I’m not sure if this is the term people use to describe the technique I’m referring to, but it’s the term that I use. It sounds descriptive. We’re talking about “parallel effects processing.”
In creating your own synth sounds, one way to make them sound more professional and fuller is to use your effects in parallel with the original sound.
I use Reason 11 and the way I do this is by starting with some type of synthesizer like Thor, Maelstrom, or Subtractor, but I’ve also been using Massive and Reaktor a little more. After creating some type of sound using one of those I’ll add effects to it like chorus, delay, distortion, or filters. I used to simply add those effects onto the sound and use only the “effected” sound.
Now I often split the original output from my synth (Thor/Maelstrom/Subtractor/Massive/Reaktor) and send one straight to a mixer and the other to an effect. In Reason 11 this is fairly easy with a Spider Audio Merger/Splitter. After sending the original to a Spider Audio Merger/Splitter I can send one output straight to a mixer and other outputs to effects. Then I route the output from those effects back to the mixer that the original sound was going to.
That mixer has the original sound as well as a version of that sound running through an effect like distortion.
I’ll often go a few other steps further and do this with every effect I use.
That means that my mixer has the original sound from my synth, the output from my distorted effect, the output from my filtered effect, the output from my version with chorus, and the output from my version with delay.
That mixer often has as many as six different layers.
This allows me to have a little more control over the end sound because I can turn up or down how much of the distortion layer is being heard or how much of the chorus layer is being heard. It adds another level of control over the end sound, and it creates a bigger and fuller sound because you’re hearing multiple different versions of this one sound.
Once you get the hang of it, this can be done in about five minutes when creating a new sound.
I often start making new sounds by creating a sound in whatever synth I’m using (Massive/Subtractor/Thor etc.) and then quickly add a distortion, delay, chorus, and filter layer.
Depending on how you adjust the levels of those layers can change a whole lot about your sound. If you want an aggressive sound you can turn up the chorus and distortion. If you want a more mellow or subdued sound you can turn those layers down and turn up the original and filtered layers.
The possibilities with this type of synthesis are quite numerous and you can create a ton of sounds.
Something I think about when writing a melody is how “colorful” or “spicy” it sounds. By this I mean how often the melody hangs on tensions.
Writing melodies can sometimes get stale. Sometimes you’re stuck in a rut writing melodies in the exact same way, using the exact same chord tones and groups of notes and melodic shapes.
One way to get out of that rut is to force yourself to writing using only tensions.
And you can even start doing this methodically, almost like you’re using a formula.
Anytime you land on the root of a chord, change it to the 7th or the 9th.
Anytime you land on the third of a chord change it to the 11th (if it’s a minor chord) or a #11 (if it’s a major chord).
Anytime you land on the 5th of a chord change it to the 13th.
These switches can add a lot of color to your music if you’re stuck in a rut writing chord tone based melodies. Even if you switch one chord tone or two chord tones you’ll have a much more colorful melody just after making those small switches.
If you’re writing jazz music it’ll likely sound more modern. If you’re writing pop music it’ll likely sound more like jazz. If you’re writing classical music it’ll likely sound more romantic or post-romantic.
Once this starts to become much more a part of your compositions you can even go further and change notes to be b9’s, #9’s, and b13’s to add even more spice and color to your melodies.
In the first movement of this new symphony I wanted to create increased tension and increased movement and make the piece feel like it’s speeding up. The most obvious way to increase a sense of ‘urgency’ is to literally increase the tempo. That’s not what I wanted so I chose to do something else. I decreased the harmonic rhythm.
Harmonic rhythm is how quickly the chords change. A common harmonic rhythm is to have the chords change every measure. That harmonic rhythm is fairly common across a number of different genres.
Another common harmonic rhythm is changing chords every two measures. Each chord lasts two measures.
But one way to make a piece of music feel like it’s speeding up is to decrease the harmonic rhythm. Make the chords last fewer measures. If you start with chords lasting four measures each, then you can start by decreasing that time to two measures each. Each chord lasts for two measures. Then decrease it again so that each chord lasts for one measure each. Maybe decrease it one more time so that each chord lasts for half of a measure.
