Writing melodic death

[VEHEMENCE]

The process of song writing is basically like this, you are equipt with your skill from includes you have gained and practiced throughout the eyars and you start making riffs that sound good only to you, and keep building at the riffs, it is up to your mind to comprehend what sounds good, and your taste. Sometimes you just hear what you want to hear before you write it and you just put it to notes afterwards. Thats just my take on it.

 

[Black Tears]

learn your modes (ionian, lydian, dorian, etc.) once you know them, making harmonies is quite easy...just take it a step above. If you want to instant message me some time on AIM my screen name is DIMENSIONxZER0...i'll write you out some tabs for the modes

 

[SoulSlaughter]

there needs to be communication in your band. does every one want to play melodic metal or do people keep on throwing other ideas in that don't belong?
melodic metal consists of various scales. work on your arpeggios and emphasize speed. be creative. writing music is just simply fiddling around and working with theory. sometimes you'll write righteous riffs one after another.

 

[Black Tears]

arpeggios arent necessary at all to make great harmonies

 

[King Chaos]

I agree. You need a rhythm first really. I dont even remember how I came up with my harmonies in my old band. They (other) were just playing the rhythms and stuff and it would just come to me straight away. If you go HERE and download the center song (turillis quest) you'll hear examples of what Im talking about. I remember coming up with the rhythms, which are almost inaudible in the mix (they don't stand prominent), but the harmonies and melodies are nearly always practically improvised.

My advice is keep playing and maybe learn some songs by the bands you love and then when your guitar is like an extension of your body you'll totally think why did I used to get so wound up trying to think of melodies. I remeber when solo's used to just kill me because I didnt know enough scales and I couldnt write a solo with sructure.

 

[Kirurgisti]

I don't think that the talent of writing death metal has anything to do with how long you have played guitars or how weel you know the scales and stuff. I have friends who have played guitar for ten years, but still they can't write even decent riffs. You just have to understand the structures of the riffs. Kalmah's riffs are pretty easy understand, since most of them are pretty simple. Beutifully flowing göteborg-stylish melodies are the hardest ones to understand, since the structures are sometimes very difficult to understand. That's why I like In Flames so much.

I don't know anything about the guitars, the notes, the scales or the "theory", I just play the goddamn thing. I have played guitar for about three years and I have over 600 riffs written down. These riffs include everything from thrash-metal riffs to göteborg-melodies. Almost half of them are very complex and it's getting better all the time. I'm not the right person to rate them, though...but I only write down the best riffs that I come up with. My earlier riffs are shitty, because it takes a lot of practice to learn to understand the structures of the riffs. I have also come up with some solos, but it's sometimes really hard to put your thoughts on the guitar, and that's why sometimes I just can't write some riffs down.

My advice is: Just listen to the melodic death metal and try to understand how the things work. Mess around with guitar. It's hard to explain it. Maybe it just requires some special skills But if you can't learn to understand these things, I suggest that you don't even try to write down any riffs...forced riffs don't sound good. And how do I provoke inspiration? Sometimes I can come up with like five riffs when I'm taking a walk with dog...sometimes I get the inspiration by listening to some very good cd... and sometimes I just decide "ok, now I'm going to come up with a goddamn excellent acoustic riff" and then I just start playing with the acoustic guitar until I find what I'm looking for.

If you want to learn an easy way to compose simplistic Kalmah-stylish riffs, just mess around with the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th frets of the e-string and the open e-string. For example
0-2-0-3-0-5-0-7-0-5-0-3-0-5-3h5p3-2
And voila, there you have it. It's not even a decent riff, but it's something Kalmah would play (if they were crappy).

I hope you understood even something about this post, since it's very difficult to explain these things I you are Finnish and don't know much about the guitars...

 

[King Chaos]

I know what you mean, your baisicaly sayin let the music flow and try not to get too serious with all the theory shite, but it does help to know why your riffs sound good by learning certain scales and harmonies. If your friends have been playing ten years and they can't write a good riff then they obviously dont play guitar very seriously.

Its easiest to play something if you have a rhythm underneath or a general musical idea going already, as Ive already said in a previous post. (follow the link in my sig for an example, check the song called "turilli's quest" in the middle).

 

[Kirurgisti]

I never build my melodies on some rhythm riffs. I think it's easier to add the rhythm riff after the lead melody. But I don't have a band so I don't write any rhythm riffs for my melodies anyway. Yeah, maybe I will some day try and learn these scales... I'm sure it would be easier to write down my thoughts then. I just hope learning the boring theory won't kill my imagination...

 

[Antti_POWA]

my guitarist have inspiration when his girlfriend break with him

Let ur spirit feel

 

[Messias]

Start with rhythm? What the fuck are you talking about, man? You start with a melody, not a rhythm. You can compose even classical or death metal songs if you are inspired to make them...
But it's true that you have to know some theory to make things right. If you have a good song in your head but you don't know nothing about music, you can't compose it, so talent and knowledge makes the difference.
I'm a drummer, but I spend a lot of time composing in GTP, since I had some musical theory in school. If you want to hear them, they are here: http://www.mysongbook.com/tab-tab_list-id_artist=6579.htm There's already another song of mine that is not at this folder, because it was submitted into a MSB competition, called Troops Of Fear: http://www.mysongbook.com/tab-tab_list-id_tablature=38620.htm
GTP composers, please post your folder's link here and please comment my tabs. Thanks in advance

 

[Kirurgisti]

Start with rhythm? What the fuck are you talking about, man? You start with a melody, not a rhythm. You can compose even classical or death metal songs if you are inspired to make them...
But it's true that you have to know some theory to make things right. If you have a good song in your head but you don't know nothing about music, you can't compose it, so talent and knowledge makes the difference.

