- A lot of times, the hardest part of writing music
can be right at the very beginning
when you're trying to find the idea to start with.
We hear all this incredible music around us all the time,
that it could be easy to think that our ideas
are not as good as the ones that we know and love.
In this video, I'm gonna help you overcome that feeling
by explaining a simple truth.
The idea you use doesn't really matter.
(funky music)
I made a video a few months ago
about what makes a good idea.
You need a distinct interval and a distinct rhythm.
Put these two elements together
and you'll have a motive that will be recognizable
and familiar even as you change it and vary it
and develop it throughout your piece.
(orchestral music)
So how do you know when you have an idea that's worthy
of developing into an entire composition?
And how do you recognize when you have a motive
that is good enough to pursue?
I've come to believe that it's not what you use
but how you use it.
And to show you what I mean,
I'm gonna use the main titles theme from
The Mysterious Benedict Society.
If you haven't seen it, Mysterious Benedict Society
is a new series on Disney Plus
about a group of genius orphans
sent on a secret mission to stop someone
from controlling people's minds with subliminal messages.
It has a fun score by Theodore Shapiro and Joseph Shirley
that reminds me a bit of They Might Be Giants
and the old spy themes like Pink Panther.
It goes well with the pseudo 1960s aesthetic.
Let's start by listening to the beginning of the main theme.
(old rock piano music)
If we reduce that down to the essential motive,
what we get is this: a four-note motive
that starts with this descending line
from the minor third down to the root
and then a leap in the opposite direction up a fifth.
The entire opening titles cue
is based around these four notes, which it's a nice motive.
But is there really anything that special about it?
I think if I was plunking around on the keyboard
and I hit upon this among other things,
it wouldn't really stand out as having any kind
of special magic.
What makes it good is how they keep repeating it
and making changes to it throughout the piece.
So the first time it's like this.
(old rock piano music)
And the second time, instead of leaping up a fifth,
it leaps up a tritone.
(old rock piano music)
This breaks our expectations on two fronts
because we were expecting a leap up a fifth,
this time we only get the tritone.
At the same time, we were never expecting an F sharp
in the key of C minor 'cause it's not diatonic.
You can't defy expectations without setting them up.
So manipulating a motive in this way
gives you a lot of power to establish an expectation
and then break it and surprise people in different ways.
- If any child is caught cheating,
they will be executed.
(sharp suspenseful music)
Excused.
Will be excused.
- In the next bar, we get this descending figure
two more times, which means in the span of like
eight seconds, we heard this four times already.
The next phrase has just as many repetitions of that motive.
The main rhythm stays the same.
And it's just the pitches that have been moved around
a little bit.
With all this happening on the top layer with the melody,
we also have the harmony.
For this theme, we get a descending bass line,
which starts at the root and steps down to the fifth.
It skips a whole step at first and then goes chromatic
for the rest of the way down.
This is a fairly common bass line.
For example, you hear it in Green Day's Brain Stew.
("Brain Stew")
What's interesting is that everything else
that happens in this theme involves either that main motive
or that Brain Stew bass line.
So when we move to the second section with what feels like
new material, we still have that exact same bass line
in the same key tying it to the opening section.
(old rock piano music)
When we move into the third section
that feels like a bridge and builds up,
we don't have the bass line anymore
but we're back to that opening motive.
(old rock music intensifies)
So everything just stays consistent and connected
throughout the whole piece.
So what's the point?
How is this helpful for your own writing?
Well, I already showed you there's an example
of another song that uses that exact same bass line
and there are plenty more.
So that idea is not all that special.
And we looked at how stepping down twice
and leaping up a fifth is not all that special either,
but they still managed to pull off a pretty fun theme
for a major show on a major streaming platform.
So the lesson I want you to take away is this:
a good idea may not be apparent right away,
but becomes good in how you use it.
And instead focus on taking your listener on a journey
where the main motive is a guide,
but should not be confused for the adventure itself.
For more about those two elements that make a good motive,
watch this video here.
And if you're a fan of Disney,
you'll probably like this one here.
Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you in the next one.