Composing and analysing

Every piece starts with something small. Listen to this idea: four notes and a rest.

It climbs two leaps (A–C–E) and drops a step to D, as if left hanging. That is a motif: the smallest musical idea you recognise as "something". Three features make it recognisable:

• Contour: up, up, down a little.
• Rhythm: short-short-long-long.
• Intervals: minor third, major third, descending major second.

A motif on its own is not a piece. The piece appears when you develop it: repeat it enough for the ear to recognise it and change it enough to keep it interesting. These are the four basic tools, applied to our motif.

1. Repetition (with a different ending)

Literal repetition fixes the idea; changing only the ending already turns it into an answer.

2. Sequence

A sequence repeats the motif starting on another note. Here we move it up a third within the scale: C–E–G–F.

3. Inversion

Inverting turns the contour upside down: what went up now goes down. From E: down a third, down another, up a step.

4. Rhythmic variation

The same notes with a new rhythm: now the first note is long and the ending stretches out.

Theory deep diveMore development tools

• Augmentation and diminution: double or halve every duration.
• Retrograde: play the motif backwards, last note first.
• Fragmentation: keep only a piece (say, the first two notes) and work on it alone.
• Displacement: start the same motif on another beat of the bar, as you did with displaced accents in The Groove Garden.
• Reharmonisation: keep the melody and change the chord underneath, as in The Harmony Observatory.

Practice

Four bars from one motif

60–80 BPM10 min

Use this scene's motif or invent your own 3–5-note motif in A minor. Build four bars with this plan:

1. Bar 1: the motif.
2. Bar 2: repetition with a different ending.
3. Bar 3: sequence or inversion.
4. Bar 4: something that "closes" on A.

Play it over the drone. Once it works, record it or write it down in tab: it is the first phrase you have composed in this stop.

Drone: A2

Goal: Play four bars in a row at 70 BPM without stopping: motif, repetition with a new ending, sequence or inversion, and an ending that lands on A.

If the motif is the word and the phrase the sentence, form is the structure of the chapter: which sections there are, in what order and how long they last. Three forms cover a huge part of popular music:

All three share one principle: repetition and contrast. Repetition makes the listener feel at home; contrast keeps them listening.

Contrast in practice

How do you make a chorus "take off" from the verse? By changing one or more things at once:

• Register: the chorus melody sits higher.
• Harmony: another area of the key, for example the relative major.
• Rhythm and density: from arpeggios to strumming, from long notes to short ones.
• Dynamics: louder, more instruments.

Listen to this original miniature: four bars of verse in A minor and four bars of chorus that travel to C major, its relative.

1. 1Ami
2. 2FVI
3. 3Ami
4. 4FVI
5. 5CIII
6. 6GVII
7. 7FVI
8. 8GVII

A song's hook usually lives right there, in the first bar of the chorus: the moment of greatest contrast.

Many songs are born the opposite way to how you hear them: chords first, melody afterwards. The trick to make a melody "fit" is simple:

Notes outside the chord are called non-chord tones; the most common is the passing note, which joins two chord tones by step. Look at this original melody over Am – F – C – G:

Now play it over the chords. Then swap some beat-1 and beat-3 notes for other chord tones and hear how the melody still "sounds right":

1. 1Ami
2. 2FVI
3. 3CIII
4. 4GVII

A riff is a motif that becomes the engine of the song. It works differently from a sung melody: it lives in the low register, repeats many times and its identity is, above all, in the rhythm. So the best starting point is a rhythm, not notes:

Then put notes on that rhythm using a pedal note (the open string) that keeps coming back, plus a few notes that move. This original riff in E minor uses AAAB form: the same idea three times and, on the fourth, an ending that caps it with a chromatic climb.

Five questions for a riff with identity

1. Can you recognise it from the rhythm alone? Play it on a muted string: if it still sounds like "your" riff, you are on track.
2. Does it have a note it returns to? The pedal gives stability; what moves around it gives character.
3. Does it have an unexpected detail? A syncopation, a chromatic note, a rest.
4. Does it breathe? Rests and muted notes are part of the riff.
5. Is there room for a voice on top? If the riff fills everything, the melody will have no space.

