strings does that work shall we give them a little bit of help here reverb wise yes why not they're our friends after all is said and done oh dear it's time to get my old friends out um hello sunglasses or doubt i haven't seen you for a while i it's not the playing i mean it's not the it's not the writing it's the playing i mean you'd think i just started i'm not that i've been at this for years oh dear oh well and when you listen to things in isolate what is going on here something dodgy's going on here oh there's tons of dodgy stuff going on in here actually is it quicker and easier to play an improperly guy probably tell you what do the world a favor and play in again [Music] so [Music] that's better [Music] okay something interesting has happened here since we started with the strings it becomes the riff that the piano is no longer the central thing so what this is telling us is when you start start with your strongest thing so if we think the strings actually i think the piano is stronger than the strings and because um the strings work incredibly well when they come in along with everything else but i'm not sure they work particularly well um when they come in like that so what we're essentially doing here in this version is um starting with the chord progression and i don't think the chord progression works as well as coming in with the um oh no don't sing guy please don't sing okay where's that um boom chick where's my where's my chick on so to speak here we go right we're gonna add do a little bit of sending stuff to where are we going to send it to we're going to send it to the delay fab filter timeless i love fabfilter stuff big fan big fan cinematic rooms love that too see if this is too much now [Music] that's all right we need something in there right i returned to my friend dune i'm still not convinced by that what am i looking for uh i wanna not that [Music] i wonder just a straight throbby thing actually [Music] no that's too much it just sounds like han zimmer circa 1990 there's some lovely lovely stuff in here none of it quite right for what we're trying to do but it's really no i'll tell you what go back to sometimes okay what should we do should we ch we could choose a plot we could choose a pad and then gate it which is another way of producing movement so we're going to go in there and no we're not we're going to put up we're going to put my old favorite trance gate uh there it is killer hearts transgate and sometimes when you you can play all those little kind of games with that then maybe even that goes to the fab filter that's all right isn't it uh there's the problem with that ah here's the problem with this is there's too much release [Music] are you lucky man i'm gonna give it a go [Music] i'm going to take the attack down a bit and the release off a bit so we can change chords quicker [Music] i quite like that and i think the rhythmically it might cut across what's going on with the [Music] i was right uh it's not rubbish after all it's all right isn't it is it me or is that all right okay [Music] so look i think um of the many ways i've said to start this because we are still kind of going on about starting things what happens if okay let's try a different version a different variation this what happens if i come in straight in straight in with the uh okay well tell let's let's try everything start with this [Music] okay not convinced let's try this that's not gonna work by itself if we start with the rhythm what happens if we go [Music] benny king comes back from the grave okay [Music] be sensible guy don't be sensible that's not why people tune in that was a lovely chord progression it just happened not to be the one i'm supposed to be playing [Music] that's not that bad [Music] where how does it go [Music] a g b [Music] no that isn't our strongest element and it doesn't work uh starting like that and i don't think it works with the percussion up the front either i'm still coming back to the riff and you can see why so many people do this can't you what about rifkin you know i'm talking about this in binary terms [Music] okay um there is another possibility he says turning to splice um we could start with a vocal and i'm going to put you out on your misery i'm not going to attempt to go and all that stuff and let's have let's find an a minor vocal it's a bit loud sorry but it might work it's a bit kind of floaty but uh let's put this in here [Music] uh it's not that terrible is it what happens therefore if we just start with the vocal now interesting that's at 90 bpm and we're at 100 bpm and it works great i think the two together are not that bad [Music] at which point we've got to repeat it i can't just let her sort of doodle off if we're gonna [Music] look um i think this is i've had quite a good time i hope you look i mean this is um one of these things which the more you play with it it sort of takes on sort of different kind of vibes and the kind of you know the old oh my god you know on and off and on and off and on and off what on earth is happening next i don't know but it's uh you know ultimately things stand out and go oh that works but what we have learned is it def you you just def you don't want to start like this with everything all at once unless your job when it's in this star wars um but broadly speaking it does work better if you bring in elements one by one and you can either bring in your big strong riff first which is a very popular way of doing it or you do something slightly teasy the way we've got it working at the moment this kind of [Music] ah [Music] ah [Music] lead with your best element which is obviously me singing into a garden gnome um look [Laughter] what can i say um it's been epic as ever i hope you've enjoyed it look i mean i hope you've brought something out of this and it's brought smile to your face because you know we're just so in touching distance of getting out of this nightmare life we have been enjoying or not and it's always more depressing being that close anyway let's just stay cheerful and positive and um if this has helped you stay cheerful and positive then below this uh there is as ever um a free thing to help you write better music a little kind of thing to just a little summary of you know my approach to writing music how to write music just download it it'll be great and um if you're new to the channel welcome come along for the ride do the little subscriber thing if you like okay anyway from me uh for another friday or whatever it is today farewell

Channel: Guy Michelmore

Views: 65,491

Keywords: thinkspace, education, music, film, scoring, games, television, composition, composer, guy michelmore, guy, michelmore, thinkspace education, How to write music, music education, how to write an intro, writing song intros, writing a tune, how to write a tune, how to write a song, how to write songs, how to write songs better

Id: H0lb0kyNi3M

Length: 36min 52sec (2212 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021