How Do You Write Music? - 'Euphoria'

Ah that mysterious process! I’ll try my best here to offer some insight into what the title is asking using some pieces that I’ve recently written as specific examples.  I’m trying to make this accessible for those who have little to no musical background, so my apologies to those who want some more music theory and deep analysis.

Case Study: 'Euphoria' — BPM: 40, KEY: b-flat Major

For this blog, I’ll use the piece titled Euphoria from my latest album Finding Stillness II. I hope most of what I describe becomes clear once you listen to the track.

While writing all of the music on this album, I had a few general ideas or overarching concepts running through my mind, which helped guide my decision-making. They included things like:

• Create beautiful, calming ambient-cinematic music

• Write music that can help the world slow down

• Introspective, reflective, and meditative

Euphoria begins with a layer of lush pads creating a place for everything else to sit on top of. These were created using synthesizer and piano. Within this background ambience, a few of the layers are actually repeating patterns, providing a feeling of constant motion. Hear these layers below.

Next there is a layer of softly picked electric guitar that comes in. One guitar plays in the left ear and one in the right ear. They play the same pattern over and over but not in sync with one another, which again creates a feeling of constant motion.

Another layer in the track was created using electric guitar, a volume pedal, and a reverb pedal. The volume pedal removes the start of the note (the attack) so you’re left with a soft swelling sound. Playing that into a lush reverb pedal created some beautiful textures. It is actually these layers that the track concludes on!

Gibson Les Paul (red) and Schecter KM7 (blue)

Volume pedal (grey) and Reverb pedal (black)

This piece is in the key of Bb Major. For most of the track, elements continue to drone away on the Bb, really cementing the fact that it is home base. Every so often we hear an Eb major chord appear, gradually swelling on trombones, trumpets, and guitar (using the volume pedal again). This new Eb chord always resolves once again to the Bb. These Eb chord swells are really what make this track special for me. It’s the anticipation of knowing that they’re coming again but not being sure when. Also adding to the importance of these moments is the fact that every chord swell is bigger and more dynamic than the last. Here are two of the swells below.

A few other additional layers fill out the track. For example, there is a picked guitar lead that’s included sparsely throughout. There is also a layer of guitar “E-bow” parts. (An e-bow is an electronic device that causes the strings to vibrate similar to the way they would using a real violin bow, but it does this using electronics to induce forced string vibrations – it’s really cool!). Check out the isolated E-bow part below.

There’s also a trombone part that plays twice in the track, using long sustained notes. And lastly, there are some high string layers for the last couple Eb swells.

So there you have it! A brief description of the piece with some of the parts isolated for clarity. Obviously I’ve only scratched the surface here, but hopefully it has opened your ears up a bit to what’s happening in Euphoria and opened your mind up a bit to some of the processes that I use when writing music.

Check out Euphoria and the full album Finding Stillness II. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you do enjoy the music, maybe you’d consider buying it - every little bit helps. Available for purchase on my Website or on Bandcamp. Following and streaming helps as well!

How Do You Write Music? - 'Reverie'

Well it’s simple… you just… you know, like… hmmm! Okay I’ll do my best to answer it better than that :) I’m going to try to offer some insight into what the title is asking using some pieces that I’ve recently written as specific examples.  I’m trying to make this accessible for those who have little to no musical background, so my apologies to those who want some more music theory and deep analysis.

Case Study: 'Reverie' — BPM: 60, KEY: A-flat Major

For this blog, I’ll use the piece titled Reverie from my latest album Finding Stillness II. I hope most of what I describe becomes clear once you listen to the track.

While writing all of the music on this album, I had a few general ideas or overarching concepts running through my mind, which helped guide my decision-making. They included things like:

• Create beautiful, calming ambient-cinematic music

• Write music that can help the world slow down

• Introspective, reflective, and meditative

Reverie is a soft, dreamy piano piece. I wanted to make it quite sparse, both melodically and instrumentation-wise. I first began by creating the very subtle ambience layers beneath the piano, which are there throughout the entire song. These layers are not really meant to be noticed consciously. It’s when they’re removed that you feel their absence and realize the nice atmosphere that they create.

The track has an A-part and a B-part. Both parts are introduced with solo piano in the higher register of the instrument in the first minute or so. The chords played form a 4-note melody, followed by a 5-note melody. The final chord of each melody phrase is held for a long time. Around 1:22, we repeat those 2 parts with additional layers. Now the piano has dropped down an octave to a slightly lower register, and a high electric guitar is introduced, doubling the melody line. Synthesizer pads fill out the background.

Photo by SKearns Photo @steveak

Sheet Music available at music-within.com/sheet-music

Around 2:44, we’re back to the original high piano version of the A-part. Instead of just playing the parts exactly the same again as the start, I change it up here with a descending line (3:03). This basically begins the set of phrases that conclude the piece.

