Hello everyone, newbie of NG, veteran of music here.
So I'll get right to the point. Though I do realize that Newgrounds is a great place for many artists to start and get their music out, but the problem is that most of the music on the Portal (especially in the electronica section) is much too repetitive and simple. My purpose here is to help people reach the "higher realm" of music and take music to the next level.
Some may criticize me, saying that some people like bad music, or that it's relative, or that I shouldn't be telling people how to compose. If this is the case, I'm sorry but you're sorely mistaken. Just because some people like listening to bad music doesn't mean that you should continue to make mediocre work. If you want to be a successful mucisian, shouldn't you take every chance you can to improve? Also, I'm not here to tell someone how they should make music, but rather give pointers so we can reach our full potential. Finally, music is not as relative as you might think. Much of it is quite objective. That's different discussion anyways.
Yet some others may say that music is subjective, and that my tips may not actually make music better. Yes, but you don't HAVE to take my advice. That is a totally different argument altogether. I'm here to help the people who care about their work and have a passion for music and wish to try this.
With that being said, let's get to the meat of the issue.
Why would you say that the music is simple and repetitive?
The music is repetitive because it plays the same phrase over and over again, without much variation. It would be different if you had a motif and developed it with different variations, such as inversion, retrograde, etc.
The music is simple because the main melody of the music is not very innovative and constructed quite quickly without any real thought. In addition, the same basic chord progressions are used from piece to piece all the time.
So why do people still like the music then?
This is because most people are stupid (UH OH DRAMA!! No offense to anyone specifically but it is generally true) and do not look at the song as whole, but rather judge the song by its tone color. Structure and composition seem almost irrelevant when they listen.
What does that mean? That means that as long as you have beautiful, cool, or intense sounding synths, your audience will love it no matter how generic the song. True, this could make you popular, but it would also give a bad reputation as a composer/artist.
What can I do to improve my music?
For one, don't stick to a simple phrase. Take "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for example. It uses two distinct phrases, in a structure of ABBA. But even then, there each phrase has a different feeling because of where they are placed in the song, giving you different levels of closure. You want to do that with your music. Create more phrases to connect the piece as a whole, from start to finish, not stretch one phrase throughout 4-5 minutes.
Once you have created a motif or a theme for your song, one option is to create variation. You can switch between major/minor, flip the melody around (retrograde/inversion), add more harmonies, etc. Keep your listener on the edge of his/her seat. Create an "emotional roller coaster" (My band teacher says this all the time).
Of course, even if you have a good structure developed, you still need to have a beautiful melody to begin with. One of biggest factors that determine how good a melody is developed is your chord progressions. Don't stick to simple ones that everyone has used, such as:
[ I vi IV V ] or [ i VI iv V/v]
[ i VI III VII ]
[ I/i - VI VII ]
[ I - IV V] or [ i - iv VII ]
[ I V vi IV ] or [ i v VI iv ]
etc.
If you don't know what the Roman numerals mean, you should study a bit more about music theory before attempting to compose something, since this is extremely basic. The numbers represent scale tone chords; capitals being major and lower-case being minor.
In short, go for something more complex, and lengthen it to create a more complete phrase. Use 8 or 16 chords instead of 4. Or, if you're using a different time signature, use something different.
How can you make your chord progressions more complex? Try to see if you can incorporate chords from all scale tones rather than simple ones like I, IV, V, and VI. Use II, III, or VII, or the accidental thingies in between. Instead of boring major/minor chords, use various 7ths, diminished, half-diminished, augmented, or even build your own unique chords!
Melody is something that's a bit more difficult to give pointers on, since this is usually the main expression of the composer. This is what usually defines your style and how you compose. I usually sing something and play the chords in my head before writing it down on paper/computer and tweak it from there. You might have a different technique. Sometimes I build from the chord progression too, so you could try that. Don't forget that you should try to maintain a varied and appealing rhythm as well. Be sure that when you're making a melody, make it involved, while keeping it as simple or complex as you want it. By that, I mean don't make an extremely simple phrase that just uses the chord notes and repeat that over and over again. Create a set of musical phrases and combine them together to make a musical "paragraph." A simple way to do this is to just create one phrase and repeat it, but changing it up the second time it repeats. A good easy example of this is "Mary Had A Little Lamb." Now your melodies can begin to have depth and feel fulfilling to listen to.
Finally, overall structure of the piece. You can choose to do a variety of things. You can make it really simple and short (such as form of A A' [which means variation of A] or A B A), a rondo (such as form of A B A C A), a rhapsody (form of WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT). Your choice.
These are the basics of the main points, really. Once you can fix these elements of your music, it's somewhat difficult to find too much fault with it, aside from tone quality, which is going to be a different issue altogether. Once you know how to not make generic music, strive for more adventurous techniques, such as modulations (one of the most underrated techniques ever by the way), ornaments, or even more dissonant works.
If anybody has any questions, comments, constructive criticism, post about it.
If you need advice, help, clarification, or want to go even further than this, also post about it.
Hope this helps!
- CosmoVibe
P.S. Small updates from the original thread. I'll continue to make new threads to keep editing this, making sure that everyone only gets the best advice.
