Songwriting Archives » Strings Of Rage™

Writing In Reverse – Using A Lead Lick To Inspire A Rhythm Track

Writing (not Falling) In Reverse! In this lesson we’re going to look at some ways to add rhythms to a lead guitar part when the lead part was written first. We’ll use a lick that we’ve previously written in B phrygian to demonstrate and find inspiration to how this can work.

Most commonly you would write a rhythm track and song structure before exploring how melodies and solos can work over the given chords. Understanding how to reverse engineer these ideas will not only help writing a guitar solo, but it will help your guitar playing in many other ways too. If you can master this you’ll be a versatile band musician as well. If you’re anything like us you’ll always find times where you’ve written an incredible lead lick, solo or melody that then needs backing music to support it! Let’s get into it!

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Wah! What is it good for?

Riffs & Ideas, Songwriting - Joe

Hello! Today we’re going to look at a few different ways you can add some extra interest to a solo, chord progression or riff by using a wah-wah pedal. The Wah is a truly classic pedal, however, even now, there’s still many reasons to have this formidable pedal in your effects arsenal!

There are various makes and models of ‘wah’ out there. The Dunlop ‘Crybaby’ is probably the best known. There’s also the Morley ‘Bad Horsie’, the Boss ‘V-wah’ and the Snarling Dogs ‘Fire Bawl’ (See cover image) to name just a few. I personally use an Ibanez ‘Weeping Demon’.

Let’s go through some examples of how the wah effect can be used, how it works and some examples of songs which use it.

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Dirty Chords: Splitting high gain across two guitars.

Riffs & Ideas, Songwriting - Joe

Today we’re going to look at some ways of playing chords with high gain amp settings.

With high gain, power chords sound great, basic triads can sound pretty good too depending on your tone.

7th Chords and beyond however, start to sound ‘muddy’ and unclear like this:

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Aggressive Arpeggios: Fusing Arpeggios with Heavy Riffs

Riffs & Ideas, Sweep Picking - Joe

Today we’re going to be adding some sweep picking into our heavy riffs. Note that I said “INTO” and not “over”. The difference is that these examples would be played on one guitar. Not a lead guitar playing over the top of a rhythm guitar.

In this lesson we’ll be looking at incorporating arpeggios into riffs. We’ll be looking at an example on an 8 string guitar and another on a 6 string. One of the reasons I like 7 and 8 string guitars is because you can get plenty of low end without losing any of the higher notes. Mixing lower riffs with arpeggios that go up into the higher notes can give your playing some really interesting dynamics. So, let’s check out these ideas with some examples.

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Using The Circle of Fifths to Change Keys

Chord Progressions - Joe

In this lesson we’re going continue to build on our knowledge of music theory and learn how to use the Circle of Fifths to change keys.

Let’s take a simple chord progression and put it under the microscope. Analyzing an example like this using the circle of fifths will help you to write your own music and ideas using this concept. If you’ve started to learn about music theory the following progression might seem ‘wrong’:

E Major – D Major – G Major – D Major

This is because there is no Major key which contains all three of these chords. If you want to learn about which chords occur in each key check out this post.
If I play that progression E – D – G – D, it sounds like this:

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How to write a Metal Rhythm

Riffs & Ideas, Songwriting - Joe

Today I’m going to write a rhythm part for a metal song and explain the process I go through at each stage. I’ll go for a combination of Thrash and Melodic Death Metal.

I’ll assume that you have a “metal tone” for writing metal rhythm guitar, but in a future post we’ll cover some tips for getting a good tone. For now just remember that you want plenty of mids, and a decent amount of gain, but not too much. We want a nice tight rhythm not tons of crackly white noise and feedback.

Writing Metal Rhythm Guitar : First Steps

I’ll start by playing around with a combination of 8th notes and “gallops”. Below is a quick example of an E5 power chord played as 8th notes:

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Using Tremolo Picking to ‘Charge Up’ Your Riffs

Riffs & Ideas, Songwriting, Technique - Joe

Tremolo picking involves picking the same note multiple times in a row, usually at least four. This technique originates from classical guitar and other stringed instruments. The idea was to create modulations in volume by finger picking a note multiple times with harder and softer plucking.

In rock and metal Tremolo Picking is more common to use the technique to maintain volume by giving each note less time to decay. It also provides more attack giving a harsher, more aggressive sound.

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Creative Key Change Concepts Using Pitch Axis – C Lydian to E Lydian

Chord Progressions, Songwriting - CJ

Creative Key Change Concepts Using The Lydian Mode

This is an interesting concept I’d like to demonstrate for creative songwriting. We’re going to look at writing a progression that changes key but remains in the same mode.

In this lesson we’re going to take full advantage of the beautiful lydian mode to write a mysterious chord progression that employs a key change. The really clever thing about how this works is that it uses the idea of pitch axis.

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Heavy Metal Michael – A Look at The Guitar Track For This Rare MJ Gem

Riffs & Ideas, Songwriting - CJ

Michael Jackson is a massive inspiration for us here at Strings of Rage™. In this episode we’re going to take a close look at the composition of one of MJ’s most awesome, but little known heavy rock tracks “Do You Know Where Your Children Are”.

This track was a previously unreleased song recorded for the Dangerous album. It’s a shame this song didn’t make the cut because it’s such an aggressive solid rock tune from MJ. It would have easily complemented the likes of “give in to me” and “black or white” on the Dangerous album.

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Strings of Rage™ | Songwriting Ideas

Songwriting - CJ

Posts for Songwriting Category

Writing (not Falling) In Reverse! In this lesson we’re going to look at some ways to add rhythms to a lead guitar part when the lead part was written first. We’ll use a lick that we’ve previously written in B phrygian to demonstrate and find inspiration to how this can work.

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Hello! Today we’re going to look at a few different ways you can add some extra interest to a solo, chord progression or riff by using a wah-wah pedal. The Wah is a truly classic pedal, however, even now, there’s still many reasons to have this formidable pedal in your effects arsenal!

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Today we’re going to look at some ways of playing chords with high gain amp settings.

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Like this:

Today we’re going to be adding some sweep picking into our heavy riffs. Note that I said “INTO” and not “over”. The difference is that these examples would be played on one guitar. Not a lead guitar playing over the top of a rhythm guitar.

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Like this:

In this lesson we’re going continue to build on our knowledge of music theory and learn how to use the Circle of Fifths to change keys.

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Like this:

Today I’m going to write a rhythm part for a metal song and explain the process I go through at each stage. I’ll go for a combination of Thrash and Melodic Death Metal.

Writing Metal Rhythm Guitar : First Steps

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Like this:

Tremolo picking involves picking the same note multiple times in a row, usually at least four. This technique originates from classical guitar and other stringed instruments. The idea was to create modulations in volume by finger picking a note multiple times with harder and softer plucking.

Share this:

Like this:

This is an interesting concept I’d like to demonstrate for creative songwriting. We’re going to look at writing a progression that changes key but remains in the same mode.

Share this:

Like this:

Michael Jackson is a massive inspiration for us here at Strings of Rage™. In this episode we’re going to take a close look at the composition of one of MJ’s most awesome, but little known heavy rock tracks “Do You Know Where Your Children Are”.

Share this:

Like this:

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