In this video you'll learn how to use synth pads in a way that won't just fill
out your sound but will add a vital musical layer to your songs, like this...
Hello Revolutionaries, I'm Kate Harmony, this is Ray Harmony and welcome to the Hack Music Theory show,
where you are empowered with notation-free theory for making great music!
By the way, the hacks you're about to witness are an intermediate level,
so if you're beginner, no problem we've got you covered, just read our free book
“12 Music Theory Hacks to Learn Scales & Chords”, which you can download at RevolutionHarmony.com.
Also while you're there be sure to check out our cutting-edge apprenticeship course.
Alright let’s get you orientated. So what you on your
screen right now is the synth pad melody from the verse of our upcoming single
“Down with the Drama”, which features the mighty Sarah Serene on vocals. And just a heads up,
the highlighted bit at the top here, that's the actual synth pad melody and
then the notes at the bottom here, those are just the root notes of the chords in
our progression and they're just there for reference, they're not actually in the final pads.
We're in the key of F♯ minor, and the chords are:
F♯m → Amaj → Emaj → Bm → Dmaj → Amaj.
And if you missed any videos on the other sections of the song, then check
out the playlist in the description below. Alright let's jump in!
But first... Tea!
Yeah and these afterthought pads are super boring,
as they’re usually just doubling the chords, or even worse, just playing the root note of each chord.
(as you’ll see in next week’s video, when we cover the lead melody for this section!).
Right, first things first.
We need to establish the difference between sonic layers and musical layers.
Because far too many producers think that they're the same thing. So you could have a
thousand synths in your digital audio workstation, all playing the same melody
at the same time and that's going to be perceived by your listeners as one
musical layer, which means it's gonna sound really shallow. On the other hand
you could have a mere two syths playing two totally different melodies at the
same time and that's going to be perceived by your listeners as two
musical layers, which means that actually has a more musical depth than a thousand
synths playing the same melody. So how do you use pads to add musical depths your
songs? Easy you just start by not copying anything that's already in the section
and instead you write a brand new and independent melody for your pads. And the
best way to write an independent melody is to simply counter the contour of
something that's already in the section. So we decided to write our pad melody to
counter the contour of the root notes in our chord progression. So you can see as
our first chord F♯m moves up to Amaj, our pad melody moves down and
then you can see as our chord moves down to Emaj, our pad melody moves up and
then the chord moves up to Bm and our pad melody moves down and so on.
And once again remember you can counter anything that's already in the section so you
could write a counterpoint pad melody to your bass line or your guitar melody or anything!
Also if you want our best counterpoint hacks,
check out our Songwriting & Producing PDF at RevolutionHarmony.com.
Alright let's have a listen to how these two layers are totally countering each
other thereby creating true musical depth.
So there's many different types of musical decorations you can use to embellish a
simple melody like this, but one of our favorites, and the one we use over here
is what we call a “slow motion trill”. A trill, also known as a shake, is what you
get when you ping-pong super quick back and forth between the note that you on
and the next note up in your scale. But while a normal trill would probably use
1/32 notes at a tempo like this we're using 1/8 notes, so we get that same
decorative effect but without the notes turning into a blur because synth just
can't handle 1/32 notes. Speed is not one of those strong points.
So, have a listen to your melody, and wherever you feel it starts to get
boring stop on that note, cut it up, and turn it into a slow-motion trill because
that surprisingly fast movement of 1/8 notes will totally invigorate
your pads. Yeah and that's exactly what we did to the C♯ over here which
was originally one note before we cut it up and trilled it out!
And just before the final playthrough, if you want a more in-depth lesson on how to use counterpoint,
then we suggest stop video: Hack Counterpoint & Write Unique Harmonies.
So keep watching, cos that's gonna pop up on your screen right off to the playthrough.
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Thanks for joining the Hack Music Theory revolution, we’ll see you next week!