Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live
PROBLEM: How can I create a musical ‘riff’ using MIDI in Live?
“The riff by its very nature is repetitive so you get it again and again, you get it reinforced and the rest of the song is built around it like the riff was the skeleton of the song.”
Brian May, Queen
>A lyrical phrase that is repeated and summarises what a song is about is called a ‘hook’. In terms of the music itself, the series of notes, chord patterns or musical phrases that are repeated is often called a ‘riff’.
There is an instinctive aspect in riff creation that comes perhaps more easily to guitar and bass players… but what if you don’t play an instrument? Is there a method to come up with riff musical ideas? In this tutorial we are going to explore some tips on programming a MIDI riff.
About The Author
Simone Tanda is a bass player/music producer/live performer who loves low frequencies. He gives electronic music lectures as well as one-to-one tutorials at several colleges and Ableton Live certified training centres in London and in Italy.
01
Draw a pattern
Let’s draw a MIDI pattern that is continuous. You can pick up any note value. Here we’re using semiquavers. When you draw the pattern consider the pitch changes for entire sections, for example 1 bar. You can consider pitch changes of different lengths like 1/2 bar or 2.
02 Repetition is key
Let’s program some pitch changes following a repeated pattern. Every six semiquavers I change the pitch position of two notes. The pitch position obviously matters. You can try to stick with a few notes or more but the rhythmical placement is important to stay the same.
03 Evaluate pause
It must be repeated organically. For example, every third quarter of each bar I’ll remove the first and last semiquaver. You can select any location or action. NB: the last bar of a riff generally allows you a little more freedom. It represents the closure of your idea and can feature small differences from the main body.
04 Superimpose a rhythm
Pick up a three number sequence, for example 2-2-1. Use it in every bar to create further pitch changes. I select the semiquavers to shift following the pattern 2-2-1 where those numbers represent the notes to skip before selecting. I used the 8va but experiment with different intervals. In the last bar the sequence 2-2-1 is repeated twice.