As part of my IDS project, I created many different types of ‘riffs’, short melodic repeating patterns; some came naturally, others were more difficult.

Very early into my project, I created a riff that inspired my main song, Machine Hell:

This riff was probably one of the most natural excerpts I’ve ever come up with. It began with me experimenting with the D Harmonic Minor scale, after which I eventually came up with a pattern that involved a muted tonic played under ascending/descending scale notes in a fast, metal-like rhythm. I immediately fell in love with it and later made a complete song out of it.

However, there were many locations in my song where I decided I needed similar riffs, mainly in the transitions between parts. The issue was trying to repeat that same magic twice. Not only did few of my ideas sound right, many of the ones that did still weren’t able to match the vibes from that first, song-defining riff.

From my experience I found that the best way to write such riffs was to write very small, 3-4 note motifs using a familiar scale, and then after settling on a motif you like, adding extra notes and adjusting rhythms through trial and error. It eventually all clicked into place, and having the freedom to change other elements of the song in accordance with the riff also helped.

(This post is part of a series of entries into my Learning Journey for my IDS project in Music Composition.)

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