# Stepping up composition skills?



## Deathbykidd (Mar 21, 2013)

I have been playing guitar for about 4 years now and just recently recorded my first decent song. I'm feeling stuck though as that song was extremely generic and not what I'm looking to write. I want to start writing things closer to Chelsea Grin's Evolve EP, Whitechapel's recent material, and Born of Osiris's stuff, but I just don't feel I am anywhere near being able to write like that. I have lots of trouble coming up with leads of any kind, the drums I write are basic and generic, and I feel I can't progress a song and it just becomes repetitive. I know enough theory to have an idea as what I'm doing, and if not I know enough to figure it out after a few minutes. I just feel like I'm lacking overall with composition and want to improve it and step my game up. 

Is there any helpful resources or ideas I can try to improve this? 

Any tips that will help when arranging this kind of music and coming up with leads that evolve somewhat and not repeat the same thing over and over? Improving drums and creating better and more interesting lines?


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## Rizzo (Mar 21, 2013)

First and obvious, listen to a LOT of music (of every kind).
Second, i'm sadly nowhere near to being an almost decent composer but i'm trying so i'll give my 2 cents: keep studying theory and just experiment at any new step taken. Usually my "freshest" ideas just come up right after mastering a new skill\concept, just by jamming a random line and applying it.
Hope it helps and keep it up!


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## Solodini (Mar 21, 2013)

Analyse the music of others and take tips from what they do. Scales and chord construction are the tip of the iceberg in music theory. Application is the important bit. If there's a chord change you like in someone else's music, try it in a different context. Learn to see the role things are playing, theoretically. Learn about whether E in the melody is functioning as the 5th of Amaj/min or whether it's leading toward an F in an Fmaj/min chord. These sorts of things are useful to be aware of and try to emulate. 

For melodic development, your best direction to look in is that of jazz and "classical" music. Development is their bread and butter. Common methods are to approach a target note from the opposite direction (travel down to it from above rather than up to it from below/vice versa), shifting a phrase up/down diatonically and using a different rhythms with the same notes. 

What else seemed lacking in your composition?


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## meambobbo (Mar 21, 2013)

I find something that's really helpful for programming drums is to loop the part I'm trying to write and edit it as it loops, so you can keep hearing it as you edit.

if things sound a bit generic, usually adding a layer on top can liven it up. or just try changing one note - adding a rest or an off-beat accent. find a "blue" note that sounds outside the scale but fits in a weird way. try a quarter-bend on a note or other ornamentation to change it up. Use a bend instead of playing two notes. extend the riff an extra beat. There's a whole world of subtle tweaks to improve riffs that give them that "it factor".

Learning a solid amount of theory can't HURT. but really think of theory as a language. Knowing grammar can't help you write interesting poetry but might help guide you a bit. Knowing theory can't make you a genius composer. It can help you figure out why your riff or progression isn't resolving like you want. It will definitely help you layer instruments and harmonies, which is usually a surefire way to push your composing to the next level.

Try switching keys and modes a lot. Even if the riff is repetitive, switching these will keep it more fresh. And the ways you have to finger it in different keys/modes naturally leads to modifications and new ideas.

Always think in terms of contrast. Staying at 100 MPH gets numb. Keep switching speeds, rhythmic vs. melodic riffing, registers, beats.

If your technical ability is holding you back, incorporate some difficult technical exercises into your routine. Don't think of it as different from composing. Lots of cool riffs sound stale if you slow them down too much. Thinking you can get away with playing things a bit slower and them having the same compositional value is simply incorrect. A simple blast-beat is case in point.

try writing in a progressive manner - don't do the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus thing. write like section A, section B, section C, section D, section A type songs - keep some semblance of a theme that connects them all, even if only minutely or very subtly - make sure it all flows together. only allow one section to repeat, and maybe don't let it repeat verbatim but incorporate different elements.


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## Osorio (Mar 21, 2013)

Composition is a skill like any other, you practice it...

First. Write more. Write as much as you can. A lot of stuff is going to sound like crap, write even more anyway. Eventually, connections on what you like and what you don't like are going to form and you are going to understand in practice how to write music that you like.