The tempo is staying constant, it’s not changing. But the piece of music will feel faster paced because the chords are moving faster. It’s a very useful tool to use because you don’t have to change the tempo to make a piece sound like it’s “moving faster.”
It’s something that I’m doing in the first movement of this new symphony to create some more forward momentum while keeping the tempo constant.
I was teaching one of my students how to play “Red” by Taylor Swift and I made a comment at the end of the song that it ends on an unresolved chord. The main chord progression is:
| A | C#m | B | B |
This loop is used throughout the song, except during one part of the chorus where the C#mchord is changed to an Emajor chord. This type of chord loop tonicizes, to my ears at least, the A major chord at the beginning of the loop.
However, the song ends on a B major chord, causing it to sound unresolved at the end.
My student, immediately after I said it ended unresolved, made a comment, sarcastically, saying something similar to:
“The reason it ends on an unresolved chord is to signify the unresolved nature of heartbreak. The song is about a breakup and about heartbreak and heartbreak feels unresolved and unfinished. That ending chord symbolizes this.”
I was immediately proud of how analytical they were being, even though they were saying it sarcastically. They understood that that level of analysis and the idea of using evidence to support your interpretation was a big part of how people discuss music and poetry and literature and many art forms.
But they brought up a good point.
Whatever your interpretation is of a song or other piece of art, it becomes valid when you back it up with evidence. Using evidence from the piece of art to support your claims is what legitimizes an interpretation.
Sometimes this might sound silly, and attributing every single piece of your interpretation to the thought processes of the composers, producers, performers, and creators of the song is beside the point in my opinion.
For example, it doesn’t matter whether Taylor Swift consciously thought about and made a decision to end the song on an unresolved chord. That’s how the song ends. If your interpretation is to say that the song ending on that chord conveys heartbreak more than not ending on that chord, that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be a conscious thought of the creators to be legitimate.
The art is still the same and can still be interpreted the same way, regardless of whether or not the creator(s) thought of every tiny little interpretative detail.
Maybe the creator(s) thought of those things. Maybe they didn’t. But that doesn’t change the art at all. The art stays the same.
However, back to the point of evidence.
Finding evidence for an interpretation can be difficult if you’ve never done it before, but you’re basically looking for ways to legitimize your opinion. Maybe they may sound silly, and they probably will at the start, but keep looking.
Some things to start looking through are the rhythm, melody, harmony,and timbre. Those four aspects of music might help you find a some evidence for an interpretation.
Now, not all songs need to be analyzed this way. Some songs may lend themselves to this type of analysis, others may not. It can be a fun exercise to do if the song is either instrumental or has ambiguous lyrics, but if the lyrics are fairly clear and straightforward then this type of analysis may not be useful.
In my classroom I have different rules and procedures that my students follow.
Every time I create a rule or use some type of rule I explain the reasoning. I want them to know why we have certain rules.
This definitely adds some more time to the rule making process, but it’s useful. It also means that all rules need to be useful and have some reasoning. It means you can’t have rules “because I said so and I’m the teacher.” Those rules don’t work.
But honestly those rules are likely useless rules anyways, so it’s okay if they don’t have those rules.
It also means that I can point to a rule written on the board if one of my students fails to follow it and they immediately know what they did and why they shouldn’t do it.
You may have to remind students of the rules and why you follow them because some of them may be less familiar. But let’s be honest, they’re kids.
I also think it communicates a respect for students when you explain rules. It tells your students that you understand that they deserve to know why certain things need to be done in certain ways. That attitude alone changes a lot about the classroom culture and your relationship with your students.
Asking yourself this question when listening to a piece of music, of any style, can help you be able to follow it much better.
It’s something that Aaron Copland talks about in his book What to Listen for in Music?. He doesn’t phrase it the way I did, but the idea is still there.
While you’re listening to one piece of music try to remember the ideas you’ve heard and compare the new music to those old ideas. Are there any themes that repeat? Are there any phrases or melodies that repeat? Are there any chord progressions that repeat?
What this is getting close to is a formal analysis of a piece of music. That means you’re analyzing the form of a piece of music. Form is how different sections of music are arranged. In songs with lyrics this often means you’re looking at choruses, verses, and maybe a bridge or a solo. Same thing often applies to hip-hop music. There is some type of chorus, verse, and maybe a bridge.
Classical music and jazz don’t have the same terminology, but they do have similar ideas.
It’ll take a few listenings, at first, to get used to this, but it gets easier just from paying attention to it while you listen to music. Eventually it’ll become second nature and you’ll be able to figure out the form of a song after one listening.
Listening this way can be interesting because you’ll notice a lot of similarities within genres of music. Often songs within jazz music follow similar types of forms. They often have a ‘head’ or a main melody, then members of the band improvise solos, then the ‘head’ is played again at the end. The same forms don’t happen in all genres, but the same idea applies to songs within the genre of classical music or within the genre of pop music or rock music. There are often formal (having to do with form) similarities between songs within the same genre.
It’ll also make songs easier to follow. Rather than songs being a bunch of different melodies and sections and lyrics they’ll start to become more structured. Some pop songs and classical pieces have very distinct sections. You’ll start to hear those sections as being more distinct when you practice listening this way.
This way of listening also helps with learning songs quickly. If I have to learn five songs for a gig and I have only a few days to learn them, the first thing I do is make a “map” of the song’s form. Often I can do this in one listening. Then I just need to figure out how to play the different sections and compare them to see if they are the same every time they repeat. Making a map of the form as the first step though has made this whole process faster.
I also do this if I’m sight reading a piece of music. It can be super quick and it alone can help me play the song so much better because I have an idea of what is coming up. I’m prepared once those sections arrive.
Next time you’re listening to a piece of music ask yourself, “Have I heard this before?”
The other day I went to a park to sit and write some music. I write most of my music by hand into a spiral-bound manuscript paper notebook. I finished writing a song that’ll be titled, “Home.” It’s part of a larger album that’ll probably come out next year.
I often write music this way. Either just into a notebook without an instrument or at the piano. Sometimes I’ll write straight into a DAW, but not super often, and I don’t particularly enjoy writing that way. It doesn’t feel musical or creative. The other ways of composing do feel creative.
It feels like there is more possibility when looking at a blank page of manuscript paper.
It makes me feel more imaginative. There isn’t an actual audio file that you’re hearing of the song yet. Even if you do play it on piano, unless it’s for piano, you aren’t hearing the actual piece of music yet.
This doesn’t mean that it’ll be more difficult, but it does take some extra practice to do.
Learning to hear the notes you’re writing as if they are played by the correct instruments and imagining the correct sounds takes some practice. But it doesn’t take much extra practice. This skill is called audiation but that’s for a different post.
Audiating the music like this causes me to start from nothing. It causes me to start from just the sound and just from my imagination of what I want that specific piece of music to sound like. It’s all in my head basically. I enjoy that.
Another thing that this means is that it removes any physical playing ability from it. Sometimes if I’m composing a piece of music at the piano I’ll play it. If I can’t physically play all of it, then I have to choose to write something else, imagine and audiate it, or practice to make it playable. Being able to imagine it in your head is my favorite option of those.
So if you write music I recommend you try this at some point. At first it’ll be difficult and it might not sound how you want it to sound. Eventually with some practice you’ll get much better at it and you’ll be able to hear large ensembles in your head.
Sometimes I sit at the piano and just improvise. I don’t record it. I don’t write it down. I don’t ever hear it again.
I just play.
It’s only for me. I’m the only one that ever hears what I play.
I view this blog very similarly. I started it because Seth Godin recommends you write every day, to get used to thinking of ideas and get better at writing, and partially because I pay for this website to be hosted and want to get my money’s worth out of it.
I sometimes check the analytics, but most of the time I check this blog it is to write something.
I mostly do it because I enjoy writing.
I highly recommend doing something just for yourself if you have the time and ability.