Fun note: In this piece I use a cool reverse technique on a few of the long piano chords. To do this, I bounced out (music production term for exported) the desired piano chord. I then flipped the chord in Logic so that it plays in reverse. I then lined it up so that the climax of the reversed chord ends right as the next chord begins. I really love this effect! It happens 3 times throughout the piece, around 0:35, 1:57, and 3:22. The first and second times are at the transition between the A-part and the B-part.

So there you have it! A brief description of the piece with some of the parts isolated for clarity. Obviously I’ve only scratched the surface here, but hopefully it has opened your ears up a bit to what’s happening in Reverie and opened your mind up a bit to some of the processes that I use when writing music.

Check out Reverie and the full album Finding Stillness II. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you do enjoy the music, maybe you’d consider buying it - every little bit helps. Available for purchase on my Website or on Bandcamp. Following and streaming helps as well!

How Do You Write Music? - 'Waking Moments'

Ah that ever elusive question!  I’m going to try to offer some insight into what the title is asking using some pieces that I’ve recently written as specific examples.  I’m trying to make this accessible for those who have little to no musical background, so my apologies to those who want some more music theory and deep analysis.

Case Study: 'Waking Moments' — BPM: 52, KEY: F-sharp Major

For this blog, I’ll use the piece titled Waking Moments from my latest album Finding Stillness II. I hope most of what I describe becomes clear once you listen to the track.

While writing all of the music on this album, I had a few general ideas or overarching concepts running through my mind, which helped guide my decision-making. They included things like:

• Create beautiful, calming ambient-cinematic music

• Write music that can help the world slow down

• Introspective, reflective, and meditative

Waking Moments begins with a layer of lush pads creating a place for everything else to sit on top of. These were created using an electric piano played into a long reverb. The tracks were exported, and the files were played forward and reversed creating a constant pad-like sound. I thought they offered a dreamy backdrop to explore.

The piece alternates between a bar of 7/4 and a bar of 9/4. Originally it was all in 7/4 but I ended up adding 2 more beats every other bar to have a longer pause between the melody phrases. Below you can hear the main melody, which is played on piano. Do you hear the extra long pauses now? There’s also a guitar and synthesizer playing an ascending line in unison at the end of every phrase.

Photo by SKearns Photo @steveak

At around 1:30, there is a slowly developing chord progression starting to play out beneath the melody. These chords are introduced in the low register of the piano. Layered with the chords are strings and synth pads, for added fullness.

At around 2:44 the music remains in 7/4 (no longer alternating to 9/4 every other bar). This results in the whole piece gaining a bit of momentum, as the pauses within the phrase are now shorter. At that same spot, there’s a new layer of quarter notes being played on a quiet plucky synth, a distant piano, and glockenspiel which also help pick the track up and give it more movement. The piano melody is doubled on celeste here as well (a bell like sound).

So there you have it! A brief description of the piece with some of the parts isolated for clarity. Obviously I’ve only scratched the surface here, but hopefully it has opened your ears up a bit to what’s happening in Waking Moments and opened your mind up a bit to some of the processes that I use when writing music.

Check out Waking Moments and the full album Finding Stillness II. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you do enjoy the music, maybe you’d consider buying it - every little bit helps. Available for purchase on my Website or on Bandcamp. Following and streaming helps as well!

"Family" - The Creative Process

My EP Family was released on March 6, 2020. You’ll hear one piece of music adapted for three different styles of instrumentation – piano & strings, piano & vocals, and solo piano. The story behind how this little set happened to get created is a bit of an interesting one. Listen while you read!

First off, I need to mention that the piano composition already existed (in a slightly different form) as the first track on my 2017 album Endless Stories. In December 2018, during the time that I was recording the piano for Julichka’s Theme, A Moment of Symmetry, and Lifetime I realized that I was going to have to pay for a whole day of studio time and definitely not need that much time for just those 3 songs. In an effort to get the most out of the session I started preparing other things that I could record while there. One such thing was the piece I’d written a few years earlier, Family. I didn’t know when I would release it, if at all, but I figured if I’m in the studio I may as well re-record it on a nice piano!

So one day as I was listening back to the recording of the piano, I started to hum along with a little melody. (Side note: I find I almost always catch myself humming along when listening to music, sometimes to the annoyance of others lol). The little melody I found myself humming became the seed from which the vocal version grew. I layered a bunch of my vocals over the piano and even asked my friend Krista to sing along to add even more emotion to the ending, which she did so beautifully.

Album Artwork by Julia Prajza

As I listened back to the final vocal version, I thought to myself: "I really like it, but this whole vocal thing is pretty different from my usual. I wonder what it'd be like if I arranged the vocal parts for strings instead..." So I did just that and had another friend Drew play the string parts, which he did so very expressively.

Et viola! That's basically the creative process that brought this one into existence.

Composed & produced by Rob McAllister.
Strings recorded & performed by Drew Jurecka.
Additional vocals by Krista Janke.
Artwork by Julia Prajza.