Analyzing the music of others who are far better than you is great and can be very insightful. Analyzing your own music is important too, specially if you are keen to improvising. It will in the least show you where your mistakes are.

Study music theory and make Etudes (practice pieces) to apply the concepts you study. Eg: Study 12 Bar Blues, make songs that use that. Make it simple, then add more complexity to it. Don't try to go all out and make the most complex song that you can from the get go. Get a strong foundation and build upon it.

Be mindful of rhythm. Most of the stuff I have seen by musicians around me are totally bland because they lack, above all, rhythmic interesting ideas. I'm freaking guilty of having written pieces ENTIRELY made of 8th and 16th notes (one for each, at least) and I'll be the first one to say that it sounds fucking boring 98% of the time.

Be mind of harmony. Don't ignore chords. Leads are cool, well-developed melodic ideas are essential, but a song full of "X5" chords can be very bland. Having a well structured harmonic-movement can greatly aid you in creating a strong melody.

As far as drums go, take some free online drum lessons. Understand the instrument. This will help you write for it. If you have a 3/4 bar on your song, don't write what you think 3/4 looks like, go search for it. Keep it basic, them spice it up... The worst thing you can do for drums is to not try to visualize it and understand how an actual drummer would play it.


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## bondmorkret (Mar 22, 2013)

I'd say listen/analyse and transcribe as much music as you can, from varying styles. Also, get hold of a few books on theory/composition and work through the material there too.


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## Deathbykidd (Mar 22, 2013)

Solodini said:


> Analyse the music of others and take tips from what they do. Scales and chord construction are the tip of the iceberg in music theory. Application is the important bit. If there's a chord change you like in someone else's music, try it in a different context. Learn to see the role things are playing, theoretically. Learn about whether E in the melody is functioning as the 5th of Amaj/min or whether it's leading toward an F in an Fmaj/min chord. These sorts of things are useful to be aware of and try to emulate.
> 
> For melodic development, your best direction to look in is that of jazz and "classical" music. Development is their bread and butter. Common methods are to approach a target note from the opposite direction (travel down to it from above rather than up to it from below/vice versa), shifting a phrase up/down diatonically and using a different rhythms with the same notes.
> 
> What else seemed lacking in your composition?



I guess what else would be lacking is my overall lack of flow, I try writing in the Section 1 section 2 style, but it just doesn't flow, or I write something that sounds good, but can't flow out of it and get stuck for a while thinking of what to do out of it. My transition skills suck like no other. I hear bands all the time just randomly cut from a clean section of a song straight to distortion, or just a short pause and come back in and it sounds fine, but it just doesn't click when I try incorperating it into my work. My leads are a huge weak point. I can come up with nice clean leads, but when it comes to distorted leads to go over choruses and such, I just don't know where to begin. 



meambobbo said:


> I find something that's really helpful for programming drums is to loop the part I'm trying to write and edit it as it loops, so you can keep hearing it as you edit.
> 
> if things sound a bit generic, usually adding a layer on top can liven it up. or just try changing one note - adding a rest or an off-beat accent. find a "blue" note that sounds outside the scale but fits in a weird way. try a quarter-bend on a note or other ornamentation to change it up. Use a bend instead of playing two notes. extend the riff an extra beat. There's a whole world of subtle tweaks to improve riffs that give them that "it factor".
> 
> ...


The sections aproach has always sounded more interesting to me, but like I said before, I just don't know when to end one and continue another or transition out of a part. I definately think that my technical ability is holding me back. I'd love to shred like Jason Richardson or any other technically accomplished player, but I guess it's been my mindset to not really focus on leads. Now it's starting to come back to bite me when I need them in songs. I've never really liked leads because when I first started playing. All the songs everyone wanted me to learn and had to learn had the same pentatonic scale bendy solo's that I just had no care for, so it kinda burned me in a sense from leads or solo's.


venneer said:


> Composition is a skill like any other, you practice it...
> 
> First. Write more. Write as much as you can. A lot of stuff is going to sound like crap, write even more anyway. Eventually, connections on what you like and what you don't like are going to form and you are going to understand in practice how to write music that you like.
> 
> ...



