8 Practical Tips to Help You Compose Better Chords, Melodies & Song Concepts for your Music Production

Ever feel stuck in your chords, melodies or songwriting? In this lesson, I'm giving you 8 practical tips to help you start writing better song ideas.

These are tips that stand out to me after composing / producing music for 13 years, winning 2 indie music awards, finishing over 300 tracks, selling over 10,000 licenses of music into advertising, YouTube videos & game campaigns, and having millions of listens on my tracks.

Just bringing all that up so you understand where this advice is coming from.

This is a beefy one, and if you’re looking for experienced insight, I tried to make this worth your time! Let's go. 

1. Don't focus on keys. Instead, focus on mastering the FEELING OF THE NOTES from 1 STARTING PLACE.

For example: Play a C note. Then play every other note and just feel them.

WHY? Writing melodies and chords is about the way notes feel when they move from one to the next. Or, the "relationship" between the notes. 

 A "Key" is just where that relationship starts.

So if you try to learn every individual key from every note, it will just overwhelm you and not provide much more value for songwriting... because writing a great song is not about your key. It's about your theme (chord / melody.)

Instead, we should focus on mastering the relationship of the notes from ONE STARTING NOTE.

So for example, pick C. 

Then pick any scale. Say, the C Major scale. Or the C Minor Scale. Or the C Dorian Scale.

Now play C... then another note. Then play C again... and a different note. Do it slowly, and intentionally.

When you do this, you will gain an intimate relationship with how the notes feel when you move from note to note. 

And THIS is the key to writing great music concepts.

Remember: There is no “secret” scale… no “secret” notes… and eventually, all the “scales” blend together and you realize they’re just “cheat codes” to get you into different moods.

But if you understand the FEELING of the notes one by one, you don’t even have to think so much about scales anymore.

The key to writing incredible music that stays with you is to deepen your relationship to the notes.

Note: I'm not telling you to never focus on learning all the keys - I'm just saying that it isn't very important for learning how to write great song concepts.

2. Don't focus on discovering "new" or "complicated" chord progressions. Instead, focus on learning proven chord progressions, then make them your own.

WHY? One of the biggest mistakes most beginner and even intermediate music producers make is not understanding how incredible, flexible and BEAUTIFUL the "basic" chords are. 

I'm talking about your basic I V vi IV, or C G Am F.

There is an UNLIMITED amount of potential in these chords. Yet most people skip right over them! 

And usually, this is because they are not good enough musicians yet to understand how to bring out the MUSIC from these chords.

Because making great music ISN'T about doing things "no one has ever done before." (That's your ego talking.)

After all, excluding microtone scales, almost all music is based on the same set of 12 notes.

Think of those notes as the "letters" of your language. And just like any language, it's not about inventing new combinations of letters... sure, you can do that, but no one will understand you!

Instead, the goal is to understand how the letters go together so you can form "words" (melodies and chords), and express yourself clearly, so other people understand what you're feeling. 

This is what writing great music is all about! Speaking CLEARLY and with INTENTION!

This means that the biggest skill you can develop is connecting emotionally with the notes & chords (going back to tip #1) choosing them carefully, and then PLAYING WITH THEM to make them your own. 

Change the sounds - change the rhythms - move around the notes. THIS is where the creativity lies!

Remember, like any great art form, LESS IS MORE! It's not about how MANY ingredients you have... it's about the QUALITY of each.

3. Don't just leave chords in their "closed" position. Explore voicings to bring out the emotion and natural melodies of your chords.

WHY? Think of chords really like "emotional templates." They contain vast amounts of feeling inside them, all ready to go! So when you just leave them in their "closed position" voicing like in the image below (1 3 5), you're leaving a ton of potential on the table.  

Now don't get me wrong, sometimes a simple closed voicing is what you need, but if you always do this, you will sound “beginner."

Instead, try starting with a 1 5 3 voicing, like this:

This voicing takes the middle note (the 3rd) and moves it up an octave. 

This "3rd" is the note that determines the MAJOR or MINOR quality of the chord - and it's a very emotional note!

So if you move that note up an octave, you will take the EMOTIONAL CENTER of the chord and put it in the higher register, which will naturally make it feel like the "melody" of the chord. 

It also gives more room to "breathe" to all the notes, because you added additional space between them.

Another easy trick is to then start playing the notes one at a time to create Arpeggios... and almost instantly you will be creating "MUSIC!"

Remember, the answers to so many melodies are already inside your chord progression. You just need to discover the natural melodies and bring them out.

4. Don't get too focused on scrolling presets & sounds, this leads to getting stuck. Instead, focus on the core chord progression & melody, and THEN bring it into sounds.

WHY? Look - unless you're making dubstep adjacent tracks, your SOUND is NOT your SONG.

Don't believe me?

Just look up ANY popular song on YouTube, and then search for "cover" or "remix." 

You'll find that exact same song in tons of different styles and sounds. 

So clearly, to 99% of music listeners, it's not the SOUND that makes them fall in love with the song... (that just HELPS it.)

So what is it?

Well... the dang MELODY and CHORD PROGRESSION of course!

So instead of literally wasting hours just hoping to stumble into a cool sound, and then getting stuck trying to "make it into something cool"... 

DO THE FREAKIN' OPPOSITE!

Start with a "song sketch" in a basic sound (like a piano, strings or sawtooth synth). 

Write a great song idea FIRST in the BASIC BORING sound! If it sounds good there... well, you're onto something good! 

Once you have something concrete and “hummable”, start breaking it up into the different parts of the sketch and bring them into different sounds.

For example, take the bass part, and bring it into a bass sound. Then the melody part, and bring it into a few melody layers.

THIS is where you get to play with sounds! AFTER you have written your sketch!

