# Extreme Metal Songwriting Tips



## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 27, 2011)

Hey guys 
Need advice on something. I'm currently in a band, it's pretty generic metalcore, but it's fun. I'm also working on a death metal project at the moment, plus a VERY wierd project which is like Danny elfman and stephen Sondheim plus cradle of filth and in flames. I'd like some tips on how to improve my songwriting. I'd like to have a very interesting sound, particularly in the metalcore band. What scales to use, to get an exotic sound?
What chords to use? 
(tabs for everything please)
would appreciate any additional advice you could give me on writing metal in general, such as how to extend a song for 5 plus minutes while still flowing. 
Thanks


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## Pooluke41 (Dec 27, 2011)

To get an "exotic" sound you could use these scales;

Harmonic minor and all of it's modes.
Whole Half and Half whole scales.
Whole tone scales.
Indian and Japanese scales (Can't remember the names of them)

You could add a b5 to the Aeolian mode, ect.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Dec 28, 2011)

In songwriting, your biggest friend is form. Think of things in terms of sections. You can spend all the time you want with harmony, scales, rhythms, whatever, but without some cohesive formal thinking, it'll sound like shit. I'm watching some lame old Hitchcock film right now, and I'm intoxicated, so I'll expound more on this subject more later (if you wish), but this is the gist of it: music is a dramatic artform, so you have to learn to work with the energy of a story or message. The purest abstraction of drama is a three-part form, involving 1.) an exposition of ideas, 2.) a development of ideas, and 3.) a resolution. In terms of music, this can be represented by ABA (exposition-departure-return), [AB]C[AB] (AB is brackected off to imply that they exist as a binary unit), or, uh, some variation on that.


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## Solodini (Dec 28, 2011)

Contrast is an important part of form. You can use less heavy parts to make the heavier bits stand out more.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Dec 28, 2011)

Hope this doesn't turn into another one of those threads orphaned by the OP. (Foreshadowing.)

Let's break down some ideas on form. In my last post, I explained that most forms can be thought of in terms of a ternary form: exposition, departure, and return. Our modern popular interpretation of that is ABABCB, wherein A is a verse, B is a chorus, and C is a bridge. A and B are considered to be elements of exposition, and therefore are grouped together: [AB] will represent that expository group. After a couple statements of the thematic material of [AB], we like to hear a break and can explore some more distant musical places. This exploration appears in the bridge, C. Finally, to make everything sound nice and wrapped up, we close with an element of the exposition. For some reason, the contemporary preference for the conclusion is to stick B (the chorus) at the end and omit A. A couple hundred years back, that wasn't the case, but tastes evolve. This [AB][AB]C* form can be quite literal, as seen here:

Hate Eternal - I, Monarch


0:00 - Intro
0:51 - Verse
1:27 - Chorus
1:45 - Verse
2:02 - Chorus
2:34 - Transition
2:43 - Bridge
3:35 - Chorus

You'll notice a couple of things: an introduction is present, in order to prepare the listener's ear. The verse will have different lyrics with each statement, because that's really where the story and points are made. The chorus is usually has a simple and predictable set of lyrics, and is the same with each statement (perhaps with minor variation), probably to provide some memorability and such. The message is usually fairly static in this section. Then, there's a transition. This signals that something new is about to happen. That something new is the bridge, where we get new thematic material (or, hopefully, a development of the expository materials). Notice that the bridge has a different feel from what has come before, utilizing different harmonic rates, different tones, different rhythms, different patterns overall. There is also a sense of multiphase in the bridge - this one has three distinct parts - a bit with lyrics, a short breakdowny thing, then the guitar solo. Aside from breaking up the monotony of a song, the bridge allows for a great freedom of expression and a musical flexibility that might not be suitable for the exposition. If you want to add minutes to your song, this is a good place to do it without fearing too many formal mistakes. Then, there's that stupid chorus repeat until the end that I hate.

I find that the ABABCB formula generally produces something about 3-4 minutes in length on its own. You can expand each section by introducing the multiphase idea into verse and chorus: say you have a 16-bar verse, and you want it longer, just stick another 16 bars on it that develop the ideas of the verse (musical or lyrical) a little more. You can also look into pre-choruses, interludes, small mini-development sections, and introduction and coda to make the entire thing a little more weighty. This may all seem very formulaic, but trust me, it's far easier to write within a form and branch out until it loses its straightness than to just smash a bunch of stuff together and try to pass it off as a cohesive unit. As a songwriter, it's your job to balance predictability with the occasional surprise.