^ sounds exactly like my stuff, it's all typically 8th or 16th notes and very little away from it. I although have been trying to add different chords to my progressions and try and steer away from power chords if I can. I've also thought of making Etudes. The idea of them makes sense, and will probably do wonders to my playing, I just haven't gotten around to actually making one. If I'm not mistaken, quite a few of AAL songs started out as Etudes.


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## meambobbo (Mar 22, 2013)

theory should definitely help with bridging sections. i find the biggest obstacle people face is that they try to keep all their sections based around pedaling on their low open string, and often it just doesn't fit. Knowing how to keep the key by losing that pedal, or shifting into a related key is half the battle.

if sections don't flow directly into each other thematically, then you NEED a transition. If they simply don't flow melodically or harmonically, you may be able to avoid a transition as noted above or use a very brief transition, like a 1-bar thing, whether it just be swell or a drop, or a simple melody. If you're trying to merge 2 keys that aren't very related, maybe use a pivot chord as a transition, or venture into whole-tone or diminished territory.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 23, 2013)

Deathbykidd, would you mind uploading that song? It will be easier for myself and other forumites to offer advice and criticism if we can hear your composition. I mean, I can spout some generalities if you want, but it will probably be more effective to cut to the good stuff.



meambobbo said:


> If you're trying to merge 2 keys that aren't very related, maybe use a pivot chord as a transition



Two keys that have a distant relationship won't have any common chords. Really, anything more than two steps in either direction on the circle of fifths will require a chromatic modulation.


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## Deathbykidd (Mar 23, 2013)

Well here is a song that I started a long time ago that is purely just be Tapping so I made it into an etude so I can practice two handed tapping. The key and such wasn't really big to me when I started it, I kinda went with what sounded good to my ears. But there is just a huge kinda dead spot between the two ideas due to not knowing how to tie them together as they just seem as two separate ideas. The last bar I'm still tweaking, it just doesn't sound right to me, so any help with that would be great. 
Here's the link to the GP file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7hzh6hrce8s8gx4/etude .gp5

Here is the link to the song I just recently finished. I really want to steer away from this as it just sounds pretty generic and not where I want to go with my music. 

https://soundcloud.com/deathbykidd-1/happy-postcore-song-thingy

I treated it as more or less a project to practice mixing as this is an older version that I've remixed a few times. But it's all I have uploaded at the moment.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 23, 2013)

Alright, here's what I got.

On your tapping thing:

You doom yourself as soon as you have that verbatim repeat at bar 9. Changing the cymbal that the drum kit is using isn't enough. My instinct is to start messing with the motivic material there. You know, retain the spirit of the line, but take it someplace new. I'm tempted to start developing even before then, really, because there is no harmonic progression - you've been hammering away at that E C# G# A motif on the downbeat of every bar. We get it. I took a shot at recomposing the guitar part for the first ten measures.







It's a rough sketch, and I think that you can still do so much with the material, but I'm going to work in twenty minutes, so this is what you get for now. First, make this thing faster. It drags as it is. In the second measure, I kept the same pitches but put a rest on the first eighth note (I also added a snare on the downbeat to fill that rest; the rest of the drums are untouched). I changed the bass note in the first measure to C so that it makes more harmonic sense (it goes to G in the third measure, creating more harmonic motion). The arpeggio is also inverted in the same measure. In measure 4, I'm using new pitches and trying to get into a new register. Measure 5 has some stepwise motion to balance out the angularity, then it gets angular again in 6. In 7, it's back to stepwise stuff in the higher register, with an octave-displaced C so that it doesn't get too boring. Measure 8 employs a sequence to build tension, and I place a modulation in measure 9, leading to a reprise of the original motif in the key of the dominant in measure 10 (though not an exact transposition; the melodic contour, however, is still there).

Listening to your other tune really quick, I think the B section is nice, but that overall you could use more variety. The form is not convincing, largely because the proportions are off (too much A, not enough C). The A could work if the phrase lengths were longer. As it is, it repeats the same melody ever two measures. Keep the temporal length of the A section, make the melodic material 4 or 8 measures, and it will sound already more developed. Also, you need an actual harmonic progression. I'm hearing a lot of tonic chord and nothing else. In fact, that one key and that one chord go straight through the entire track. Get some new pitches, dude!