Think about it: Does a painter COLOR IN the painting FIRST? Or do they create a SKETCH and then COLOR IT IN?

This is the same...

5. Don't focus on writing complicated melodies that use lots of notes. Instead, focus on using LESS notes, in clear patterns, with small tweaks throughout. (Think of it like a poem, or like rapping. ABAC)

WHY? If someone is telling you a story, and they are jumping all around, losing track of the subject and adding in parts that aren't relevant... is that a good story? Or are you going to get lost and just secretly wish they'd shut up?

Your melody is the same. 

Many beginner and intermediate melody composers are stuck because they are making far too complex ideas, because they THINK that a good melody "uses a lot of notes." 

This is the same fallacy as the idea of making complicated chord progressions.

A good melody is simple. It is hummable. It gets stuck with you.

It feels HUMAN.

So instead of just writing lots of notes, JUST PICK 4-5 NOTES AND CREATE A MELODY WITH THEM.

Seriously, try that really simple exercise. 

For example, take the notes C Eb G Ab.

Don't even worry about the key - just take those notes.

Now your assignment is to make an awesome, memorable, and emotion-packed melody from them.

How will you do that?

THAT is the question.

An easy way to begin is to use the ABAC formula.

A: To start, write a MOTIF (a short phrase, try doing it in 1 bar.)

B: Then repeat that MOTIF but change 1 note.

A: Then repeat the first MOTIF again.

C: Then repeat the MOTIF, but change 2-3 notes.

If you get stuck, HUM THE MELODY and see where you naturally want to move to.

Works like a charm. Seriously. 

What I just told you goes incredibly deep. 

You may not even realize it just yet... (hint: look at your drums, your sections, your transitions through this lens... big "secret" here)

If you want to see many examples of melodies, check out my instagram, where I often post melodies I’m working on. (Scroll for a while and you’ll find tons of them.)

http://instagram.com/_averyberman 

6. Don't think too small. Instead, focus on the big picture and how all the elements are "speaking" together.

WHY? I remember years ago when I was taking lessons from a seasoned jazz musician. I was struggling to learn how to write melodies over the very harmonically dense chord progressions he was giving me. 

Then he stopped me, and he said "Avery, your problem is you are thinking there is a difference between the chords and the melody. You need to realize that they are the same. It is one unit. One organism. Make them speak as one."

This is a pretty big AH-HA.

See, when we are learning music, we are trying to learn all the "parts" of music. But the tricky part is that even though we can break music up into its "parts" - in reality, there is only 1 PART... and that's the "organism" that is your song.

Just like you as a human organism are made up of many organs… you aren't those organs, and those organs are not what anyone else sees when they look at you…

They just see you.

So when you ask the question "How do I write a good melody?" 

It is tricky - because what you are really asking is "How do I write music that works together and tells a clear story as a unit?"

So how do we practically apply this mindset? 

Next time you're stuck, zoom WAY OUT and think... 

“What is the ONE THING I want the listener to be left with? And how do I make EVERYTHING SUPPORT THAT THING?” 

Which leads us to the next tip.

7. Don't write more than you need to. Instead, keep it focused on one main idea, and the elements that support it.

WHY? If there's anything you should be taking away from these tips, it's the theme of "LESS IS MORE" AND "BE INTENTIONAL."

I think this quote sums it up well: "Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."

So instead of adding more notes, use more EMPTY space. 

Be specific about the LENGTH of the notes you do have. 

Focus deeper on the INTERACTIONS of those notes. (Like everything else I've been talking about.)

When in doubt, step back and HUM your song. What are you humming? Is it clear? Or do you even know?

If you aren’t sure… no one else will either.

But look, you can think “creatively” about this. 

Not every “melody” needs to be the “typical” way you think about it.

Maybe what they “hum” is a bassline… or it could be a chord groove… or it could even be crazy bass growls…

Skrillex was great at this with some of his early breakout dubstep tracks. 

He used lots of sound design… but you could still CLEARLY “SING” THE MELODY OF THOSE DROPS, and they were SIMPLE and CLEAR.

So again… what IS THE THING the listener will walk away with?

Make everything serve that.

You could even break this up section by section.

What is the “THING” for the verse? For the buildup? For the drop? For the chorus?

Define it, and serve it… then your audience will walk away with something they can remember.

8. Don’t focus on writing 1 perfect melody. Instead, write new ideas every day, and don't judge them. Just ask "What does this feel like?"

WHY? Almost everyone is holding themselves back because they are TRYING to write a PERFECT song. (Or a "banger" or a "hit.")

The secret to making a banger or a hit, is that you don't try to make one.

You discover it through your commitment to showing up for your craft.

Every day, make melodies.

Make 1. Make 5. Make 15. Make 30. Make 50. Make 1,000.

Nothing will make you as good as this one simple thing.

Listen - if you have a true commitment to creating music that timelessly moves people, you must take your ego out of it and realize that you are simply a conduit for the universe to express itself through you in the form of the musical language. 

And the better you understand the language of your craft (like through the tips I am sharing here), the more clearly and accurately you can express that message you are receiving.

By showing up every single day, in a non-judgmental, curious state - you show the universe you are an open conduit. 

And it will start to test you. 

And if you keep showing up, so will the music.

And because you have also trained your skills through this process, you will express it easily.

Have you ever seen musicians who just seem to effortlessly write incredible music all day?

This is the secret to it.

They have shown up over and over and over and over and over.

The universe saw it.

And it now uses them. 

You can be a conduit, too... if you want.

You just need to show up for it... and follow tips that can help inspire you and hone your command over the musical language (like I hope these did.😊)

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you got value here!

Avery Berman
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Email me with any questions at [email protected].