Creator Diaries: Part 2 - How I Write Music

Songwriting has proven to be a long and sporadic process. With my limited knowledge of music theory, crafting songs has been difficult. But I’m realising that with every connection I make in chord changes and melodies my ability to consciously make musical decisions is strengthened.

"MK8 Love" holds a special place in my heart. I listen to the demo over and over again and am so excited to get the final mix together and share it with everyone. For me, it symbolises how far I’ve come on my musical journey, and still how far I have yet to go. As a collection of ideas, sections and motifs, "MK8 Love" represents different moments in my life. It shows how my experiences across different locations and times can fuse together to create a piece of music that I can be proud of.

In this blog series, I want to share my experiences of creating music as a young, new musician. The series will track the process of creating my first song from conception to release. Through sharing my processes and experiences the aim is that artists and new musicians can find confidence, guidance, support and company in some of their musical challenges. I am by no means an expert in this, and I don’t want to pretend to be. I merely hope that my experiences can help other musicians who want to get their music out there and create the music they love. In this second post, I’d like to discuss my approach to songwriting and how I conceived of and wrote my first song, "MK8 Love".

My Approach to Songwriting

I once had someone say to me that songs were limiting. At the time, I was surprised to hear that. But since then, I’ve realised that the music I’ve loved hasn’t necessarily been songs. I grew up listening to jazz which has inspired me to think more in terms of motifs, chords and melodies rather than lyrics. I also remember loving Steve Reich's minimalist piece, “Electric Counterpoint: III. Fast”, in music GCSE. And I’ve always been fascinated by video game music. Growing up playing Nintendo titles like Pokémon, Zelda and Mario, I fell in love with the repetitive section-based music that focused heavily on progressions and melodic motifs.

My approach has always been to start with chords. Chords are what bring the music alive and evoke the emotion. To me, they’re what guide the listener on the artist’s journey. However, I am partly limited in my ability to move beyond chords to fully conceive of songs when writing. I still struggle to play piano polyrhythmically, and even if I’m only playing chords, my ability to sing at the same time is weak. I can write melodies and chords separately, but conceiving of a song as a whole can be difficult. But this is where beatboxing is very handy.

Although I may not be able to make my music sound “full” in the writing process, I am able to use beatboxing to indicate the rhythm and get across “the vibe” of the piece. For example, if I’ve got a progression like Bbmaj(add2)-Abmaj(add2)-Gbmaj(add2)-Abmaj(add2)-Bbmaj(add2) - from "Get In", another song of mine - I can just beatbox at 85/170 bpm with an 808 drum beat alongside my chords. It transforms how I hear the song and helps develop the track's sound going into the production process. Beatboxing can be laborious, but I would recommend learning some basic beats if you don’t have access to drums while writing.

My music has sometimes been fortuitous with the connections I’ve made between sections and chords. But I wonder how established artists make music. Is it always a matter of construction and planning? Or can it be coincidental and sometimes just sheer luck? What is important is that as I stumble upon progressions or musical moments that I love, I learn more and I take something from that experience, so that next time I can choose to create the sound I want.

MK8 Love feels like this. It feels like a collection of fortuitous ideas that came together. Different parts of my life have coalesced and are illustrated through its individual sections, evoking the emotions of my past. It feels like that abstract emotion being embedded in the music that I discussed in the first blog. The song feels like me.

The Journey

Although I’ve not always understood how to express my emotions musically, I am gradually understanding how to. MK8 Love is my first full song, and I am so glad that it is, because it represents different points in my life and brings together my emotions and experiences. When I first showed my friend the demo, they said it’s like I’m taking the listener on a journey, and I think they are right. The song is a journey - my journey.

In my third year of university, I did an internship in Washington, D.C. After going on holiday with my girlfriend and some of our friends, I was kicked out of the apartment I had been living in and was told to leave within a couple days. Luckily, my aunt and uncle lived in Virginia, a short distance from D.C., so I was able to stay with them for the remainder of my internship semester.

I noticed my aunt and uncle had a piano in their basement which was rarely used, so I just started messing around with some 7^thchords. When I played the Fmajor7 chord, my ring finger had a mind of its own and slid from the flattened 7^th to the 5^th (from Eb to C), and my hand transitioned into a Gmaj(add4). I remember being really excited because it was one of the first times that I felt the flow of music naturally without consciously thinking. From Gmaj I moved to Emajor7, ran my fingers from G-A-B, landed on the Fmajor to resolve and added a jazzy semi-chromatic slide from G-Ab-A-B-C. I think subconsciously I had Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” in my head and was trying to follow that progression.