Let's see an expanded version of this form.

Adagio - Underworld


The introduction on this one is huge. Notice how the entire thing has a forward momentum, building up to the thematic material (which is actually developed before you hear it, but that's a topic for another time).

0:00 - Introduction, phase 1
1:26 - Introduction, phase 2
1:53 - Introduciton, phase 3
2:29 - Introduction, phase 4
3:03 - Introduction, phase 5
4:06 - Introduction, phase 6 *Big change*
4:23 - Indroduction, phase 7
4:38 - Introduction, phase 8

4:53 - Verse!
5:21 - Transition
5:31 - Pre-chorus
5:49 - Transition (Normally, we'd expect the chorus here, but they hold it back to keep the tension mounting. Notice the return to verse.)

6:02 - Verse (shorter)
6:18 - Pre-chorus, different lyrics

6:32 - Chorus
6:52 - Transition

6:57 - Verse, different dynamic, different arrangement
7:27 - New material, like a pre-chorus in behavior
7:41 - Transition

7:49 - Chorus

8:15 - Transition built on the chord progression and melody of chorus
8:46 - Transition, phase 2

The bridge is actually a form in itself, resembling a classical concerto grosso. There is a ripieno section, or tutti, which alternates with a group of soloists.

9:27 - Bridge, phase 1 - Tutti
9:42 - Bridge, phase 2 - Synth solo
10:12 - Bridge, phase 3 - Tutti
10:41 - Bridge, phase 4 - Guitar solo
11:12 - Bridge, phase 5 - Guitar solo
11:27 - Bridge, phase 6 - Retransition

11:34 - Chorus

11:52 - Coda, phase 1 - Er, I think the theme is a counter-melody from the verse. I don't have the time to check this stuff right now, gotta get to rehearsal.
12:34 - Coda, phase 2

The song is over thirteen minutes in length, but the form boils down to this:
Intro-A[AB][AB][C]B-Coda

That ABABCB should be looking really familiar by now. Doubling down on those transitions and working with the arrangement to extend sections by adding new phases can really expand a basic formula. Anyway, hope this helped someone.*


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 28, 2011)

Thanks so much  I've got some work to do...


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## celticelk (Dec 28, 2011)

SchecterWhore: /threading since 2008! =)


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 28, 2011)

Solodini said:


> Contrast is an important part of form. You can use less heavy parts to make the heavier bits stand out more.



Would a GOOD breakdown count as contrast to speed? Or were you thinking more Lack of Comprehension contrast?


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## Enselmis (Dec 28, 2011)

Why the hell doesn't SchecterWhore have mod powers yet?


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## Berserker (Dec 29, 2011)

Enselmis said:


> Why the hell doesn't SchecterWhore have mod powers yet?


 
Because he has super powers far beyond that of a mod!

In all seriousness, every time I read one of Schecterwhore's posts I learn something new. Thanks SW for always taking so much time replying to people's questions and going in to so much details.

You, Sir, rock


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## Aevolve (Dec 29, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> In songwriting, your biggest friend is form. Think of things in terms of sections. You can spend all the time you want with harmony, scales, rhythms, whatever, but without some cohesive formal thinking, it'll sound like shit. I'm watching some lame old Hitchcock film right now, and I'm intoxicated, so I'll expound more on this subject more later (if you wish), but this is the gist of it: music is a dramatic artform, so you have to learn to work with the energy of a story or message. The purest abstraction of drama is a three-part form, involving 1.) an exposition of ideas, 2.) a development of ideas, and 3.) a resolution. In terms of music, this can be represented by ABA (exposition-departure-return), [AB]C[AB] (AB is brackected off to imply that they exist as a binary unit), or, uh, some variation on that.



ShecterWhore sounds more intellectual than me when he's drunk. okerface:


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Dec 29, 2011)

I remain intellectual when I'm drunk, but I also become more belligerent. Of course, this is belligerent for me, so it amounts to yelling at people that leave shopping carts in parking spaces. 

Truthfully, I don't know if I'm a good candidate for moderating a board. I really only hang around three or four forums here.



Hammersmashedsevenstring said:


> Would a GOOD breakdown count as contrast to speed? Or were you thinking more Lack of Comprehension contrast?



