How to Write Chromatic Bass Lines     Download PDF Tutorial includes MIDI + WAV file examples       Intro.   There aren’t many songs where the bass is in the spotlight. And there’s a good reason for that: Most bass lines suck! Of course there are exceptions, but in most genres the bass is nothing more than a frequency. Its only function is to fill out the bottom end of the sound. Thankfully though, not all genres have sucky bass lines.   Thank you, funk! Yep, funk is one of the only genres in which most songs (usually) contain real bass lines. In other ..read more

  How to Write Better Snare Rhythms.     Download Tutorial as PDF includes MIDI + WAV file examples   If the link above does not work, paste this into your browser: https://hackmusictheory.com/album/2806684/snare-rhythms       Intro.   While it’s normal to hear at least a few different kick patterns and hi-hat patterns in music nowadays, it’s rare to hear an interesting snare pattern. The rhythm assigned to this neglected element of the drumkit is almost always an afterthought. In 4|4 (which most music is in), the snare is usually one of these three rhyt ..read more

  How to Write a Crazy Drum Beat     Download Tutorial as PDF includes MIDI + WAV file examples       Drums nowadays are arguably the most boring element in music! That’s probably due to the widespread use of drum loops. If you listen to the new releases on Spotify every Friday, you’ll hear the same handful of drum patterns over and over again. The best you can hope for is a few variations of those popular patterns.   It would be an interesting experiment to actually count how many different drum patterns are used in the New Music Friday playlist, which ..read more

  How to Write a Dreamy Chord Progression     Download Tutorial as PDF includes MIDI + WAV file examples       New single “Loved” by British producer Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) is a dreamy soundscape that floats your thoughts away on its neuro-massaging vibrations!   If you listen to it with your eyes closed, you can easily imagine sitting by a window on a rainy morning, sipping your tea and day-dreaming as you stare out into quantum clouds of possibility. Even the pitter-patter accent of his hi-hat rhythm mirrors the sound of rain drops on the roof.   The ..read more

  How to Write Sweeping Arpeggios using a unique layering technique     Download Tutorial as PDF includes MIDI + WAV file examples     Do your arpeggios all sound rather similar? It’s a common problem for producers.   Arpeggios are when you play a chord one note at a time, and it’s one of the best techniques for making your progressions more interesting. And while it’s definitely more rare to hear arpeggios than “block” chords in popular music genres, most of the arpeggios you do hear are rather boring. Merely playing chords one note at a time is not a foolproof w ..read more

  How to Write a Memorable Bass Line using modal ambiguity     Yes, your lead melody is important. But a great bass line has the power to make or break a section. Despite that fact, though, most producers approach their bass as an afterthought. Think about it. How many songs’ bass lines can you remember?   Almost all the bass lines we hear in the new releases each week are not really bass lines, they’re bass frequencies. If a producer merely plays each chord’s root note as their bass line, that’s not a melody (“line” is just an informal word for melody).   In orde ..read more

  How to Write a Modulating Melody using a series of direct key changes     John Carpenter’s “Halloween Theme” is one of the most recognizable pieces of music in the horror film genre. And that’s not just because the movie is so famous, it’s because the music is massively attention-grabbing due to all its original ideas.   One of the many creative techniques he uses is modulating (i.e. changing key) in the middle of his melody. That’s completely crazy! To put it in context. Most music nowadays doesn’t even modulate at all. In other words, the whole song (verse, chorus, and ..read more

  How to Write Haunting Arpeggios using parallel keys and borrowed chords     Danny Elfman’s theme song for the Netflix show Wednesday (officially called “Wednesday Main Titles” on the soundtrack album) is utterly brilliant! It’s just over one minute, but the amount of creative theory it contains is thoroughly impressive.   One of the most unusual sections is at 21 seconds into the track. It’s a crazy creative chord progression, played as triplet arpeggios. The section is so haunting and unsettling, because he slides through three different keys in the space of four ba ..read more

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