I've been writing my first solo album for way too long. It is influenced by Gorguts and Deathspell Omega, and over the past couple years I've only now completed the first 5 minutes. That's a completely different struggle, though.
Just recently I contributed my first song to my more straightforward death metal band, and it was extremely satisfying to finish. I pretty much wrote all the riffs (there's like 3) in a couple weeks, and then made a little note with an idea of how to string them together. I'm gonna try to break it down.
intro that is string scraping with bass behind it (4 times, the same pattern comes back at the very end as a breakdown) "meat riff" that is a little exploration of some kind of harmonic minor tremolo riff (3 times) "chorus riff" that uses the notes from meat riff in a less frenetic, more melodic arrangement (only once, because you really want to hear this riff) "verse riff" 2 times with blast beats, 1 time with slow black metal hihat/kick+snare (this riff builds up heavily in the way it was composed) bridge-kind-of riff played twice, this is the part where the blasts just let themselves go behind an epic/mean sounding tremolo riff reminiscent of previous riffs, this is the last new riff of the song back to "chorus riff" twice, because this is where it all comes back around longform solo over 2 times each of "chorus" and "verse" riff breakdown that is reprise of beginning pattern
So this song started out as meat riff, chorus riff, and verse riff. Meat riff wasn't a good starting point for the song, so I tried to come up with some sort of build-up/marching snare/bassline as a little exposition. I couldn't find a way to connect the two really, so I just have a natural harmonic for a short bar which does well enough as a transition and kind of rips you from one dimension into another when it kicks in.
Chorus riff, I came up with that in about 5 seconds because all it is is the first few notes of meat riff, just held out on longer tremolo pickings. It was a natural progression into verse riff, which is a minor/chromatic riff similar to one in Phobophile. The chromatic/minor characteristics those two riffs share is very similar, so it perfectly works out because verse riff has more to it than chorus riff, but they still retain the same idea/feel. From there, I just repeat chorus riff 4 times, last two times with a solo over it, and the rest of the solo is over 2 repetitions of verse riff. Solo ends on a huuuuge whammy bar squeal into a "siq breakdown"
I thought I had so much more of the song to write, and I was really beating myself up trying to come up with more little bridge riffs and another full riff or something, but once I programmed it all into guitar pro and timed it it was already 5 minutes long. Overthinking is the bane of me, and when I showed it to the rest of the guys they were more than stoked.
I'm not sure this is any help to you lol, if anything it was help for me by actually explaining to myself how I did it and how things connect and play off each other.
[quote="SuspirianSuspicion"][/quote] You've got some great ideas here, I actually utilized a couple of them in my aforementioned song. Gonna have to tuck this post away for later....
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