Tutorial: Developing Ideas, Writing Progressions, Building Arrangements 🛠️
We've had lots of requests about how to build on a idea, create progressions and arrange.
In this video we'll take you through our process of how to iterate on an idea and turn it into a finished track.
00:00 - Initial idea
01:37 - First melody & harmony variations
07:05 - Adding movement & expression with automation
08:35 - Basic rhythm development
11:00 - Stripping elements back
13:04 - B section progression idea
15:30 - Identifying and creating a motif
21:33 - Building on the B section
26:14 - Exploring new tonal possibilities
29:45 - Constructing the arrangement
32:09 - Making a breakdown
35:42 - Making a bridge
41:58 - Connecting the bridge & outro
43:40 - Refining arrangement flow
Comments (11)
This is just so fun to watch. Masters at the craft fr
thank you for your view on composition! really inspiring and helpful
Superb. Thank you!
well, thank you. that was wonderful
Super helpful thanks.. top notch as always!!
Great video! There's so much valuable information here, I'll definitely need to watch it a few times to fully absorb it all. Would you consider making a tutorial on sound design with Ableton Operator or Diva?
For sure, good ideas!
Just what the doctor recommended, and you guy's absolutely nailed this one. Always appreciate your insight boys. Thank-you !!!
I appreciate you sharing your expertise, and it’s clear that you’re musical geniuses. Based on your workflow on building on looped sections, I’m curious why you don’t start by working in the session view instead of the arrangement view. You could name the scene after the locator you’re currently working on. Wouldn’t that be easier? Sketch out all your ideas in the session view and then build the arrangement in the arrangement view when ready. I am not done with the entire video yet, so you may address the reason why you prefer this workflow later, but I noticed this and couldn’t help but ask the question. :) Thanks again for sharing your wisdom!
Mainly because it's what we're used to. We started making music on sequencers like Reason which have linear timelines, so we've always been used to that method. We also rely a lot on automation and this is much easier to keep track of in Arrangement view.
Thank you as always