Songwriting - Metal, Writing a song from scratch Options

[Jose Mena]

Hello Everyone.

Sometime ago I saw a few lesson requests about songwriting, and well the answer is that there aren't really rules or guidelines, everyone writes songs differently, and even the same artist might have different approaches.

I decided to sit down, and write a simple Metal song from scratch in minutes, the idea of the song was literally put together within a few hours, and I wanted to share this with you.

There is no melody here yet, I wanted to concentrate on Metal Riffing. I will probably add a lead guitar to the whole thing in the future, or get a vocalist to sing something, as this type of tune I believe would benefit more from an aggressive and melodic vocal work.

I will be creating a lesson of this tune, but I want to first let you listen to the whole song, and discuss how I came up with the parts, what made me decide the Key, the sound, the tunning, what riff goes what and where.

And of course ask questions if you have any

Here is the link, let me know if it doesn't work

http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=...amp;stream=true

Cheers

[Nazgul]

This is awesome, Jose! The riffs are brutal (especially the second ), the solo rules too. I would have done the drums a little bit different, but I think that doesn't count here.

This song helped me very much, thank you.

This post has been edited by Nazgul: Oct 21 2008, 02:59 PM

[jer]

Ahhhhhhhhhhh YEAH!!!!

I've been listening to Shadows Fall for a big chunk of the weekend. And this fits in that vein nicely!!!

I'm VERY looking forward to the discussion on its creation.

[Skalde]

I really like it, it sounds great, maybe you should upload the complete file instead of an streaming link.
I am looking forward to your lesson, I am sure I can learn a lot there

[Jose Mena]

Great guys, I am glad you guys liked it.

So lets start.

I was going for a Metal sound, I was thinking in the lines of Iron Maiden, however I did not want to copy and wanted it to be heavier than Iron Maiden, and more modern sounding.

So first thing I chose was:

1. D tuning, the guitar is tuned D-G-C-F-A-D, this provides a heavier Modern sound, not as heavy as tuning to B, but somewhere in between.

2. The scale, since I was thinking of Metal it had to be Minor, and since I was thinking of Maiden as an inspiration it had to somewhat include the typical Maiden chord progression (Emin, Cmaj Dmaj). Lets forget that the guitar is tuned to D. So lets call E your open string.

Now I want to discuss about chord progressions and reusing, most likely every chord progression you play, has been used before, so you need creativity to make things sound different and original. If I had played these chords and did the Maiden Galloping playing E min for 1 bar, Cmaj for 1 bar, Dmaj for 1 bar back to Emin for the last bar, and repeat that over and over. There wouldn't be any creativity from my part.

I changed this around a bit, I stay on E for 3 bars, and C and D only for 1 bar duration, in addition I created a simple but interesting riff that gives the song its own personality.

[jer]

typical Maiden chord progression (Emin, Cmaj Dmaj).

Not saying this isnt true but can you gove an example of this? A specific Maiden song?

[Jose Mena]

Not saying this isnt true but can you gove an example of this? A specific Maiden song?

Hallowed be thy Name
The Trooper

No through out the whole song, but the main chords are E minor, C major, D major, even though they are played as power cords, the tonality of the song tells you what they are, you could play the full chords if you wanted to.

[jer]

Gotcha.

You mentioned choosing minor for a scale. And you mentioned 3 chords. E C and D

What key are we in then?

Emin?

[Jose Mena]

Gotcha.

You mentioned choosing minor for a scale. And you mentioned 3 chords. E C and D

What key are we in then?

Emin?

Precisely, Emin, Although it is really Dmin, because the guitar is tuned a whole step down.

[jer]

Right. But we'll go crazy thinking of it that way.


So Emin. (E F# G A B C D E)

And using E C D gives us a I-V-VI progression correct?

(I just want to make sure my definitions/terms are correct)

[Marek Rojewski]

Great playing Jose, juicy riffs:)

[superize]

Great song and explanation Jose ihave been trying to write a song in drop d and i would appriciate if you could have a listened to it and see what you think of it so far.....

 Drop_d_with_drums.mp3 ( 1.16MB ) Number of downloads: 265

[Jose Mena]

Right. But we'll go crazy thinking of it that way.


So Emin. (E F# G A B C D E)

And using E C D gives us a I-V-VI progression correct?

(I just want to make sure my definitions/terms are correct)

Almost, it is actually I-VI-VII

[jer]

yeah... I meant that. Duh...

OK. I'm with ya now.

[Jose Mena]

Great song and explanation Jose ihave been trying to write a song in drop d and i would appriciate if you could have a listened to it and see what you think of it so far.....

 Drop_d_with_drums.mp3 ( 1.16MB ) Number of downloads: 265

Man you are off to a good start, it depends where you want to take it, you have 2 main riffs, so basically if you wanted to do a simple song like mine, you are almost done.

Good work

[superize]

Man you are off to a good start, it depends where you want to take it, you have 2 main riffs, so basically if you wanted to do a simple song like mine, you are almost done.

Good work

I got one more riff that i am going to fit in plus a solo

[jer]

I gotta figure out how to do this stuff. Where it all falls apart for me is the 2nd riff. Coming up with 1 I like is no problem. But 2?

Or trying to link 2 different ones from my "library of single riffs"....

Impossible for me.

Yet in my head I can hear all kinds of stuff. I just can't get it out when holding my guitar. It seems that without the drums and rest of th eband I just cant re-create it.

Its DANG frustrating.

I am really thankful for this thread.

[Jose Mena]

I gotta figure out how to do this stuff. Where it all falls apart for me is the 2nd riff. Coming up with 1 I like is no problem. But 2?

Or trying to link 2 different ones from my "library of single riffs"....

Impossible for me.

Yet in my head I can hear all kinds of stuff. I just can't get it out when holding my guitar. It seems that without the drums and rest of th eband I just cant re-create it.

Its DANG frustrating.

I am really thankful for this thread.

You should just select some of those riffs and create a song, first time you might not have a killer song, but you will have started.

For this song, I didn't have anything previously done, I sat down to create a song, and I knew that I was going to have 2 different riffs, why I made one a certain way and the other different will be explained soon.

Lets talk about the first riff:

The first riff is simple, I wanted a simple yet cool sounding intro riff, that I already knew I was probably going yo use for the chorus, I used Natural minor scale because I didn't want the listener to be surprised with a weird different exotic sounding scale, I wanted the sound of good old fashioned metal. Sometimes simplicity sounds best.

An important aspect of songwriting is production, big artists have a producer that calls the shots, and helps the artists shape the song into a hit, well most of us don't have that and we have to produce ourselves.

In this song I introduce the main riff with only one guitar, the drums and second rhythm guitar briefly make an appearance to let you know, "we are here and we are coming in soon to give this a boost". Later on they come in, the drums are a simple straight beat that could probably be enhanced by a good drummer with good taste for metal, the one I chose serves its purpose well. The second guitar doesn't play the exact same thing but rather plays thirds of the main riff to make it evident that there are 2 guitars playing.

That is it for now

Later

[jer]

Is the right side guitar doing thirds all the way up to the verse riff?

[OrganisedConfusi...]

This is another good guide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chiVMrWMHko