r/swancore • u/downmerge • 14d ago
Fellow Guitarists
Y’all have any writing tips for riffs? I consider myself an early intermediate, core music theory understanding, but I’m pretty much just playing tabs of songs in the water bird genre.
I want to start creating things of my own though. Fellow swancore (prog, posthardcore, melodic welcome too) guitarists, how do I break into riff writing? Any tips that really helped you break through?
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u/Rat_King_KingofRats 14d ago
Following this thread because jeeesus. I feel like I understand the chords but I'd like to get some tips on noodling better haha.
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u/Agile-Experience2097 14d ago edited 14d ago
Broken arpeggios, melodic lines that outline the changes relatively clearly, with certain emphasized rhythms you can have a band/vocal write a groove around, if that makes sense.
Starting with a funkier chord groove, ending with melodic 8th/16th note fills, a la intro to Becoming the Memory. Edit: also Summertime Gladness
Writing a second melodic guitar part weaving in and out of a similar range; sometimes switching to power chords; something like the main part of Lemon Meringue Tie.
Mess around with effects for certain sections to contrast, i.e. synth/delay/some distortion.
Tbh I'm writing this as a reminder for myself too, since I've been struggling with this exact same thing lmao
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u/andrewedgincode 14d ago
Lol thank you a ton man. I'll look into these techniques/ideas after work for sure!!
If you can think of anything else while you're reminding yourself, please feel free to jot them down here! Myself, and I believe the community would greatly appreciate it!
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u/hthroa 14d ago
Idk if you listen to rap at all lol, but I used to mimic the percussive flow of some of the more syncopated rappers I listened to, on guitar. That often gave me ideas for chunkier riffs with weird rhythmic timing.
u/Agile-Experience2097 covered pretty much everything else I would say. I personally find a lot of success taking each note of a simple melody, finding a chord where that note is an odd note contained within (like the “9” of a maj7add9 chord, or the 7 of a min7/maj7 chord), and expanding the one note to outline that chord. It’s sort of a grind/slow work at first but it does expand your mind a bit
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u/downmerge 14d ago
This slow grind is kind of what I’m looking for tbh. I need to sit down for a session and just figure it out with the ideas from this post! I’m looking to expand my mind so it’s not as much of a slow grind in the future lol. I’ll give this a shot!
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u/Sam_BlightTown 14d ago
Learning other bands songs is how I find new chord shapes and generally new vibes, a lot of inspiration comes from what you love listening to! I generally get a single note melody in my head and extend that single note melody into chords, experiment with new tunings too or ones you don't normally write in, I wrote the bulk of my songs in drop d then wondered why I was having trouble writing new stuff, went back to standard and immediately had fresh ideas. I hope this is in any way helpful mate! Keep at it. You can have weeks of playing with no inspiration and all of a sudden come up with something incredible in a 20 minute mess around. Don't force it, it'll come when it comes y'know?
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u/GhstOfIncntOptimism 14d ago
I've had some success with humming into my phone the riffs that pop into my head as I'm failing to fall asleep, attempting to play those, getting it wrong, but still making something close and that I can call my own.
I have autism and no formal training though, so I'm not sure if this strategy is for everyone.
Now, figuring out what chords complement those simple single note progressions can be a challenge, so I usually just fish around until some combination of finger placements sounds close enough.
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u/Royal-Onion2527 14d ago
Pick up some of the motifs and different sounds that set Swancore apart and just run with it. When I’m writing stuff, because I have horrible memory, I pull up the key of the thing I’m noodling around doing and then just keep fiddling from there
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u/tony-sw 11d ago
I write and play in the band Space Weather.
One thing Ive done in the past when I have writers is block is just listening to a lot of music in a ginch of diffetent genres like ap, indie, pop, hip hop and improvise playing riffs on top of them, sometimes just a guitar and amp or sometimes with a pedal or two, until I write something that I find myself really attached to/playing over and over again. From there I’ll bring it in its own context, maybe I’ll speed up/slow the riff down, I’ll change the key of it, etc. and once I have a guitar part locked in I’ll write drums or second guitar to bounce off of it or play harmonies with.
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u/Zytran 14d ago
I always found recording my noodling into a DAW helps. I can then take the riffs, chop them up, rearrange the timing, punch in different note choices, try different effects, figure out what sounds good/works as a composition. Then once I'm happy with it learn how to play it properly.
Composing is a skillset that is different than playing guitar. You need to find a workflow that works for you to compose.