I will write about how to structure the song, how to build up the texture of the track, and tips for building good harmonies since I enjoy producing music as an hobby. First, there are various kinds of genre these days which are separated not only by itself but often combined with each other. For example jazz and hip-hop could be combined together, an rhythm and blues genre could be combined with a house type of track. The most important thing at first is to make good choices on choosing drum samples and ambient samples, also the right kind of instrument sound you need for the track. To do this, you have to listen carefully to a lot of tracks not only tracks that are now on billboard and promoted, but tracks that are unique and make a producer able to break his stereotypes. It is important these days to have a own kind of sound because social medias like YouTube and Instagram shows music producers what to do and make them copy every step they do. Not getting stereotype on a particular sound and in the same time choosing the right instrument is really hard. Listening to a lot of tracks could help, but the best thing is to take plenty of time and experiment on what fits and blends good in the track. Next is choosing the texture of the song. The texture of the song in my opinion is decided by the mood of drum samples you use rather electronic or real-recorded type of samples. If you are working in a rnb track but using too much of a techno sounding drum sample, it will mess up the texture and mood of the track. The next is filters and distortion on the instruments. I personally think filters and distortion are the key components on building up the texture of a sound. A plain sine wave sound could be interesting if a music producer put in filters and saturation. Back to the drums, eq is very important to decide the texture too. A kick sample is totally different when is isn't "eq"ed and after it is. Kicks usually have a good low end and doesn't need the high end so we can cut off the high ends using the eq. If all drums are not "eq"ed, it would make the track messy and unorganized because of the overlapping of the frequencies. Last is not only for the electronic music producers but all kinds of people who compose. I have been making tracks for about two years and at first, i tried to make chords but it had a lot of dissonance. To solve this problem, trying to listen to a lot of tracks like I said when choosing a sound, and listen carefully separating the bassline and the upper notes over the bassline. You can get an idea what is right because the flow of the bassline is simply the progression of the song. You have to be careful when listening because some notes in the bassline might not be the root note but a passing note. I didn't have a good chance to learn any music theory so I really had to self teach my ears what makes sense while making a track. It is similar like if a chord sounds unstable, you have to make a concluding and resolving chord in the end of the loop. I think making your own chords progression is all experiment taking time on your music program and trying to be as creative as possible. When you practice in listening separately, you can figure out chords yourself in any kinds of music. For my taste, i really like the jazzy unstable chords and tip of these chords is to try to use multiple sharps and many notes that cluster and are close to each other. Do not be afraid to experiment these cluster dirty chords because that one chord may not sound good to you, but after you finish the chord progression, if will all make sense. These ideas are things I personally think important about when I build up a song.
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