Pan flute journey -

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I just realized today that many of the ideas I play every now and then come and go, and some of them can be a good source to be developed later on.

Here is my approach to create and shape your ideas into song. First of all , if you know how to read and write music, it’s a big advantage to your work, if you don’t , not to worry, just make sure you write them down in a way that you can play it back.

Write down in a blank sheet music paper

I have found that, writting the chords and put the melody after is the approach which works mostly and for most people, however you can do it the other way round, but personally I think, melody is hard to develop if you don’t have a base or foundation to lie on, like a chord progression.

So, I suggest to write a chord progression in a blank sheet music paper first, choose the key and tempo, choose the theme and try to stick to your idea, don’t worry about seeing any music at this stage, the song is developing.

It could be a progression like this: A Bm7 C#maj E7 for the first four bars, I start laying a chord progression, trying to keep it simple, usually in 4 bars and in a 16 bars page, the good thing about this , it’s that you can edit it as you go.

After you’ve created the chord progression, you can start laying down the notes, which will be your melody, you may have a melody first, however I have found that very often ideas morph and change as you work along, so be versatile and ready to modify the original source.

Some rules to take in consideration.

These are some rules of thumb every musician knows at some point,

• Don’t play a minor third over a major chord, you will get a very dissonant sound if that is what you are after.
• Same goes the other way round, don’t play a major third over a minor chord.
• Try to match or make a close rhythm which fits with the chord rhythm, if the melody is fit in 8th notes rhythm, your chords should be a bit longer, or the same rhythm, it depends on what you are after, but try to keep it simple.
• Improvising with pentatonic scales and the scales of that chord being played is a safe bet to get a harmonized melody
• Make sure your phrases has a beginning and ending, playing a V chord or I is the simplest way to it.

Take your time

You may have been working some time in developing your idea for your song, and found that you are not getting that sound you were looking for, or just want to sound different from the usual, take some times and come back to your saved song when you get new ideas, ideas come and go often, some it’s worth catching them others just don’t serve your purpose but they may be quite good in other keys or situation.

Improvise

What I like to do some time, is to create a chord progression and improvise along, it’s interesting the different themes you get, depending on what chord you use, there are many available, and if you give first a structure to what you are trying to play, the song itself develops, whether others like or not, that’s a different story and it goes out of any creative endeavour my friend, do your stuff without worrying, enjoy your music while it lasts.

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