# Writing Symphonic Material? (Nightwish, Dimmu, Dark lunacy)



## niffnoff (Jun 28, 2011)

Since my first band I ever did, I've fell into the world of Symphonic Metal, only problem is I've never been able to write the material, don't suppose anyone who does write in this genre (or even classical/baroque) can give some pointers on where to start, I'm starting work on an EP and my intro and outro track are really where I want to go for the all out epics, such as Hans Zimmer's "Hummel gets the rockets", or anything that Mustis and Tuomas Holopainen.

I'm not looking for a particular sound I just need to know where I begin to make such big sounding songs and pieces. And I roughly know how they are built up from theory, I just find applying the knowledge somewhat of a pain.

Some examples of what I'm trying to do.







Ideas and suggestions on this kind of approach is appreciated


----------



## Konfyouzd (Jun 28, 2011)

Get a keys player... They almost do it for you. 

I was jammin' out with a piano player yesterday over some riffs I've been playing around with lately. Now in my mind they sounded more like bouncy 80s metal/proggy... I told the pianist the chord progression alone and suddenly this epic Dimmu-esque symphonic wonderful-ness ensued. 

I don't really know how it happened, but I was pretty amazed.

The riff just switched back and forth between Am and Cm. Don't quote me on this bc I'm not a theory guru by any means, but I believe that Cmaj would be the relative major to Am. But for some reason switching to the relative major but keeping a minor fingering sounds fuckin' SWEEEEEET.

I'm not really sure if this has anything to do with it. But just running through a riff and allowing a keys player to embellish over top of it will defiinitely bring out things you hadn't previously heard in your riffs. 

This is why I think ppl say jamming w/ others is so essential to creating "your sound."


----------



## niffnoff (Jun 28, 2011)

Konfyouzd said:


> This is why I think ppl say jamming w/ others is so essential to creating "your sound."



I agree dude so much!

But uno problemo....

Keys player.. see the problem here is, the keys player I used to be in the same band time ago was the mofo who got me into this kind of sound, problem is he doesn't live anywhere near me anymore. We were like a Dimmu/Children of Bodom like band was pretty sick.

Problem was we never written any of our music down cause we were only 16 and just trying to get a name for ourselves in our town. Otherwise I'd of studied the shit out of what he did.


----------



## Konfyouzd (Jun 28, 2011)

Ahh... Well... This might be a bit out there and a bit of a stretch but what my keys player appeared to be doing yesterday was this...

He was playing a full chord and then accenting triads he was building off the individual notes of the chord in a way that complemented my strumming pattern if that makes any sense... I'm not 100% sure that's what he was doing, but that's pretty much what it sounded like. And his range allowed him to accent these "chord fragments" in a ton of different octaves so we were completely filling up all audible space. 

Again, I'm only guessing at what he was doing since I'm not good enough at theory to actually understand what was going on.


----------



## niffnoff (Jun 28, 2011)

Konfyouzd said:


> Ahh... Well... This might be a bit out there and a bit of a stretch but what my keys player appeared to be doing yesterday was this...
> 
> He was playing a full chord and then accenting triads he was building off the individual notes of the chord in a way that complemented my strumming pattern if that makes any sense... I'm not 100% sure that's what he was doing, but that's pretty much what it sounded like. And his range allowed him to accent these "chord fragments" in a ton of different octaves so we were completely filling up all audible space.
> 
> Again, I'm only guessing at what he was doing since I'm not good enough at theory to actually understand what was going on.



lmao, ask him 

From what your saying then he's using an Inversion


Third Fifth Tonic 

E G C 

Something like that?



Either way I'm looking at building it up similar but more into different parts I reckon


----------

