Creating a good sounding theme melody for a track is a win in itself. But one melody isn’t enough to make the whole track. So how can I grow that one part into a complete, finished track?

After coming up with my first melody in the previous post, I was so excited that I couldn’t contain myself from going back to the drums and try playing along it in reality.

I loaded the drum pad with basic bass note samples that match the melody, put up a microphone and this happened (click here if the video doesn’t work).

Playing along that one melody part was fine enough at this point, but I found it hard to continue the track with anything that sounded exciting. And I can’t really play just that one part for three or more minutes and call it a song. That’s boring as hell, right?

Something interesting and notably different has to happen. The problem was, I had no idea what that could be.

I was stuck.

Help is on it’s way

It was time to grab the holy book, Making music, to help this poor bastard out. And it didn’t take long until it provided me with the help I needed right now.

The solution for my of lack of inspiration was to listen carefully to a track that inspires me. The objective is to make a list of different elements I heard in it.

Those could be things like what kind of sounds and instruments are being used and – more importantly for me – at what point are they being used?

I chose Bonobo’s track ”Ten Tigers – Bengal Edit” for this experiment. I listened to it over and over again paying close attention to:

What instruments are being played?

When are they being played?

How long is the intro?

How many other song parts are there besides intro? How long are they?

However, as I was listening to the track countless times, I felt I needed to go further than making a simple list.

Get graphic, son!

To get the big picture of the track I was listening to, I started drawing a visual arrangement of the elements I was hearing:

The result was a ”start to finish” timeline view of the track. This way I got a sense on how many song parts and instruments the track contains.

I then draw a similar ”map” for my own track using Bonobo’s track as a reference. It’s a timelime of sounds and elements that should be enough to make my track sound interesting as well.

This map helps me stay focused on the composition process by giving clear boundaries on the track structure and elements.

Better yet, when I play the track on drums, the map should help me focus on playing the pre-recorded clips in correct order and not get distracted by being uncertain of what part to play next.

The most important thing, though, is that I have a clear vision of what I need (and create) in order to finish this track.

What next?

So from now on things are getting really interesting. Next time I’m posting I should have a ready structure for the track, which means I’m ready to play it live on the drums from start to finish! Yikes!!