Hack Music Theory

  AI Is Not a Tool . Stop Calling It That .   I’ve tattooed myself. Three times! You know what? It hurts a whole lot more when you do it to yourself. You know what else? It looks terrible, too. Why? Because a tattoo machine is a tool that an artist uses to create images in the skin. I had the tool, and I even had the imagination to come up with a creative idea for the image, but I did not have the...

  AI Is Killing Music ! This Is How We Save It .   Hardly anything is real anymore! And that includes most people. They walk around staring at their phones with earbuds in, ignoring the reality all around them and instead choosing to live in their screen’s virtual reality. Regardless of what their senses tell them, if their screen says it’s real, then it’s real. If their screen says it’s true, the...

  AI Saves Us Time . That’s Bad !   Time is our only non-renewable resource. People talk about “spending” time and “spending” money, but these two types of spending are opposite. We can always make more money, but we can never make more time.   Therefore, the greatest, most valuable gift we can give someone is our time. Think about it. No matter how much money you spend on a gift for someone, unco...

  AI Can't Make Music .   AI can’t make music. Let me explain…   The reason almost everyone thinks AI can make music, is because the definition of music has changed. As a side note, it’s interesting how more and more definitions seem to be changing nowadays, isn’t it? But that’s a story for another day…   What’s important to us here is the original definition of music. In other words, what music m...

  Making Music is Hard . Why Bother ?   I never thought this day would come. But here it is.   After 30 years of teaching music to thousands of students, I’m facing a previously unimagined challenge: convincing people who want to make music that they should learn how to do it.   Never in human history has there been any other option. But now, there are robots that can make “your” music for you. Is...

  How to Write a Catchy Melody .       Free PDF Tutorial includes multitrack MIDI file     If the link above does not work, paste this into your browser: https://hackmusictheory.com/album/2877864/catchy-melody               Intro .   British band Glass Animals are absolutely massive! At the time of writing this, they’re ranked #257 in the world on Spotify. Most artists as famous as them have achie...

  How to Write Sweeping Arpeggios .       Free PDF Tutorial includes multitrack MIDI file   If the link above does not work, paste this into your browser: https://hackmusictheory.com/album/2639559/sweeping-arpeggios               Intro .   Do your arpeggios all sound rather similar? It’s a common problem for producers.   Arpeggios are when you play a chord one note at a time, and it’s one of the b...

    How to Write Heavy BASS Lines     Step 1. Syncopated Octaves Set up one bar of 4|4 with your grid on 1/16 notes, and your tempo at 110 BPM. You’re gonna start by using only one note, and the octave of that note. We’re using A in our example. So, draw in every 1/16 note on the low A. Now, play around with moving a handful of them one octave up. These high notes will make accents in your bass li...

    How to Write Advanced DRUMS     Step 1. Pattern Set up two bars of 4|4 with your grid set to 1/16 notes, and your tempo at 136 BPM. Now, instead of starting to make your drum beat with the usual kick on beat 1 and snare on the backbeats (like everyone else does!), you’re gonna start by writing your kick and snare pattern on the hi-hats. Wait, what?! I know that seems like a really odd thing to...

    How to Write Locrian BASS Lines   Step 1. Basic Set up four bars with an 1/8 note grid, and your tempo at 97 BPM. You’re gonna start by writing a basic bass line that plays every 1/8 note. This creates momentum. We’re in B Locrian here, which is just all the white notes from B to B. The Locrian mode is exceptionally dark, and what makes it so dark is the ♭2 (which is C in this example) and the...

    How to Write a Beautiful CHORD Progression     Step 1. Beauty   Set your grid to 1/16 notes and your tempo to 113 BPM. We’re in the key of A minor here, which is just all the white notes from A to A. Right, so the first step to writing a beautiful chord progression is finding a beautiful chord. There are many beautiful chords, but a good guideline is to leave space for the harmony to breathe....

    How to Write a BASS Line with Harmony     Step 1. Low   Harmony is when two or more notes are played together. And sadly, it’s rare to hear harmony in a bass line. The word “line” is actually used to convey the fact that it’s a melody, not a harmony. That’s how rare harmony is on the bass! You see, most producers think the bass frequencies are too low to play harmony. In other words, if you pl...

    How to Write a Standout MELODY     Step 1. First Impressions There are many ways to write a standout melody, but it’s difficult to improve on the method PJ Harvey uses in her new single “A Child’s Question, August”. That’s because nothing grabs our attention like a bold first impression. And by first impression, I literally mean the first note of the melody. You see, PJ Harvey starts her melod...

