Creativity is Built-in Some people may say that they are not the creative type or that they are not “feeling it” or are “uninspired”. But what we have to come to terms with is that we are all creative. We… Read More »Stimulating Your Innate Creativity
Making a song from scratch may sound like a daunting task if you consider all the things that go into making music. But if you follow some of the tips I will be suggesting in this post, you will find… Read More »Creative Tips For Starting to Compose Music
In this post, I will be proposing eight ways that you can use this technique. Each has a different feel or vibe so, you will have to choose depending on the harmonic effect you are going for. This particular… Read More »8 Practical Ways of Using Parallel Chord Motion in Your Music
Having to cope with all the new things you are learning may be challenging at times and this is why I am creating this post. In it, you will find lots of practical suggestions for short music composition studies… Read More »Exercises to Practice Your Music Composition Skills
Sometimes it’s handy to have a tool that opens up your possibilities in the music composition process and this is certainly the case with harmonic ambiguity, as a compositional technique, and with suspended chords. In the case of the latter,… Read More »Harmonic Ambiguity and the Flexibility of Suspended Chords
In this post I will be telling you what chromatic mediants and chord transformations are and how you can use these techniques to create chromatic harmony in your music compositions. I will also be showing you some examples of these… Read More »Chromatic Harmony: Using Chromatic Mediants and Chord Transformations
In this post I will be showing you the compositional elements and process behind the making of a song for the next Follow No One concept album. So, what you will be hearing here are snippets of songs that are… Read More »Creating Contrasts for Music Expression – Using Modal Mixture, Modal Interchange and More
This is probably a question that will always be open for debate as each and every one of us listens to and thinks about music differently. Nonetheless, all boils down to a musician’s ability of hearing sounds in its head.… Read More »Where Do Musical Ideas Come From?
In this post we will be looking at some practical uses for modal interchange. First of all, what is it? This is a technique that consists in temporarily borrowing chords from a parallel tonality or mode that shares the same… Read More »What to do with Modal Interchange
In this post, I will be telling you what quartal harmony is and how you can use it in your music. I will also be looking at the harmonization process using these chords and explore some ideas for it. Let’s… Read More »How to Use Quartal Harmony in Your Music
In this post I will be making music using the techniques and music theory concepts that you can find in the Beyond Music Theory Blog. My goal is to show you ways in which you can put this knowledge… Read More »Create Tension with Anticipation and Suspension
In this post I will be making the distinction between the act of copying or stealing from another artist as tool in the creative process and, along the way, give you some suggestions of what to look for in… Read More »Why Copy and Steal From Music?
This is the first post where I will be talking about the composition process behind the music I make. I won’t go into detail about every little something that happens in the song and instead try to highlight some of… Read More »Contrasts and Motive Expansion – “Stay”
To be able to harmonize a melody you first need to have a melody and/or know how to make one. The next piece of knowledge you must have is about chord formation; and finally, the experience of how each… Read More »How to Harmonize a Melody
Most likely, you don’t have any problems with coming up with a basic idea for a beat, melody or some chords. What may happen is that you might not know how to go from there and consequently turn those ideas… Read More »How to Develop Your Musical Ideas
There are lots of ways to approach this process, probably as many as there are musicians. It is up to you to find out what suits better to you, considering your working process, the way you think and how you… Read More »8 Practical Tips to Make a Melody
In this post, as strange as it may seem, I will focus on ways of gathering materials from a single chord. And why would we do that, you may ask? – First, because it’s fun! – Second, because this is… Read More »Creating Musical Materials From Just One Chord
Simple doesn’t have to be boring! In fact, it can be fresh and uplifting. Even the most complex things usually sound better when presented in such a way that all seems logical and make complete sense – complex and yet,… Read More »How to Make Simple Chord Harmonies Sound More Interesting
We can do music just for the pleasure of making it without even thinking that we want to convey a message. But having a sense of where we want to go by trying to convey a message, an idea or… Read More »The Importance of Planning Your Musical Compositions
Explore how modulation can add some freshness to your music with the different types of modulations and contrasts, modal modulation, polytonality, among other techniques:
