The BIGGEST Problem with your music - and how to fix it!

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The biggest problem with your music and how to fix it: A very common one is when the melody and the harmony just don't match up. Getting tunes and chords together can be difficult particularly if you have limited musc theory. But there are ways of working this out and making a bad tune into something much better. Today Guy Michelmore show's you how to fix a bad tune.
Libraries we use in this video
Orchestral Tools Loir - Accordion www.orchestraltools.com/store...
Fracture Sounds Gentle Strings. fracturesounds.com/shop/
VSL Synchron Piano Faziolli F212. www.vsl.co.at/en/Synchron_Ser...
Musical Sampling Barker Clarinet musicalsampling.com/barker-cl...

[@nicholaswheeler1311]

I often think the best way to fix my music is to turn off my DAW, stop writing, and throw my PC in the bin. 😂 Then watch some more of Guy’s videos, learn some more, and then plug it back in and try again. And again. It’s a continuous learning process. Grateful for these sort of videos, I learn so much!

[@ThinkSpaceEducation]

Happy to help!

[@tobbebergman7583]

@@ThinkSpaceEducation Huge thanks for being you and making the world a better place! Cheers !

[@NickHoad]

I’m always very impressed when people who are very capable of producing something great deliberately and intentionally produce something convincingly rubbish

[@ArthurWM9]

Totally agree, that's the mark of someone who really knows what they're doing

[@ThomsenTower]

Very useful, as always. Thank you. Users of Cubase (and, I believe, Studio One) would benefit greatly by marking the chords with the "Chord Track", instead of the Marker Track. This would allow them to have their midi notes coloured as "chord note", "scale note", and "neither" (or something like this). An optical aide for their ears.

[@deltavistastudio124]

Users of REAPER, etc. as well! :^)

[@blazinkid5178]

@@deltavistastudio124 The more you know - did not know about this AT ALL, awesome tip!

[@hotlineoperator]

My biggest problem: I buying gears, apps and virtual resources - but not using any of them, just looking new gear.

[@sandupetre363]

I got a way around that and bought a MacBook Air and a small midi controller and only use basic daw instruments and tools. Then those small projects are saved to iCloud and continued on the main pc. I get more projects and different plugins used every time I swap.

[@Morris_Off]

You just lost motivation and interest in the actual thing. You should focus on your reasons why you are doing this. If there is no reason, take a break or find new inspiration. Also you can go the hard way and make producing music a habbit again.

[@Caistyn]

I hated composition in school and at college. Now at 40 and thanks to advancements in technology Ive grown to love it as a hobby. I think if I had Guy as a teacher I would have fallen in love with it mind!!! 😂😂😂

[@SpeccyMan]

The music teacher at my school was a miserable old s*d who obviously had no real love or passion for his subject. Net result being a classroom of seriously bored kids. Back then we had no ipods or mobile phones, so we had no way to bring our music into class so we could listen to something. A good teacher makes a subject come alive and grab your interest.

[@tobbebergman7583]

It's always so encouraging to watch Guy doing what he does best ! Keep it up Guy !

[@bartkoch1988]

Sorry for Arnaud, but I had a big laugh at the beginning 😂. But you turned it into a majestic tune quickly. Well done mate 👏

[@halvorlillesund]

Don’t quit your daytime job just yet Arnold!😊

[@G.A.Gauthier]

I feel like doing bad music is your guilty pleasure , Love your channel thanks for all the usefull tips

[@adriendecroy7254]

When particle physicists write music. Smashing bits together

[@rodterrell304]

Thank you Guy, you always inspire us to continue on with music making when we just feel like quitting. Wish I had this kind of training and input years ago. Plus you are very enjoyable to watch.

[@fathuman]

If there's only one takeaway from this video is writing in the underlying chords on a marker track. I feel absolutely lost without this, no matter how simple the progression.

[@Auntystatic]

thank you that was quite eye opening, now I need to go revisit stuff and put this into practise ❤

[@mradisic11]

Thanks Guy 😎🤗

[@juhahuttunen3464]

Thank you Guy for good tips and tricks.

[@ranradd]

Love seeing the creative process with the technical bits thrown in. Lovely melody. Thanks!

[@MaxTooney]

I can’t hear accordion without thinking “Paris”. You should have worn a beret and green-screened yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower. Nice work salvaging that piece of music!

[@MarkBowenPiano]

Yep definitely should have been Arnaud and not Arnold 😂

[@rah_makes]

I'm so glad to stumble upon your channel.. I recently started entered the world of writing music and now I have a lot of great content to gain insights from here is absolutely incredible 😊

[@huntoriginalmusic-wy2rc]

Glad you're ok

[@Ajwmusicmedia]

Ha this made me chuckle!

[@smartyheadysyoutube3399]

I love these sorts of videos! I would say thought that I'd love to see more of what you're doing on the piano when you're improvising

[@plasticcreations7836]

Thanks Guy, definitely something I was struggling with after Bootcamp. Hopefully will help.

[@c3ajeff]

I do my best work when I stop thinking and just let the music flow through my hands onto the keyboard. What's being taught here requires some thought+inspriation+experience. I am working to blend those elements - and make it sound like something that creates an emotional experience. Thanks Guy - your work consistently impresses.

[@ghfdt368]

Great little video here! One of the best pieces of advice I ever got if you want to wonder off in the melody which in some situations you might want to do is to make sure that the melody has the same rhythmic features as the rest of the piece. In fact doing this gets you 50% there. So way if you do decide to go somewhere different it still gives a sense of "okay i'm crossing the road but we are still on the same road going to the same place". In fact in genres such as Jazz, Reggae, Funk and blues where there is a infinite number of things you can play over a progression the feel and rhythm of whatever you are playing is the anchor that keeps the music from falling apart even if you go off and play some crazy scale or wonder off to something not in the key.

[@HRBJHD]

"I've been moved.....to tears." Lovely guy, lovely Guy lol

[@ronniemartinssonbonde8445]

I prefer chord track in Cubase. Anyway you did a good job with Arnolds tune 😍

[@user-eh1vp3ev3c]

This is an actual person that Guy deals with all the time... It's me, I'm that person, my music is nothing short of a life altering experience, above and beyond any criticism. I won't even send it in for review, as I don't want to risk literally exploding your mind. 😁

[@martingravel1157]

I like the Big Ben citation of the last clarinet intervention… lol… Thanks for an other fun vid!

[@neilingle794]

Good video Guy, and it reminds me of two things - know the rules (the difference between discordant and pleasant), and know when to break them (the difference between pleasant and interesting). I think your video focusses on the former, and that's important, because you need a solid base. Anecdotally, I use Studio One, which has excellent chord, arranger, and marker tracks for marking out parts of your song. Great for those of us who work in a more 'traditional' (i.e. not necessarily right or wrong) way.

[@JorgeErnestoAvila]

I love you Michelmore 😊

[@seancurtin5131]

Superb Guy, thank you very much for sharing. I liked the piece but you highlighted the importance of working together very well here. What I think happened is that Arnold liked his accompaniment then he was thrilled that his melody was starting to fit nicely with the accompaniment but was so overcome with joy he then went on a tangent and that's were it became unstuck. Wrong notes were played and there was no care because he was still reeling with that feeling of oh wow I've created something. I see this with a lot of new bands. They have a great idea there all enthusiastic but they loose track of every one else in the band and all just start pushing forward in their own zones of bliss now oblivious to playing together with any harmony or unison. I liked how you pointed out the timing and removed the random which let's be honest Arnold were blooper notes. But many thanks to Arnold for sharing. I really liked it Arnold. What you could do is take what Guy shared with you, still keep that change you originally had but expand the piece to have an accompaniment that changes with your melody later on. As Guy mentions there are great things happening but there all happening at once oblivious to your wonderful accompaniment. It just needs to be adjusted with the rest of the accompaniment changing when it's time to use the other half of your original melody. Essentially that change was to soon and sounded out of place because of it. That and the blooper notes caused the main issues. Also note how Guy ensured timing on all parts to be in time with your accompaniment. Again, thanks to both of you for sharing.

[@KutiaMoyoMusic]

Thanks, Guy! Yes, it was very basic - but most of the problems with composing really are that simple! I found this extremely helpful because I would have had to listen to Arnold's piece numerous times before I could have told you a fraction of the specifics to why it sounded as bad as it did. If I have something turn out poorly, now I'll have a little checklist to objectively run through to see what went wrong.

[@gilesmoss5860]

Arnaud had me laughing through this! Good video, thanks. I absolutely second your opinion of a marker (or chord) track, I find it hugely useful when needing to figure out where a melody should go next.

[@alexmachesu7735]

It's me. Arnold is me

[@DanIel-fl1vc]

By having two time signatures underneath and aligning the melody notes with pauses and changes in note length, you can hide a polyrhythm within the melody. OR If you stick to one time signature or a couple of time signatures, emphasize the off beat notes for a syncopated melody. OR Keep it simple and predictable. They're all good depends on what the picture is accompanying the music.

[@wabo1]

The biggest problem with this channel is, that it always leaves me with a feeling how much there is I still have to fix ;)

[@kabedford]

I do that through-composing thing. Guilty-as-charged! So this video is extremely welcome! :) Now I have some ideas for how to go forward and actually make something better. Also: that tip about using markers to indicate where the chords are is *genius*! Thank you! :)

[@arturaravidi]

Great 👍

[@f.herumusu8341]

The biggest problem I have with my music is that I get sober the next morning ...

[@alexandrosangelakis7653]

At last someone talks about the real problem with the music.. Thanks.👏

[@ShimonLevi7]

Thanks for sharing, great advice, kudos! I still remember the advice my music teacher once gave me, he said, "As a beginner, compose freely but stay in one key, and only change into another when you outsourced the first one." and on the matter of melodies and harmony, "studie the works of Mozart, as he wrote great tunes."

[@SpeccyMan]

That is excellent advice. Mozart was an absolute master of melody. Great tunes indeed.

[@music_creator_capable]

Good vidéo.

[@ThinkSpaceEducation]

Orchestral Bootcamp is back and the new term starts soon. Check out our 8 week course with live events and feedback here: thinkspace.ac.uk/

[@LifeOnHoth]

Good demonstration from bad to good. I wanna be so bold and add that when producing music, one should always be willing to evaluate the choice of instruments a while into the project. Time to evaluate the squeezebox :). It's a very hard instrument to fit with others at times, and it's obviously entirely subjective, but I'd see if there was another instrument that would do the piece more justice. :)

[@nightwishlover8913]

I take your point about the melody...no breathing spaces. But there is a certain (simplistic) "niceness" to it. I would love it if rather than completely redo the melody, you could suggest ways of modifying the Harmony to suit the (slightly adjusted) tune... 1.31 OUCH!! A mis-typing, surely lol

[@fulanxi6434]

lol..hahaha...You make my day Dude. You are talented and also a good actor.

[@SpeccyMan]

The key (pun intended) thing with music for me is its similarity to mathematics. It is about patterns. That first melody was dire indeed because, as you rightly point out, it was meandering about and going absolutely nowhere. The important thing being that I could HEAR this and know. I often find myself just noodling about and I almost always find myself repeating patterns of notes that sound good to my ear. I then find myself thinking "how can I rearrange these patterns of notes to make interesting variations?" I'm pretty sure a lot of the great composers did this very same thing. A good example for me being a theme (pattern) in the 1st movement of Mahler's 1st Symphony where, as I hear it, I automatically find myself singing "Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld, Tau noch auf den Gräsern hing" from his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen". You then hear Mahler playing with this pattern a lot for the rest of the movement. Mathematics - patterns of numbers. Music - patterns of notes. Not that I could ever put myself in the same league as Gustav Mahler, whose work I admire enormously.

[@MartinJG100]

0:38. Brilliant. Arnold reminds me of Grytpype-Thynne, the notorious cad from the Goons :)

[@kc-mq3cx]

i'm a fan of the click, actually. it has my support :)

[@ribstones]

Awesome, Wish you could fix a track of mine one day too, love you, Guy! :D

[@johnfinnis8373]

Sound advice as always but, again as always, I come away with a highly persistent ear worm. However, I think I've found the solution, and in future I'll watch your videos with the sound off😁 Might make things a little more difficult to follow, but at least I'll be able to whistle me own tunes for the rest of the day🤣

[@ianbrown3304]

Off to do some corrections now. I may be some time.🤔

[@XeNoS_Music]

4:33 Thomas Newman disagrees ;)

[@oscarmillar]

Hey Guy, just wondering why you switched to the Arturia keyboard over the NI keyboard?

[@CorradoLoffredi]

You're a damn evil genius! Poor Arnold! 😂😂😂

[@RodrigoTPHS]

En general, creo que bien tocado no sonaría mal lo primero, excepto el compás 8

[@mrdali67]

The problem is clearly that Arnold either don't have a good ear or education of harmonies. The clashing is easy fixed to modulate the left hand (piano) arpegio to fit into the melodie. But darn we need to come up with more chords than 2 or 3 .. those are hard to remember 🤣 Maybe a psychologist or pills against split personalities would help too .. lol Always a good day when Guy posts a Video 😘

[@terrymccreesh7527]

Worth noting that when you move the tracks to add the intro the markers are all off. 🤔

[@wiseoldfool]

First time I've seen the sunglasses of complacency!

[@ralph1269]

Wow. How you made that 'edible' is amazing.

[@micwarren21]

Sorry, could not watch this video all the way through. Drove me crazy!

[@Hankblue]

I just can't get onboard with that first critique of the non-chord note 😄 Like yeah I hear the dissonance, but it sounds interesting on piano. The rhythm and sound pallet are boring enough without trying to avoid any kind of dissonance. It's more just the instruments and rhythms and decays and voicings combined are so done to death that they sound cliche' and childlike.

[@tearperth]

kudos to you for committing to the whole sunglass swapping thing

[@helalaman4982]

How can i send my music in for feedback?

[@ThinkSpaceEducation]

Im afraid I cant do individual feedback but you can always signup for bootcamp! thinkspace.ac.uk/

[@helalaman4982]

@ThinkSpaceEducation Thanks. Ill definitely check it out. I hope you do another challenge video where we can get some feedback that way. Unfortunately I missed the 'happy' music one.

[@DerekPower]

Music composition is no different than writing. Your first draft will be crap. It's in the revisions that it will improve. Even the "jams" have some degree of working out =]

[@srfrover]

nowadays is a bit different, it’s rare that someone’s writing music old school

[@drjtwoodrow]

Tell that to Mozart...

[@DerekPower]

@@drjtwoodrow Real Mozart or Amadeus Mozart? 😉

[@drjtwoodrow]

@@DerekPower Amadeus all the way!

[@MrBrownAlliance]

are your sure it wasn't composed by the great Les Dawson?

[@jimcurtis9052]

Needs a bass line.. 👍😎

[@ChristianSandviknes]

It's not wrong, or disharmonious - it's just more advanced harmony! It's more Jazz, Guy!

[@wiseoldfool]

Yeah, it's avant-avant-garde. It'll be popular 20 years from now, by which time we will have moved on and frown on it as cliched.

[@avosc5316]

It's not dissonance. It's a feature.

[@ThinkSpaceEducation]

You're right Mr Schoenberg

[@jakeqwaninne8502]

sounds a little bit like carol ann's theme from poltergeist, the piano part on it's own

[@SpeccyMan]

... its own. (No apostrophe in the possessive pronoun!)

[@antonjohansson8033]

Melody should work if they had a rhythm and pattern.

[@henrique88t]

Alright, I already know the drill with these videos...

[@WinItReigns]

I know whats wrong.... Accordian to my analysis, it seems to me.....

[@wietzejohanneskrikke1910]

There's another problem. The lead sound is quite strident and not in tune with the piano. Flute or clarinet might work better.

[@dannylewthwaite]

"Carling Black Label".

[@LoTayRob64]

I think Arnolds biggest problem is that he sent in MIDI files instead of audio. 😂

[@vleiratfilms2020]

Not easy for a pro to write a really dodgy piece of music .. well done Arnold 🤣🤣

[@Byron101_]

Most "modern" people have the newest plugins and expensive sample libraries but they produce a LOT of boring garbage... You dont need much to compose great music! Its way better to compose at first with piano e.g. and check if it works.

[@joeyondakeys]

I agree with this so much. That's why one of my go-to techniques is to use the most basic, bland instruments initially. If the concept sounds good like that, the final product will sound great when transformed into a high-quality production. Same idea when composing melody. Strip away all the harmony except the root bass note. Remove all accompaniments. Use a bland instrument. Does it sound great? Is it worth humming aloud? Then you have a winner.

[@DonBonin]

Would love to get your take on the 3 body problem theme music - kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZvTfJdjadKUpLM you can hear it's breaking some rules in a clever way, but I'd love to understand what the composer is doing. Thanks guy!

[@MarkBowenPiano]

Well all rules are there to be broken at times too. That usually brings along other rules to stick to then though 😉

[@LifeOnHoth]

Frankly speaking, a piece not breaking the rules should only serve as a basic starting point to get a feel for what u want to do. If these rules are kept, it will be a rather boring piece which has no impact, no emotion, no life, no nothing. And nobody will remember it. :) I once talked to the composer of the theme music for "The 100". Twas a few years back. I had some questions about the sound design. He told me small details could take weeks to get right, and it could be a rather long process of composing something that may sound kinda simple, but it's when the simple stuff sounds interesting and you can't shake it, and it really impacts you, that's when they - imo - did a good job. Guy here explains basic concepts and demonstrates them, but for that music to actually become interesting, it needs of course a LOT more work.

[@MarkBowenPiano]

@@LifeOnHoth Was that Tree Adams you're talking about? Used to love that series.

[@kadiummusic]

A harmony that isn't right is not a harmony... if you know what I mean. 😎

[@alanredversangel]

Please post more rubbish music it does wonders for my confidence.

[@arataka57]

😂

[@cjheeley]

I'm sorry guy but I just don't like the sound of the acordion. I would be hard pressed to fit that into any mix. The sample sounds horrendous. To my ears it's been sampled wrong. It's out of tune

[@securityrobot]

I too don’t like the sound of the Accordion. There’s an object lesson here and that is the importance of putting the right sounds together for making a composition. I have watched a lot of these tutorials, and the theory side is impeccable and insightful every time. But I don’t see any emphasis put upon choosing the right sounds. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention and perhaps this has already been covered.

[@JamesGrady2]

I think this is just a matter of taste and context. A real live accordion could make this sound gorgeous in the right environment. For sure I agree - even as a folk musician - the accordion has a rough, nearly discordant, ugly sound, but sometimes that’s what’s needed to evoke a genre or time or place or feeling or whatever. By using just piano and accordion, Guy can let our ears focus on what’s going on melodically, which is, as always, really useful. At this early point in the writing it’s best not worry too much about the sound and texture. I find it’s helpful to stick to shit sounds until the melody/harmony/bass/counter are all cooking before flattering myself with nice samples

[@thailandemonamour6910]

OK, the main theme isn't fine with chords on left hand. You teach to share a piece of music in little successive regions, one after or above the other. For a few musicians like me, it's not natural. I don't know musical theory like you, and it's exclusive to english musicians : In France, I don't learn music with A, B, C, D, ... notes but with do, ré, mi, fa sol, ... . We do not say 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 but croches, double-croches, ...For stranger musicians, english notation is not easy, it creates difficulties because before playing a note, it needs to think "A is la, B is si, G is sol, ...". It needs more thinking transposing. And imagine for an indian or chinese musician with different tonal scales ! Even in Ireland, it is different : the uillean pipe has his own tonal scale as in Spitfire Labs free instruments . Otherwise, a lot of musicians sometimes prefer playing, recording only a main region on one track of many minutes. Why not ? I know and listen many of them in their own KZbin channel. And you know, it's in the same time easy and difficult. After recording other tracks, it's easier and shorter to change a few notes or the volume, or the modulation of some tracks to make a fine music, surely different of your. You have your method to erase the problem, but there may be other ways ... Thank you.

[@AndreasSaag]

That is not, by any means, my problem dude. I’m great at specifically that. My problem is these clickbait titles that are meant to get people to click out of fear that their skills are not “good enough”. To be honest I think this is beneath you and your quality. Looking forward to more positive titles like “How to approach one of the most common difficulties in writing music”.

[@VeganKebabDoRuky]

To be honest I think this comment is beneath you and your manners. I'm looking forward to more positive replies from you!

[@rustamh7675]

Guy, as a clarinetist, please don’t use this clarinet))