Musical contrast, obviously, comes in a lot of guises. You have to figure out how you want to approach that yourself, although we can always look at a few models. If I had one criticism about the Hate Eternal song I posted above, it's that it doesn't have enough contrast. The same rhythmic feel exists throughout, for example. The Adagio song in the same post, on the other hand, makes use of as many contrasts as it can. The trick with that is putting your money where your mouth is and being able to pull off such a wide range of emotions. Of course, before we can discuss what to contrast, we have to look at our materials.

Music exists on a horizontal as well as on a vertical plane. Horizontal elements include rhythm, melodic behavior, texture, and phrase length. Vertical elements include harmony, register, and most other things dependent on pitch. (There is also a spatial element of music, which is rooted more in the psychological and metaphysical nature of music rather than the relative components of the horizontal and vertical. I'll mention this in passing.) Let's now have a look what we can manipulate.

Horizontal:
&#8226; Rhythm includes meter, divisions of beats (simple versus compound), individual rhythms (straight or syncopated).
&#8226; Tempo is how fast or slow music is.
&#8226; Melodic behavior describes a melody's trajectory: does it ascend overall? Does it descend? Is it static? Does it have an arch shape? Is that arch an ascent followed by a descent, or the inversion of that?
&#8226; More on melodic behavior. Does the melody consist of small intervals or wide intervals? Scales or arpeggios? A mix of the two?
&#8226; Texture is how the melody interacts with the rest of the music. The common musical textures are homophony (one melody + accompaniment), monophony (only the melody), and polyphony (simultaneous melodies; counterpoint). There are variations on these, but this basically covers it.
&#8226; Phrase length refers to how music is organized within a section. Are the phrases made of four-bar units? Maybe one phrase is five bars long, and the next is six or something.

Vertical:
&#8226; Mode. Not ionian-dorian-phrygian-lydian, but major or minor. You might be able to make a case for a modality centered on an augmented or diminished chord. You're listening for the tonic here, not scales.
&#8226; Tonality is where a part of the music has its pitch center. Hopefully, this changes at least from section to section.
&#8226; Overall sonority: this is where you break out specific scales and modes. Some section might have a distinctly lydian flavor, or harmonic minor, whatever. I'll call this "color", although you can call it "mode" if you like. Unfortunately, none of these terms are real absolutes, once you start digging into it.
&#8226; Chord progression: where a progression goes, and how it gets there.
&#8226; What kind of chords are used (i.e. triads, dyads, sevenths).
&#8226; Range is kind of a weird area, but basically covers where you place notes and to what effect.
&#8226; The pitch side of music is an expansive topic, so there is a lot more that I'm not saying here. I'll tackle more if it comes up.

Just for fun&#8230;

Spatial: The other stuff that doesn't fit with either the horizontal or vertical explanation.
&#8226; Dynamic is just how soft or loud something is. Contrast between the two always relies on comparison and reference.
&#8226; Timbre is the sound of the instrument. Contrasts could be clean versus distorted guitar, oboe versus trombone, accordion versus bass marimba, etc. This is also influenced by register. A guitar's low register, for example, is dark and powerful while the high register is shrill.
&#8226; Self-reference, or reference to other works. Ideas like musical foreshadowing and quotation are things that aren't sufficiently explained by describing the music and require cultural and historic familiarity. As far as reference to another work, I'm talking about something like this, albeit that's a rather obtuse example. Self-reference is perhaps more common, and has to do with form. That developing a theme before the theme is presented that I hinted to earlier is such an example. Otherwise, you'll find it in the form of motivic development: it's easy to explain a melody in terms of notes and rhythms, but its meaning is dependent on what has come before in the piece and what will come after. It cannot exist in full on its own.
And there's a bunch of other shit that we can group into the spatial side of music.

--------

Now that we know what to look out for, let's analyze some music. I'm going to pick a couple of songs and point out the metric and tonal properties of each section, and it would do you good to listen for other ways in which contrast is achieved.

ARK - Mother Love


Introduction, phase 1 - 0:00, E phrygian, Meter: 4
Introduction, phase 2 - 0:35, F major, Meter: 8, and there is an occasional bar of 6.
This phase is eventually recycled at 4:53, before the bridge, with some new stuff and lyrics. A nice touch.
Verse - 1:28, E minor, Meter: 13 (4+3+4+2, or 7+6)
Pre-chorus - 1:58, E minor (Tonality doesn't matter so much in these transition sections, and usually follows the preceding section or modulates into the next key.), Meter: 4
Chorus - 2:47, E phrygian, Meter: 4
Bridge - 6:08, E phrygian, Meter: 7 (I think. Can somebody else count that?)

