Basics of music composition theory

Let’s review some fundamentals before moving on to how to develop compositions and melodies from a framework that records on Billboard charts use. You will be familiar with them if you are studying music theory, but if you’re like me, you didn’t discover these fundamentals until much later in your professional life. Up until I started learning music theory, I used FL Studio to create the majority of my work by ear. The classically trained pianists I’ve collaborated with in the studio have told me that although my approach to music is very unconventional, it still functions just as well as the classic approach. At the end of the day, good-sounding music is the goal.

Fundamentals of music theory

The study of music theory encompasses the language and notations used to create and communicate music, as well as the principles and practices of music. The fundamentals of music theory are as follows:

• Pitch: A sound’s pitch determines how high or low it is. An interval is a space between two pitches.
• Scale: A scale is a group of pitches that are arranged in ascending or descending order. There are many different types of scales, but the major and minor scales are the most widely used.
• Notes: Nothing new under the sun. There are only 12 notes used in Western or modern music production; the first 7 letters of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G) and the corresponding sharps (#) and flats (Bb and b) are used to name the 12 notes in Western music. These notes repeat in octaves, with the frequency of the notes in the previous octave being doubled in each succeeding octave. Keep in mind that some traditional Middle Eastern and Indian musical styles use microtonal systems that use more than 12 notes per octave. The majority of the music theory and compositions in Western music, however, are based on 12 notes.
• Chord: A chord is a set of three or more notes played simultaneously. The notes of a particular scale are frequently used to construct chords.
• Key: A key is a group of pitches used as the foundation of a musical composition. It is frequently determined by the piece’s opening and closing notes, as well as the chords that have been utilized.
• Rhythm: Rhythm is the term used to describe how music is timed. The length of notes, the placement of accents, and the overall tempo or speed of the music are all factored in.
• Harmony: Harmony is the term used to describe the arrangement of chords and how they relate to one another.
• Notation: The system of writing music using symbols to represent pitch, rhythm, and other musical elements is known as musical notation. The most popular type of notation is sheet music, which represents musical information using a staff and different symbols.

I want you to become familiar with the idea of pulling from experience. This idea refers to your capacity to advance from perfect practice makes perfect to the point of unconscious competence, at which point you can use everything I’ve taught you so far to draw on your experience to make records on the spot.

Studying the icons

I have learned everything I know about music composition and theory by studying the masters. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the privilege of working in studios with some of the world’s brightest and best minds, and I’ve discovered commonalities in all of their approaches. To be clear, you can be ghost-mentored by the greats by listening to their music. I did this before I was good enough to work with any of them in the studio. I advise you to do the same, even when you are good enough to be in the room; mastery is a journey that never ends. In the modern world, there are a ton of popular producers who upload content to their YouTube channels, social media accounts, and other platforms, giving you the chance to learn how they create music. Take advantage of the enormous assistance that your generation enjoys that I didn’t have access to.

When it comes to music production, trends are constantly changing, even if they sound similar for an 18-month period; this is because record labels are attempting to squeeze every last bit of profit out of a popular sound before the trend shifts, and independent artists are doing the same to try and catch trend waves in the hopes of making it big! It’s important to keep learning from other successful producers on how they approach their own production palette if you want your career to last a long time and keep evolving.

Finding your icons and studying them thoroughly will help you gather information and gain experience for your own production styles in your particular situation, depending on your age, when you were born, and the type of music you are producing.

Let’s explore some key takeaways from successful producers that I’ve had the opportunity to work with in my career. While I won’t be able to cover everything in this book, let’s look at some essential elements:

• First, the popular producers are known for their inventive and non-traditional sampling methods, using samples from unusual sources such as animal noises, everyday objects, and video game sound effects to create fresh sounds and rhythms.
• They also pay meticulous attention to detail during the recording process, spending significant time fine-tuning and perfecting their productions. They are known for being perfectionists and may work on a single project for months or even years at a time.
• Innovative rhythms are a hallmark of their productions, often incorporating layered and syncopated beats. They use rhythmic variation and timing to build tension and interest in their music.
• Vocals play a crucial role in their productions, with strong vocal performances supported and enhanced by the music. Vocal processing techniques such as doubling and pitch shifting are often used to create a unique sound.
• Sound quality is emphasized, using top-notch tools and methods such as equalization (EQ), which plays a fundamental role in the process of mixing audio, and compression, which is an audio processing technique used in mixing and mastering to control the dynamic range of a sound signal to achieve crystal-clear and powerful productions.
• Collaboration is a key aspect of their approach; they work with a wide range of musicians and producers to bring out the best in their team members and create music with a consistent and unified sound.
• They also frequently incorporate live instruments such as drums, guitars, and bass into their productions to add warmth, depth, and an organic feel to their music. With FL Studio, you can leverage its stock VSTs to mimic or copy live instrumentation with a little bit of mixing.
• Sampling is a common technique used by these producers, who are often locating and modifying obscure and unusual samples to create fresh and intriguing sounds. Some producers may replay or interpolate samples rather than use traditional chopping and borrowing methods, which can be a powerful way to start a fresh production.
• A strong sense of melody is a hallmark of their productions, often starting with a simple melody or chord progression and layering it to create intricate arrangements.
• Groove and rhythm are also emphasized, using syncopated and off-beat rhythms to give their music a distinctive and contagious feel.

In summary, top producers share common traits such as imagination, perfectionism, meticulousness, focus on audio quality, collaboration, and authenticity. These are fundamental building blocks for creating compositions that have the potential to top the billboard charts and create a long career as a top producer in the music business.

Creating on the fly from experience

As a producer, when you reach the big studios in significant music markets, you will be required to either play music from your back catalog or immediately produce something new for the A&R, artists, or songwriters. For the avoidance of doubt, “A&R” means Artist and Repertoire. In the music industry, A&R refers to the division or department of a record label, music publishing company, or entertainment agency that is responsible for scouting, signing, and developing new talent, as well as overseeing the artistic and creative aspects of a recording artist’s career. The capacity to draw inspiration from prior experiences is what distinguishes professional producers from others (even if they are still trying to establish themselves as known producers). What am I alluding to here?

Pulling ideas from past experiences is a phrase I coined on my journey, which represents a producer’s ability through consistent use of FL Studio and its tools to know what melodies, drum patterns, VSTs, and plugins work for a specific situation or opportunity you are placed in at a given moment. Think of it this way: you need to be able to perform when you’re put in any situation (and impress those around you). The best way to achieve this is to pool your 10,000 FL Studio hours and concentrate on using those frameworks as opposed to purely experimenting.

Now, I don’t want to bamboozle you or the situation, but there will be studio sessions where you have time to get really experimental; these are usually the sessions where the studio clock isn’t ticking at $500 per hour. You have unlimited time to experiment with various plugins, VSTs, and melody patterns when you are at your home studio or your own studio that you built out in a commercial space that you have leased.

When you’re on the spot, it’s important to work from a template-based framework so you can produce a production quickly and effectively that the other people in the room will want to use.

One of these elements is your approach to melody and composition structure. Working with rap artists, pop singers, or songwriters doesn’t matter; you need to be able to confidently approach each scenario with the appropriate framework – that’s where this chapter comes into play. I’m going to give you the frameworks you will need to start plugging and playing.

Working off the cuff

So, you have been invited to a studio session with an A&R at a major record label. They have the studio booked out for 3 hours, so you open your laptop and start playing tracks from your back catalog. They pick two but tell you they need something more upbeat and poppy. You know how to approach a pop record because you have practiced 10,000 times in your home studio space working on tracks within this framework. So, you open up FL Studio and immediately start loading your templates and approach the melody from this viewpoint using your go-to VSTs, plugins, drum kits, and pattern templates. In 20 minutes, you have a bare idea and the A&R really likes it. They tell you to bounce that idea to a .wav file, and they send it to a songwriter to pen an idea over.

A few days go by, and you get a reference track back with vocals over your idea, and the A&R asks you to finalize the track. You are now back home in your own studio so you have time to get experimental. Once you add your additional flare to it, you send it back and, before you know it, a major artist has cut the record and you just got a placement.

This happened over and over again with me. Even if you’re a remote producer, all professionals in the music industry value the ability to deliver tracks and ideas at short notice.

As always, practice makes perfect! Like any other skill, FL Studio’s melodic and musical composition workflows benefit from practice. Never stop experimenting with new approaches, sounds, and aesthetics,and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. The more you use the program, the more at ease you’ll feel, and the more unique your music will sound. Fail quickly and severely! For those who fall and quickly get back up after doing so, the Promised Land is just around the corner.

So, let’s talk about the basic frameworks for composing melodies in FL Studio.