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## Deathbykidd (Mar 23, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> Alright, here's what I got.
> 
> On your tapping thing:
> 
> ...



Wow. This was super helpful. I definitely hear what you mean now that you pointed it out. On the song i posted I definitely hear the D# running through the whole song and little from it. I guess I need to learn how to phase out of riffs and sections rather than just end them and start a new one based on what you're telling me from both of these examples. Is there any other tips on how you know when you've played one part enough and when one was played too little? That's been something that has seemed to be a mystery to me. The recorded song seems to be a victim of that lack of knowledge.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 24, 2013)

Deathbykidd said:


> Wow. This was super helpful. I definitely hear what you mean now that you pointed it out. On the song i posted I definitely hear the D# running through the whole song and little from it. I guess I need to learn how to phase out of riffs and sections rather than just end them and start a new one based on what you're telling me from both of these examples.



I think what you really need to focus on is making actual phrases. Start simple: use a i V i progression and try to move the melody into a new tessitura. I'm going to use the four-note motif from the tapping etude, because I already have it notated. Because your melody starts kinda low, we're going to make it go high.






Now there is a sense of motion in the line. It has direction, and it creates expectation. It covers a reasonable range, and we use enough pitches in such an order that we aren't lulled to sleep by the second measure. Chords are the organization of scalar pitch. When you use a harmony, you are selecting a momentary pitch palette and, more importantly, rejecting other pitches (or at least downplaying their importance). By changing chords every measure, you keep the music from sounding harmonically static. This is not yet a phrase, maybe half of one, but it is a start. I'll make it a phrase by extending it and using a cadential figure on the end.






There's even a nice climax in the melody in measure 4, about two thirds into the phrase (a good place to have it). I'm not crazy about this melody, but it sounds more developed than what we started with. If you apply the same principles and put the time in to that etude, you'd probably end up with something respectable.

Keep in mind that as you make the music bigger, you need to have greater expansion of your tools and language. I've written a tiny phrase above, so I can get away with just two chords (vii°7 and V7 are functionally the same thing), but if you wanted to keep the music going, you'd be better off to get into the other diatonic chords, chromatic chords, and modulation to keep it from becoming stale.



> Is there any other tips on how you know when you've played one part enough and when one was played too little? That's been something that has seemed to be a mystery to me. The recorded song seems to be a victim of that lack of knowledge.


Rant coming up. To me, it's a feel thing. It's not so much about playing an idea too much or too little, it's about making the music say what it needs to say. Really, your song doesn't sound composed to me. The "phrases" are two measure snippets that are motivically potent but undeveloped. The entire thing can be summed up in a couple riffs. (I'm not trying to insult you or anything; I used to be where you're at now, so I'm trying to introduce ideas to you that will strengthen your compositional abilities or at least cause you to reaffirm your beliefs if you choose to argue against any of my points.) To make music say something, it needs to go somewhere, it needs to change. To accomplish this, I typically resort to motivic development, because that is what I have been taught to do and that is what I consider to be interesting. You won't find that in the great majority of popular music, metal included. Frankly, most musicians these days either really suck at developing melodic ideas, have no concern for that kind of thing, or are unaware of the possibility, probably a combination of all three. Motivic development is arguably an antiquated art. Even when there is concern for theme and motive, we live in a time of limited harmonic language (despite the fact that we now have more harmonic possibilities than ever), so it's unlikely that you'll hear tonal exploration of a theme on the scale of Beethoven from any of your contemporaries. If I had it my way, everybody would compose music in which every single note is derived from the opening motive.





Harmony gives us a setting and an emotional context, melody is like a character in a story. We don't want Bilbo to stay in the Shire, we want him to get off his lazy ass and trek his way over to the Lonely Mountain to slay the shit out of Smaug.

