20+ Exercises That Will Make YOU Write Better Music Faster!

You’re going to learn today 20+ exercises that will make you write better music faster. These are all small ideas that you can later apply at home, and some even away from your studio, but make sure to try as many of these ideas as possible…

5 THOUGHTS FROM ME

1. Level up your compositions to develop catchier melodies and better chord progressions.

After you master your technical issues, the hardest thing you’ll face is writing a good melody, chord progressions, and bass progressions, as that’s what will make your song worth sharing and listening to on repeat and is crucial for you and the song’s growth.

Lately, I’ve been doing these exercises to level up my compositions:

1. Learn from your favorite artists. Pick 10 songs you’re inspired by and make a playlist with them. Now, draw or play the melody, chord, or bass progression into MIDI in your DAW. This helps you by making you ‘learn by repetition’, allowing you to see how the songs you love have their chords, basses, or lead progressions, showing you techniques and variations for you to use on your own songs later;
2. Write a full song just using pianos. Another cool exercise is to write the whole song just using pianos, as this will forces you to diversify the melodies so they don’t sonically clash with each other. In addition, this allows you to choose the best idea out of your other songs that only use pianos as well, as the composition is what will stand out, and not the sound design;
3. Make a 4-bar loop for each preset in a preset pack. This is an interesting way to make you learn how different presets affect the way you write, which also helps you decide the best sound design for your composition later on. Lastly, this will generate several quick ideas, and then you can choose the best to work on;
4. Copy the style of your favorite artists. “Write a lead like Ben Bohmer”. Now, “Write a bass like Yotto”. Now, “Write a chord progression like Lane 8”, and so on, which will expose you to multiple ways of writing the same thing;
5. Pick an acapella and write on top of it. Writing on top of a vocal helps you because the vocal already leads you into a chord progression, which often makes it easier to write. After you’ve written your chord progression, delete the acapella and just keep on going.

2. Level up your sound selection to convey the right emotions to your song.

You need to know how to choose the right samples to convey the right emotion to your song, otherwise, they can damage your song more than help it. For example, if you choose aggressive sounds for a chiller song, it probably won’t work.

To learn how to properly do it:

1. Study a sample pack you love. Go to the sample pack and listen to the samples to learn the sound of each category;
2. Now, try to identify the sound in songs you like. Pick 10 songs you like, and identify the sounds they’re using from the sounds that you’ve learned. This will help you associate the sounds with the mood and energy that they bring, which is crucial for you to later recreate these moods and energy levels in your songs;
3. Write songs in different moods. Practice writing “aggressive”, “chill”, “hopeful”, “sad”, “energetic” songs as a study to learn the different samples and sound designs they require, which will expand your knowledge on when to use each kind of sound.

3. Master Sound Design to intensify the compositions and vibes of your song.

Learning how to properly use synths is crucial to intensify the emotions and vibes you want to bring in your song, and also could be a way to make your song more unique compared to just using presets. I used to hate doing sound design, but learning it helped my songs a lot.

If that’s your case, this is how I recommend you learn it:

1. Go to our Sound Design playlist on YouTube and recreate everything. In Sound Design, the more you use the same VST and see techniques being used within it, the more you’ll extend your repertoire and get better at it. Therefore, recreating these sounds will open up new possibilities and techniques for you to try in your own songs;
2. Recreate Dubstep sounds on YouTube. Even if you don’t want to produce Dubstep, recreating sounds from it will expose you to presets beyond your comfort zone, which will allow you to push the boundaries of your sound design and make it more unique;
3. Create a preset pack for yourself. When you create a preset pack of 60 presets, you’ll be forced to be creative in sound design and make the presets useful for the genre you work on. This will put your previous training to the test, but it will later give you 60 unique sounds to use in your music, or a product that you can later sell to make some passive income;
4. Lastly, recreate the sounds you love in your favorite VST by ear. It’s extremely hard to recreate a sound by ear, but it puts all your skills to the test, and also makes you purposely test different options to try to achieve that sound. Also, since you have a challenge in mind, which is recreating the sound, it could be more fun than just randomly turning knobs and seeing what they do.

