Composing: Patterns, form and chords
Once you’ve loaded some suitable loops into clips, the next step is to create a musical foundation for your song and produce a composition.
- “Chords” create the harmonic basis and are combined in various ways.
- “Composing” means deciding which elements appear in the song and when the individual instruments come in.
- This involves the use of “patterns”, that means repeated musical components.
- “Form” means the course the song takes, for example verse, chorus, verse and so on.
To produce a composition using an app, it is not essential for you to be familiar with chords. Just sample guitar or keyboard patterns that appeal to you. You can use the chord patterns in the app as explained in the video. If you know someone who plays the guitar or piano for instance, they may be able to help you or record various chords using the instrument. A good song does not need to be harmonically complex: There are many hits out there using just two to four chords or even just one.
Songs usually are organised into parts with four beats, that means in choruses for example, chords are always repeated after four beats as illustrated in the next video. You can record clips of different lengths. Just have a go configuring the length of your recording beforehand (see also the video “recording with the Garage Band app” ). Take a look at the next videos to familiarise yourself with the various functions for recording and composing patterns.
The following is an overview of the various elements that may be heard together in a composition:
- Beat / rhythm (drum pattern)
- Bass
- Rhythmic chords (multiple chord tones played repeatedly together)
- Melodic chords (chord tones played in succession)
- Pads / surfaces (flat, i.e. sustained chord tones)
- Melody/melodies of singers, instruments or background singing
- Special FX (effects) and sounds
When it comes to writing melodies, many songwriters simply start by taking a line of their lyrics and singing it aloud, sampling various melodic lines to go with it. Some even sing without any specific words altogether, using syllables like “babada” or sounds of some kind to warm themselves up and spark their creativity. Many even find it useful initially to use rap or rhythmic speech alongside their lyrics to see if a tune naturally occurs to them. Have a go and see what works best for your song. It’s not chords that make a tune and the result usually turns out better if you don’t give too much thought to the role of other instruments.
You don’t really need headphones until it comes to record the vocals. We’ve summarised all the key points in this regard at the beginning of the video “recording with the Garage Band app”.