I agree 100%. But, I didin't know any scales and still manage to write good-sounding melodies. I checked some scales and I noticed that most of my melodies follow one scale. That major one or something...I don't know about this theory. So this proves that you don't necessarily have to know any theory if you know how the riffs work. I got bored trying to learn scales so now I'll just stick to my usual way: just come up with a melody and mess with the guitar and try to make it sound on guitar like it sounds in my head. But yes, you can't compose anything after playing guitar for a week. I've checked some of my old composings and damn they sound crappy.

I'd like to try your composings but unfortunately I only have Power Tab Editor. That Guitar pro-thingy is just too complicated for me.

 

[Infernium]

For me the hardest thing has been making the parts of the song sound good together, i mean i got lots of good riffs and melodies but somehow they just don't always sound that good together. I've made 2 full songs and tons of melodies, little riffs and song parts with gp4 and i think they are rather good and i would love to be a songwriter in a band, but there are not much people here with similar taste of music than me.

 

[Kirurgisti]

i would love to be a songwriter in a band, but there are not much people here with similar taste of music than me.

Yeah, me too. I've been planning to start a band, since I have loads of friend who like metal and play instruments. One drumplayer, like 5 guitarists, one bass player and two keyboardists. Heck, one of my half friends can growl and sing clean very well. He sounds like Dan Swanö and Mikael Åkerfield (or however it's spelled) , but I doubt he likes death metal. And I don't know him that well. Maybe after the army I'll try and found a band. Or at least I try and go working in a record label, since I have riffs for a hundred songs with 6-7 riffs! Yeah, what a monologue...

 

[\m/Jason\m/]

Interesting thread. I would say find your own way of working and do whatever feels right. Find some different ways of working and experiment.
Scales or not, you still need to have a certain feeling to create music. Pete from Norther also doesn't know all the scales and shit and a lot of others also don't!

I think that if you wanna write music, the most important thing is to develop your own style.

Interesting to hear from others how they write their stuff and how it works with their bands. (I'm from the COB board where a lot of people only talk about nonsense.)

 

[Eseroth]

i have been playing guitar for about two years now. i have been playing death/melodic metal since the start almost, just constant practise cause i love it. i can now play a wide variety of songs ranging from in flames to arch enemy to kalmah and others.

i know a lot of theory as i played piano for a number of years before hand and this really helped me in writing songs. i find most metal bands use variations of the minor pentatonic scales as the basis for their riffs. the above mentioned bands all use this (not all the time but usually).

when i write songs i just think of a riff in my head, think of a song which i reckon would sound sweet if i heard it from another band, then i work it out on my guitar and it develops from there, putting in new licks and melodies based around the initial thought. sometimes the initial thought brings inspiration for a totally different song, but this is all part of the process.

p.s i generally play metal in C tuning (C,F,A#,D#,G,C) with 0.11 guage strings.

hope this helps

 

[Messias]

I like melodic and harmonic scales. Some of my songs are in harmonic. C tuning is the easier to play and the best to compose, as you have more different notes to play (I say, in different octaves).

 

[Troubadour Sanglant]

I'm gonna tell you guys, I dont think theres a better way to write melodies than what your heart tells you. I mean that each person have his own personality and caracteristic, each person have their own habilities. You must explore yourself and see what you like, you must see why you want to play music, what does music give to you ? Then, you take something you like ( for example Swamps ) and you imagine everything that flows in your mind. Trying to image your feelings is a good way. My way to write melodies is really simple, I just find a calm place, I sit down and I look around, if theres nothing special about that corner, I search another place. If your someone that likes forest, go into a big forest and enjoy ! Then, when you find something special, something that you find inspirating, just imagine that thing in any kind of story. Writing a story is really hyelpfull. A music track IS a story, you must write your own personal stories, and then, you just add the Soundtrack . If you want to understand more, listen to those Kalmah tracks, and try to image in your head every sound, every different riffs...Strangely, the track names fit perfectly with how the *story* goes, that means their stories are well made and perfect ! Remember this : Music isnt really one thing...Its a part of the universe that communicates differently from the rest...Try to communicate with your music, then the music will communicate with you...!

 

[Messias]

Troubadour: You said everything.

 

[Troubadour Sanglant]

A frustrating thing that alot of you guys who want to compose may have found is when you hear what you created, you rarely totaly like it. That happens when you try to compose by a so simple way : imagine melodies. This may be freaky but, i'll say that you can't *create* a melody with your mind, melodies are everywhere and they flow in our universe. The important point to get is that when you create melodies, you must think of what you DO and not what you HEAR...I hope you guys got the message

 

[Infernium]

I must say i do not completely agree with you. I think writing a song is a samelike act to writing a book. No writer writes the book once from the beginning untill the end. They have their little parts from here and there and many different versions of some parts and the process is at the part all about dropping some part off and making some fit together. Where you get the actual ideas is a different thing, but atleast for me writing a song is just a job of making some ideas tell their parts and still fit the whole story. It's all about how much you have time/intress to try different things untill finaly one fits the picture perfectly. Way or another, i think every songwriter has his/her own technique and style to do the thing.

Lyrics are completely different thing, creating them really needs the inspiration and the intress. For me, i often make the singing melody before the actual lyrics, it might be and extra guitar or keyboard i decide to be the vocals. Bad side of this style is ofcourse the thing, that the lyrics must fit the melody and they might leave you very little space and force you to say it different way than what you would see the best. Again for me the best way is to do the song before the lyrics, becouse this way i can think about the style and melody alot more. I write the lyrics when i feel like it but they rarely fit the songs.

Ofcourse there is no THE way to do these stuffs, everybody their best ways as said. I'd love to hear more about your ways and styles, feel free to share them no matter what "level" you in such a things