    How to Write a Locrian RIFF   FREE: Download This Tutorial as PDF Includes multitrack MIDI example     Step 1. Octaves Set your grid to 1/16 notes and your tempo to 97 BPM. You’re gonna start by writing a creative pattern using only octaves. If you’re writing this on guitar, use your low open E string and the E one octave higher. And be sure to play every 1/16 note, as that’s what gives the ri...

    How to Write a Catchy MELODY   FREE: Download This Tutorial as PDF Includes multitrack MIDI example     Step 1. Scale There are two types of catchy melodies: annoyingly repetitive ones you can’t stop singing but actually hate, and awesome ones that are memorable cos they’re unique. So, to write a catchy melody that isn’t annoying, you need to make it unique somehow. There are numerous ways to...

    How to Write Energetic BASS Lines     Step 1. Rhythmic Energy   There’s a super energetic bass line in the new single “No Reason” by The Chemical Brothers. To write a bass line like this, you need a lot of movement. Not just rhythmic movement, but melodic movement too. So, start by writing an energetic 2-bar rhythm for your bass line. Just use one pitch for now. We used A. You see, if you can...

    How to Write a Lydian MELODY   FREE: Download This Tutorial as PDF Includes multitrack MIDI example   Simple music  can be great music. Depeche Mode’s lead single “Ghosts Again” from their new album “Memento Mori” is proof. It has a well-written  and creative vocal melody in the verses, but it’s really simple. So, here’s a method for writing melodies from a band that’s been going for over 40 y...

    How to Write Polymeter DRUMS   Step 1. Kick in 7 The new Periphery single “Atropos” (from the album Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre) opens with a classic djent polymeter, which we love! Staying true to Meshuggah’s original polymeter recipe, the kick is in odd time while the snare and cymbals are in 4|4. So, start by programming a one-bar kick rhythm in 7|8. And just cos you’re in 7|8, doesn’...

    How to Write a Layered Guitar RIFF   Step 1. Bass The first thing you notice in the opening riff of “Ego Death” by Polyphia is that there are two layers. There’s a bass line and a lead melody all in one riff, played by one guitar. By adding bass notes below the melody they’re implying chords and creating harmony. This adds a beautiful depth to the riff. And yes, this technique is not new. In f...

    Drum Secrets of Hip-Hop Legends   DOWNLOAD This Tutorial as PDF Includes Bonus Hack, MIDI & WAV file examples   Could you hear the missing ingredient in our drum beat? (click play above). If not, don’t worry, that’s because the beat is actually pretty good the way it is. The kick pattern is a two-bar rhythm, which gives the drum beat variety. There’s also some off-beat kicks, which add gro...

        Why You Struggle to Make Music   Do you sometimes find yourself staring at a blank screen, with absolutely no ideas? Then we have the solution for preventing that from ever happening again. How can we be so confident that this solution will eliminate writer’s block? Because I’ve been writing music for over 30 years, and I’ve never had writer’s block. Ever! So, what’s this magic solution? M...

    Sound Design Is Ruining Your Music   Have you ever opened your digital audio workstation (DAW) because you’re in the mood to make some music, but then you end up spending hours searching for the right bass sound? Then, feeling frustrated because you’ve wasted hours and didn’t even find the right sound, you close your DAW and open Instagram instead. If you’ve ever done that, then we have a huge...

    Stop Looping Melodies This Way   DOWNLOAD This Tutorial as PDF (includes MIDI file)   When you loop a melody, do you just copy and paste it? If so, that way of looping could be ruining your melodies! But the good news is that in this lesson you’ll learn a creative way of looping, which will actually make your melodies better than they were before you looped them. Seriously, this looping hack c...

    Wrong Notes for Better Chord Progressions   DOWNLOAD This Tutorial as PDF (includes MIDI file)   Can you hear the weakness in this chord progression? It’s a common weakness that you hear in most songs. Did you spot it? If not, here’s the answer: all the chords are in the key! Wait, what?! Isn’t that a good thing? Well, not always… You see, there are only seven chords in a key. That doesn’t giv...

    How to Write a Bass Line like Gorillaz "New Gold"   In the new Gorillaz single “New Gold”, there’s a music theory secret that makes their song feel totally different to the other new releases out this week. That’s what you’ll learn in this lesson, as well as how to use it to write a Gorillaz-style bass line. But first... Tea!   INTRO Hello revolutionary music makers, we are Kate and Ray Harmon...