The ULTIMATE Metal Songwriting Masterclass

0:00 Intro
0:17 Make riffs out of chord progressions
2:49 Put as many hooks as possible into your songs
4:50 Relative chords
7:14 Don't write music with Guitar Pro!
10:08 Never leave vocals as an afterthought
12:12 There's nothing wrong with standard song structures
14:31 Stop writing overly-long song intros
15:46 Make a clear distinction between parts of your song
18:14 Use modulations to add variation
19:41 Experiment with layers and textures
21:38 Bonus tip!

[GreyRock]

I've managed to turn songs into mere riffs.

[vovamorkova]

First Beanly taught us how to play exercises clean, now he is gonna teach us composing music. Damn Beanly is like a sponsor of our music career bois. We should appreciate that. Thank you so much Beanly!!

[bczarrockbeast]

I am by no means a real guitarist I've been playing my favorite songs in my bedroom for about 20yrs and making random riffs etc. So if i can make all of those into complete songs i will have 276 albums worth of material lol.

[SO-ymzs]

Which is all to say: focus first on the key, core fundamentals of songwriting (structure, contrast, melodic hooks, dynamics) if you want to write something people will actually love and remember for decades. A cool riff or solo is nothing on its own. A few other thoughts: don't get caught up writing with a guitar, or you're likely to fall back on metal cliches and "guitarisms" that fall under the fingers easily, which is what makes a lot of boring metal boring. Write in your head or with your voice, use a piano or other instrument, then adapt for guitar, bass, etc. Also, if you want to learn about structures and how to use modulation, study classical music.

[_pie]

brad: every genre has hooks
drone doom: let us introduce ourselves

[hugoleonardoamaral]

My main problem is HOW to write vocal melodies. Would be fgreat to see a full video about it in the future. Great video as always man!

[lefterisfred]

Man, this video described me so well. I write music in Guitar Pro all the time, I have literally hundreds of "riffs" and unfinished ideas, I start to organize things when I'm in the zone and I actually get out of it because of this, my ideas are now so limited just because I never spent time with the guitar. FFS, I own the guitar for 15 years and I never took lessons to learn to actually play the damn thing. This video includes all of my realiζations of the past months.

[DegeneratronMedia]

I went into this thinking "but Bradley, I need to learn how to make riffs, because I am pretty okay at making songs once I have something to go off of" into "oh hey, riffage ideas". Eventually ending up at "hey, I am actually pretty decent at making songs but this gave me a lot of ideas towards riffing and accents"

[StephxUn]

I kinda disagree with your point of view about writing with guitar pro. As someone like me, without a lot of theoretical background, I find it really useful to put my ideas in a structured way and be sure that it will fit with the other instruments, etc. It can be really useful for that before recording anything

[billyrobot]

Ableton Live’s ‘Audio to MIDI’ features are great for transcribing audio you can convert harmony, melody or drums to MIDI in seconds

[shadaar]

Totally agree with the idea that listening to everything can lead to something incredibly tasty. Last month I've learned that a C# tuning exist because of the song I was studying and then played a bit with different capo positions. I came up with a lead line I never heard! Holistic approach to music really pays off! Everytime it's a different journey. A top of it just playing along the songs you never heard before can be very inspiring. Thanks for great content Bradley!

[stiman]

This was HUGE!! You really got to the core of what I struggle with regarding songwriting like no one else!

[gavinsnyder]

Definitely a solid video on building ideas. There's all kinds of tricks and tips in a sense when it comes to writing music or making any art for that matter. Learning how things sound is really a great tool to have in your arsenal. Meaning things like chords, intervals and modes. The reason being is then if you have a sound in your head or a vibe you're going for you more or less have an idea how to evoke that. The simple trick of having a chorus in the relative major key is a great common trick. Another thing used quite often is modulating up a whole step. Metallica using that trick all the time. Even if it's literally the same riff just moved up a whole step. It usually gives a general sense of increased intensity or momentum. Just look at the verse riff in master of puppets. First half is focused around e. Then the whole riff moves to F# which leads into a bar of a b power chord (the V in emin) leading into the chorus/prechorus. It's essentially a cycles of various degrees of tension and release. But then as I said, you've got intervals and modes that evoke different types of vibes typically. Phrygian often used in metal cause its dark characteristics. (Really that minor 2nd) An on the other hand you've got something like Lydian which is generally happy sounding but with an odd sense of ease to it usually. Very dreamy sounding. But aside from all of that I think the new younger generations are doing just fine in a sense with how they're writing. Even if it is in some music software. The reason I say this is because by doing so you're likely to compose in a new way. Which inherently results in different sounds. Just consider Tim Henson. I'm pretty sure he write this way an is one of the most talked about guitarist of the younger generation. I'm not saying music should only be written in some music program. I'm just saying a range of methoods is what creates diversity sometimes. Just consider and artist who purposely limits themselves with the hope of cultivating something creative. Sometimes taking away tools inspires and sometime having the whole arsenal at your fingertips does. Either way the creative process shouldn't be stuck to just one method or another. Write music with a guitar. Write it in some program. Write guitar parts on a sax then perform them on guitar. That's what makes for really weird an often interesting music. Try playing a sax line on guitar. It won't feel comfortable but it'll get you thinking about music differently atleast. 🤷‍♂️

[SteveFye]

"Don't bore us - get to the chorus!"

[MateuszGebicki]

0:58 - omfg i thought the video crashed and tried to refresh it for couple of times 🤣🤣

[oliverchalfant]

Glad others have chimed in with the same comment. Also have to disagree on the guitar pro advice. Guitar pro really helped me write better solos by breaking me out of my habits and forcing me to experiment with different rhythms and really lock things in tight.

[alxenzo]

omg i wish bradley hall taught us things like this

[TheMrScaleman]

dude i rly appreciate ur work. do u know those old days of youtube were creators made creative informative guitar videos? U went in that direction. ty

[stiman]

Honestly this content is so good, and I don't see any other channels getting into the how of songwriting like this, I might actually subscribe to your Patreon if there's more content like this there.

[metalpaddi]

Finally a guide that feels like "helped me" - thank you ❤

2 questions that came up while watching: would you recommend to write everything in "whatever tuning" (most of the time E standard) and switch to whatever tuning the band that the song plays in the end?

Do you think about "how can I do that live" when layering? Especially with third guitar etc.

Thanks in advance for further assistance Sir Hallsworth 🤘