4. Develop an ‘idea to song’ workflow to develop your songs faster.

Sound design or composition won’t matter as much if you still can’t write a full song or get stuck while arranging it. So, here are a few techniques that I like applying to my songs so I can streamline my ‘idea to full song’ workflow:

1. Write the fullest 8-bar loop before you arrange a song. Instead of writing a drop right away, just focus on the 8-bar loop and add as many elements as you can, making it as full as possible. Once you’re done with it, place this 8-bar loop at the end of your song, and building your song can simply become unbuilding the 8-bar (that’s how I wrote my recent song signed on Colorize);
2. Focus on one sample or preset pack, or sometimes just repeat your sound. Having a go-to sample pack or preset pack will help you limit your search for samples and presets, which can speed your process by making you waste less time searching for samples;
3. Use old samples as a starting point, and switch them later. Instead of looking for samples or presets for a new song, use ones that you’ve used in previous projects since you know they work. Then, after you have something going in your song, replace them with new ones, which will make you avoid wasting time looking for samples for a song that might not be worth it;
4. Use a song you like as a guide for your arrangement. Instead of just arranging out of thin air, use a song you love as the macro arrangement (breakdowns, drops, etc) of your song. They will be different because the composition will likely be different, but this can help you lock your arrangement in place, giving you one less thing to think;
5. Copy from tracks you love if you don’t know what to do next. Pick 3-5 songs you love and put them on top of your project. When you get stuck, listen to them and ask ‘What are they doing next?’, and copy what they are doing. “But this is copying”… When you pick a bit from song 1, a bit from song 2, a bit from song 3, you’ll likely not be copying any of these songs fully, making your own little monster.

5. Enhance your mixing workflow by doing as you go and learning from others.

Mixing is normally the final step of music, and one that many producers struggle with, but here are a few things you can do to make your mixing process easier:

1. Don’t leave it all to the end. After you finish your arrangement and sound design, do a ‘Pre-Mix’ to your song. It’s almost like your real mixing, but the purpose here is just to clean up what you’ve done. This can
   • Make it sound empty due to less crowd in some regions and open up space for new elements;
   • And, make your final mixing process a lot easier since a lot of the heavy lifting was already done;
2. Copy the mixing balance from your favorite track. Put both your song and the reference(s) at the same perceived loudness, and now balance your song to be closer to the reference. To make it easier:
   • Use tools like Spectrums or EQ Matching tools to understand if you need to be louder or quieter;
   • Or, With an EQ and a LUFS meter (like Youlean, which is free), listen to different EQ bands of your song and the reference track, and the loudness meter will indicate if you’re louder or quieter than the reference in that band, signaling that you need to lower or raise those frequencies in your mix;
3. Offer to mix a song for a friend. The best way to practice mixing is to do it for someone since this will allow you to mix it without being sentimentally attached to any of the sounds (as you might be with your songs);
4. Hire an engineer to mix your song and compare it with your own mix. This will show how others would mix your song, and you can learn a lot from that.

3 QUICK TIPS FOR YOU

What other exercises can help you develop your skills?

1. Remake your favorite tracks.
Remaking a song can be really useful as it will show you various skills that you need to learn when making your own song. You can do this by ear, or by following along someone on YouTube.

2. Train your ears with an EQ.
Pick an EQ and play around with a 48db high and low cut. Now, listen to various bands and identify the elements you hear, and the ones you don’t, as this will help you identify the regions in which the elements of a song shine through, which can help you tremendously when mixing.

3. Make a Vocal-Centric Song:
When making a song for a vocal, you need to intentionally leave your instrumental empty otherwise it won’t have space for your vocal. In addition, you need to make your arrangement based on a vocal that might not exist, which can be really hard. By the way, using an acapella can be a great way to fill those empty gaps.