Now, on the topic of formal balance, I have a string quartet that I recently started work on. I'll share what I have so far of the first movement (excluding a few sketches that aren't fit into the timeline yet). When I started the piece, I knew I wanted this movement to be in sonata form (I'm a sucker for sonata form), and that I wanted a fast theme area as well as a slow theme area. The fast theme comes first, because slow music kinda sucks, and I can use the slow music as an aural relief to the fast music. In case you don't know sonata form, the idea is that there are three main sections: the exposition, the development, and the recapitulation. The exposition contains two contrasting themes or theme groups, and all of the music for the rest of the form is derived from the exposition. Right now, I have the exposition and the beginning of the development section. Development can happen during the exposition, though, because we want to hear a firm establishment of the thematic material. (I differentiate between development in the exposition section and development in the development section by how much transformation one feels in the music. It's relative, obviously, and can easily become a lengthy discussion.)

MP3 Player SoundClick

In case you can't tell, this is unbalanced. In terms of writing, I started with theme 1, then theme 2, then I worked a lot on theme 2, got the beginning of my development section in place, and ended up leaving theme 1 alone for far too long. As a consequence, theme 1 is too short in relationship to theme 2. Check out theme 1:

0:00 - Theme 1 starts. A monophonic melodic gesture (let's call this "motive A").
0:01 - An interrupting homophonic rhythmic gesture ("motive B").
0:03 - A polyphonic rendition of motive A. Free counterpoint, canon with inversions and retrogrades and all that. I don't know what you would call the rhythmic technique here. It's sort of ametric, without any of the downbeats matching up. Or polymetric, maybe. Whatever. Point is, this is a clear elaboration (development) upon motive A.
0:11 - Motive B, still homophonic, on different pitches, two different rhythms. Once again, the idea is developed a bit. Not much, it's still fulfilling the same role, but hearing it again reinforces its formal significance.
0:12/0:13 - Pizzicato. A pointillistic gesture. "Motive C". Something new to work with.
0:13 - Underneath motive C, the canon on motive A starts again, but only using the three-note scale fragment from that motive. We call this "fragmentation", when we develop only a small chunk of a theme or motive. First, it starts as a canon at the octave, then at the tritone when the fourth voice comes in. Then, it moves out of strict canon. I don't know if this counts as a fugato, it's just imitative saturation of that one cell.
0:22 - Motive B, but only in one voice. A textural fragmentation of sorts. You hear it a couple of times while the polyphonic motive A swirls around it.
0:30 - A homophonic "cadence" consisting of glissandi (coming out of nowhere, really), motive B, and a rhythmic reiteration of the last note of motive B, along with some new melodic material.

There you have it. The first theme is 34 seconds long. Only there's a problem: the second theme is 90 seconds long. Ouch, nearly three times the length of the first theme? That's unbalanced. Consider musical time, too - because the tempo of the second theme is much slower, we are going to perceive that there is more temporal space in the second part of the composition than there is in the first. I don't need to make theme 2 shorter, I like theme 2 as it is (except for that stupid chord at 1:04), what I need to do is make theme 1 about a minute longer. How do I do that? I'm glad you asked. Looking at the materials I explored, I have a lot of "motive A" in my theme 1. There's less "motive B", so I could expand on that, but I don't want to do it too much, because I have plans for it later (don't want to be redundant, after all). What really begs for expansion is "motive C", the pizzicato gesture. Holy crap, I want to have a pizz fest. And remember the glissandi that come out of nowhere at the cadence? I could work on preparing that, as well.

You see, I'm looking at the gestures that stick out and trying to smooth them over. In effect, I'm trying to justify them to the listener, telling them that I know what to do with my musical choices. If I put that pizzicato in there, it has consequences. I absolutely need to develop it. I lose sleep over this kind of thing. And, you know what, I have a whole lot of motive A already, but I think there could be more. I like that tornado of eighth notes creating impenetrable motivic saturation. Punctuating it with interruptions from motive B and motive C will keep it from sounding too samey, and will also give me a chance to develop those ideas as individual entities. I'm working toward giving each gesture, motive, theme, and section enough time and enough development to say what it needs to say.


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## meambobbo (Mar 25, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> Two keys that have a distant relationship won't have any common chords. Really, anything more than two steps in either direction on the circle of fifths will require a chromatic modulation.