In my last post I discussed how I don’t normally find meaning in lyrics, with my criteria usually being, do they fit the vibe? With this I never felt like it was any different. I started singing these lines:

“I miss the nights, I feel the pain...I miss you all the same...I’m coming round, I finally see...Baby who I’m supposed to be.”

I tried to write them down as quickly as I could alongside some makeshift melody denotation, because I’ll often just sing something which sounds great in my head but forget to write it down. This way of writing melodies may seem unorthodox, but it’s because my sheet music skills are quite weak. An issue I’ve noticed with the way I write things down is that it does not denote the rhythm, which can be problematic, but I am usually able to feel out the rhythm from what I’ve written.

With verses and a chorus, these would provide the basic structure for what was starting to sound like an average pop song. Originally the second verse’s last line read, “Get out my way, ‘cos I’m breaking free”. But I very quickly concluded that all anyone would hear (and all I kept hearing) was Troy Bolton belting out, “We’re Breaking Free!”, so I sidestepped that one.

When I got back from the US, I played what I had over and over, just trying to get more inspiration for lyrics. One day I tried something a bit different and played my progression out of order, moving from Fmajor7 to Fmajor, then finishing on the Gmaj(add4). The whole thing felt like it was waiting to move somewhere, like the song was itching to change. I remember my hand moving to the Fmajor, but then shifting to a new chord, Cmin11, before going back to the Fmajor. I wasn’t totally sure how I thought of this new chord, but I didn’t question it, because it sounded incredible, and the chord change was what I needed to gain inspiration. It inspired me to write a synthy pop solo that sounded punchy, fun and very 80s. It was first time I thought the song could be an 80s banger. I then started writing a vocal melody – one of my favourite things I’ve written:

“Leavin’ you, I spread my wings and I learned how to fly...Lovin’ you, Was the biggest mistake of my life”

A few months later, whilst living with my sister, I was playing the new solo and her boyfriend walked over to me and said, “that sounds like such a Mario Kart tune”. As funny as that was, I took the comment as a real compliment, because I am a huge fan of Mario Kart 8’s big band jazz orchestration, with its blaring trumpets, sax solos, and high tempo adventurous feel. It may seem a bit cheap, but the name MK8 Love has stuck with me because of it – the sections of the track are like the laps of a Mario Kart race, bringing something new musically every section and taking the listener on a journey.

The next section came originally from messing around with one of Mac Ayres’ most popular songs, “Easy”. In it, there is a chord progression which transitions the verse to the pre-chorus: Fsus4-Dbmaj7-Ebsus2 - the sound is rich and beautifully woven into the song. I ended up changing it so that it felt more resolved and major in tone to: Fmajor/C-Dbmaj7-Gmin7#5-Fmajor. I quickly realised that the melody I had crafted for the Fmajor to Cmin11 progression could be used for this progression as well, and I finally had a eureka moment. The song was becoming musically interesting and beginning to use melodies to convey meaning and emotion – I could feel not only my piano skills, but my musical abilities improving.

After living in Cardiff for a while during my master’s degree, I decided to move back to London. Cardiff had given me a lot: confidence in my music; time to develop my theory and piano; and a first go at recording some of my own music. I knew I wanted to expand the song, and that is when I came up with a new progression: Fmaj7-Gmaj(add4)-Ebmaj7-Dmin7. The new section felt like such a natural shift that represented my growing confidence and happiness, providing space to develop new melodies. I wondered why I loved this section so much, and after listening to it over and over, I realised I had accidently transposed Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”, one of my favourite songs.

With this section finished and some alternative verses, I knew the song was complete. I had everything I needed to start producing.

Songwriting has been a long process, but it’s one that I think needs that. Without my experiences coming together over such a long time, I don’t think the song would have the identity that it does, nor the musical elements I’ve managed to create from so many emotions. "MK8 Love" is a journey, it is my journey, and I’m excited to be able to share every step with you.

In the next piece, I’ll be breaking down how I produced the demo of "MK8 Love", exploring the decisions I made and how I brought the song to life. But before I sign off, I’d like to leave you with my first full demo. Here’s "MK8 Love".

On top of listening to Orion's demo for 'MK8 Love' you can check out the updates he's made to his Spotify playlist here! Make sure to like the playlist on Spotify to listen to any future updates.