What I'm hearing in this song is a lot of E minor/E phrygian action, riding that E minor chord all the way. So, we don't have a whole lot of tonal contrast. But listen to the differences in tempo, meter, melody, and overall feel, and you couldn't have more contrasting sections.

Anacrusis - What You Became


Introduction - 0:00, B&#9837; phrygian, Meter: 4
Verse - 0:16, B&#9837; phrygian, Meter: 4
Verse, phase 2 - 0:45, E minor
Chorus - 1:01, B phrygian, Meter: 3
Bridge - 2:16, E phrygian, Meter: 4

Here, we see a little more variety. The verse and chorus are now in different keys, although they could have taken the bridge elsewhere. My preference is to use as many keys as I can (most of them end up in the bridge) so as to really explore the tonal space. You'll see a lot of songs that stay in one key the entire time, but that's lazy and you can do cool stuff by juxtaposing keys.


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 29, 2011)

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu


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## Tomo009 (Dec 29, 2011)

You should compile all your posts and sell them in a giant theory book Schecter. I think I've learned as much from your posts as I have from all my theory lessons.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Dec 29, 2011)

Working on it. Thanks for the praise.


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 29, 2011)

Just learned more in one day than I have in 6-7 years of guitar lessons. Thank you schecterwhore


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Dec 29, 2011)

Welcome. If SS.org were a real place, I'd have a job.


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## Solodini (Dec 29, 2011)

Quote: list of kinds of Contrast. 

My advice is to take each of those different methods of contrast and write something which consciously uses each of them independently and vary the amount that you contrast and over what space. You could write 2 songs which on the woke contrast each other, you can have contrast between sections of a song like from chorus to breakdown or you can have contrast writhing a section, be that from bar to bar, phrase to phrase, note to note. 

Beyond those options of scale are options of depth. In your verse you could contrast between alternating tonal centres which are steps apart then in the chorus you could alternate between tonal centres which are 3rds or 4ths apart. Or, from bar to bar you could alternate between stomped crochet sort of feel and a faster quaver/semiquaver sort of feel, then in your chorus you could alternate between 4/4 and 7/4 or a 4/4 straight feel and an 8/8 triplet feel. 

Contrast is very multi dimensional. Once you've tried out different approaches to contrast in separate experiments, you can then try combining the different approaches within songs, as you'll know already what will work for each. Slight contrast: large and obvious contrast; contrasting frequently:contrasting further apart. Both have huge effects on the resulting feel of the music.


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Dec 29, 2011)

Thanks man


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## Solodini (Dec 29, 2011)

Nae probs.


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## Grimbold (Jan 2, 2012)

i have 2 techniques that really help me fill out songs and give them variety

1. ALT VERSE, these are KEY to many songs and really help to fill out your music after the 5 minute mark. A different lyrical pattern and a fresh guitar riff can really make a song less repetitive and make your 9 minute epic even cooler!

2. Instrumental breaks, similar to the alt verse in that they help fill out songs, they too help fill out tracks. And Instrumental Break is different from a solo IMO as a solo should tell more of a story whereas an instrumental break can just be you playing arpeggios down the fretboard and sounding cool (hammerfall does it all the time)

Another form of instrumental break is instead of a minisolo is to just play a cool guitar riff you have in your bag of tricks that doesn't seem to play nice with vocal lines. Try having an instrumental verse to give the vocalist a break. Again these are different from solos as they should be more focused on the RIFF.

hope that helped


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## Solodini (Jan 2, 2012)

At the same time, don't underestimate guitar and/or bad as a melodic instrument and how this can work in tandem with vocals.


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Jan 7, 2012)

Cheers


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## Solodini (Jan 8, 2012)

That was meant to say bass, not bad, in case you hasn't guessed haha


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## Hammersmashedsevenstring (Jan 10, 2012)

Quitting the shit band, so whatever *shrugs*


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jan 10, 2012)

You should still try writing some stuff. The more you exercise songwriting, the easier it gets.


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## Solodini (Jan 11, 2012)

And the more you understand the things you learn to play.


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