 
Used the wrong term. Sorry about that. This is more of what I was referring to:
Concept of Augmented And Diminished Passing Chords on Guitar

EDIT: Also this:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/demystifying-the-diminished-chord/9343


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## Sean Conklin (Mar 29, 2013)

Lots of good tips already given.

Basically, don't ever stop composing. You get much better with it over time. It's like working out...a lot of people might quit before they see real changes in their body, but if they had only continued they would have gotten killer results. Don't make the same mistake with writing music. DO NOT STOP. My compositions now are much more refined and professional than my old ones, you get better with time and consistency.

One other thing that helps is simply having tools that inspire you. I have a lot of expensive plugins, but they're worth every penny because they inspire me with different ideas when I hear them. Crappy equipment and sounds won't inspire you much. So for every songwriter I'd encourage investing in quality compositional tools.


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## bey0ndreaz0n (Apr 17, 2013)

SchecterWhore said:


> 0:00 - Theme 1 starts. A monophonic melodic gesture (let's call this "motive A").
> 0:01 - An interrupting homophonic rhythmic gesture ("motive B").
> 0:03 - A polyphonic rendition of motive A. Free counterpoint, canon with inversions and retrogrades and all that. I don't know what you would call the rhythmic technique here. It's sort of ametric, without any of the downbeats matching up. Or polymetric, maybe. Whatever. Point is, this is a clear elaboration (development) upon motive A.
> 0:11 - Motive B, still homophonic, on different pitches, two different rhythms. Once again, the idea is developed a bit. Not much, it's still fulfilling the same role, but hearing it again reinforces its formal significance.
> ...



Just wanted to thankyou Schecter for your post and analysis, infact everyone who's posted help on this thread, it's helped me a lot I'm forever grateful!

thankyou!


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## 80H (Apr 17, 2013)

What software do you guys use for quick writeups? I want to get rid of tabs altogether; the only use that I have for them is in speed, and that's only because I've practiced them more than genuine scores. 


@OP, if you're in year 4 and looking towards theory & composition, you're ahead of the pack by a few years. Relax into it, it's just another part of practice. Incorporate it like you would practice any other technical skill - you will have good days, bad days, diminishing returns and epiphanies. Put together a youtube playlist of composition lessons that resonate with you. 

If you want it done faster, put more focus into it. It's that easy. Eventually it gets to be a lot more like writing words than writing music in that it just comes out when you know what you want to "say"


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## Solodini (Apr 17, 2013)

I use Sibelius. It's a bit janky at times but once you fit into a flow it works fairly well.


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## 80H (Apr 17, 2013)

Solodini said:


> I use Sibelius. It's a bit janky at times but once you fit into a flow it works fairly well.



thanks man, this looks perfect. gonna throw it in the budget for may


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 17, 2013)

80H said:


> What software do you guys use for quick writeups? I want to get rid of tabs altogether; the only use that I have for them is in speed, and that's only because I've practiced them more than genuine scores.



I use Finale. You'll hear Finale users badmouthing Sibelius, and you'll hear Sibelius users badmouthing Finale. They're basically the same program, but I think Finale is a little better in terms of ease of use and features. Keep in mind that I don't have much experience with Sibelius and that I know a ton of workarounds for Finale.


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## Blind Theory (Apr 19, 2013)

For me my writing composition improves through a lot of writing like what has been mentioned in here. The key to me is to find some aspect to the writing that relates to an aspect of my playing that is lacking. For instance, if you are used to writing in nothing but drop tunings then tune up and write in a standard tuning until you feel you have improved and are able to do either just as well as the other. Every song I write is focusing on some aspect of my playing that I feel is lacking so that I can push myself. Sometimes I am working on a playing technique and sometimes I hear riffs from bands that sound ultra cool so I try and push myself to be able to write similarly styled riffs. It is all about pushing yourself to the limits of your playing and then stepping just beyond what you can do. The key here is not to step so far outside of the boundary that it takes forever to get it down. The idea isn't to feel defeated. It is to make gains. I am not well versed in music theory by any means. I know barely enough to know what certain things mean. My ear is tuned to what it is that I like to hear so I know the things I am going for but I don't know why it sounds how it does so I can't help there. Push, push, push is what I can say though. If you aren't progressing you aren't doing something right. That's my philosophy.


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