Practice

Your riff in four steps

80–110 BPM10 min

1. Write a one-bar rhythm with eighth notes, quarters and at least one rest. Play it on muted strings.
2. Choose a pedal note (for example, the open sixth string) and 2–3 notes from that note's minor pentatonic.
3. Repeat the bar three times and write a fourth, different one that closes.
4. Play it with palm muting on the pedal notes and open on the others.

Goal: Write an original two-bar riff, play it four times in a row (AAAB) at 100 BPM without mistakes and record it.

Analysing is not sticking labels on things: it is uncovering decisions. Why that note and not another, why that chord arrives there. The most useful method is to listen in layers, one at a time:

A piece to analyse: "Lighthouse"

Lighthouse is an original eight-bar piece in G major. Listen two or three times before reading the analysis and try to answer the table's questions yourself.

1. 1GI
2. 2Emvi
3. 3CIV
4. 4DV
5. 5GI
6. 6B7V/vi
7. 7Em · Cmvi-iv
8. 8D7 · GV7-I

Theory deep diveAnalysing 'Lighthouse', layer by layer

Form. Two four-bar phrases. The first ends on D (half cadence: a question); the second starts the same way and ends on G (authentic cadence: the answer). This is a period: antecedent and consequent.

Melody. The motif is a rising arpeggio with a short-short-long rhythm (B–D–G). Bar 2 sequences it a third lower, over Em; bar 3 takes it up to the climax, high C. Bar 6 inverts it: a falling arpeggio (F♯–D♯–B). Beats 1 and 3 almost always carry chord tones.

Harmony. Bars 1–4: I–vi–IV–V, the key "by the book". Bars 5–8 add colour: B7 is a secondary dominant (V/vi) leading to Em, and Cm is a borrowed chord from G minor (iv) through modal interchange. That is why the melody plays D♯ in bar 6 and E♭ in bar 7: they are the notes those chords bring in from outside.

Bass. The roots fall in thirds (G–E–C) and step up to D. In the second phrase, B arrives as a surprise and bar 7 has two chords: the harmonic rhythm speeds up towards the cadence.

Rhythm. 4/4, a calm tempo. The short-short-long rhythm repeats in nearly every bar; only bars 4 and 8, the phrase endings, use eighth notes: the motion picks up right before each cadence.

Now it is your turn. Use everything in this stop to write your own eight-bar piece over this progression, in the shape of Lighthouse: a question and an answer.

1. 1CI
2. 2Amvi
3. 3FIV
4. 4GV
5. 5CI
6. 6Amvi
7. 7Dm · Gii-V
8. 8CI

Practice

Your first period

70–90 BPM15 min

1. Motif: invent 3–5 notes over C. Sing them before you play them.
2. Phrase 1 (bars 1–4): develop the motif and end on a note of G (G, B or D): a question.
3. Phrase 2 (bars 5–8): start like phrase 1 and end on C: the answer.
4. Check: are there chord tones on beats 1 and 3? Where is the highest note? Can you recognise the motif?
5. Analyse it with the five layers, as you did with Lighthouse.

Goal: Compose, play and record an original eight-bar melody over the progression, with a recognisable motif, a sequence or inversion, chord tones on beats 1 and 3 and an ending on C.

Self-assessment

Listen to the motif and what follows. Which development technique is it?

Listen

AA literal repetitionBA sequence: the same motif starting higherCAn inversion of the motifDA rhythmic variation

Listen again to the motif followed by another phrase. What happens to the second one?

Listen

AA rising sequenceBAn augmentationCAn inversion: what went up now goes downDA repetition with another ending

When writing a melody over a progression, what should go on the strong beats?

ANon-chord tones, to create constant tensionBChord tonesCAlways the tonic of the keyDAny note, the beat does not matter

A 32-bar song has one section played twice, a contrasting bridge and the first section again. What form is it?

AAABABVerse–chorusC12-bar bluesDAn 8-bar period

In "Lighthouse" (G major), what is the function of B7 in bar 6?

AA plagal cadenceBA chord borrowed from the parallel modeCA secondary dominant leading to viDA tritone substitution

Optional reinforcement in the portalSave your motifs, riffs and progressions in the sketchpad(opens in a new tab) Optional reinforcement in the portalGo deeper: motifs and development(opens in a new tab) Optional reinforcement in the portalGo deeper: how to analyse a piece(opens in a new tab)