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    How To Write Trap Music
    How To Write Trap Music
    How To Write Trap Music
    Ebook167 pages1 hour

    How To Write Trap Music

    By Angel Dimitrov

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    About this ebook

    Trap music.

    With its heavy 808 kicks, stuttering hi-hats and crisp snares, the Trap sound revolutionized music production and took the world by storm.

    This book will teach you how to write it.

    The author, Angel Dimitrov, is a multi-instrumentalist and producer with a particular interest in electronic music, who plies his trade deep within the underground of Trap music. His belief that anyone can write great music with the correct guidance is his inspiration for this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStereo Output
    Release dateJun 28, 2019
    ISBN9781393808688
    How To Write Trap Music

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      Book preview

      How To Write Trap Music - Angel Dimitrov

      Published by Stereo Output Limited, company number 11174059

      Please go to www.stereooutput.com to contact us or follow us on various social media channels.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-9996003-4-1

      All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them in this publication does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by the trademark holders.

      Copyright © 2019 by Angel Dimitrov

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical views and certain other uses permitted by copyright law.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 - Introduction

      1.2 A brief history of Trap music

      1.3 This book

      Chapter 2 - Drums and percussion

      2.1 Getting specific

      2.2 The Roland 808

      2.3 Drum kit samples

      2.4 Attack and Decay–Kick and Snare

      2.5 Hi-Hats

      2.6 Snare Glitches

      2.7 Sub Bass

      2.8 Slides/glides

      2.9 Percussion, cymbals, chants

      2.10 Conclusion

      Chapter 3 - Melody

      3.1 Musical Ideas and their application in Trap music

      3.2. Low frequencies

      3.3. Mid frequencies

      3.3.1. Chords

      3.3.2 Chord Progressions

      3.3.3 Grand Pianos, electric pianos, keys

      3.3.4 Arpeggiators

      3.3.5 Pads

      3.4 High Frequencies

      3.4.1 Melodic movements and phrases

      3.4.2 Scales

      3.4.3 Synthesizers

      3.4.4 Most common synthesizer functions

      Chapter 4 - Effects

      4.1 Delay

      4.2 Reverb

      4.3 EQ (Equalization)

      4.4 Compression

      4.5 Distortion

      Chapter 5 - Structure/ Arrangement

      Chapter 6 - Automation

      Chapter 7 - Mixing

      7.1 Mixing order

      7.2 Mastering

      Chapter 8 - The whole process in Garageband

      Chapter 9 - The End (Or The Beginning?)

      How To Write Trap Music

      Chapter 1 - Introduction

      This book will teach you the process of making Trap music, but more importantly it will teach you how to think as a music producer.

      You will deconstruct each of the fundamental elements of a Trap beat in order to understand how they work together and how you can harness them to build a track.

      Using the approach of going backwards, from the final product to its bare components, you will learn how to make decisions about your own music production, regardless of the DAW you use.

      As you progress through this book, your confidence as a producer will grow, and your ability to analyze, criticize and structure your ideas will improve.

      The examples in this book come principally from FL Studio, however there are additional examples from Ableton and Garageband to add clarity. As all DAWs operate in fundamentally the same manner, you can easily transfer your understanding of the illustrations within this book to whichever DAW you’re using.

      ––––––––

      As the book is divided to chapters, each covering a specific part of the production process, this book will work as a guide whenever you are stuck and you need inspiration, and let’s be honest that happens to all of us.

      Let’s dive right in–but not before a brief history lesson.

      1.2 A brief history of Trap music

      Trap music is a story. Like all music, it is a record of a specific time, place and environment. The storyline is tough, sometimes harsh - so naturally the sounds coming from it are aggressive and rough.

      There are many discussions about where and when Trap music first appears, who invented it and who made it mainstream. However, that does not change its success, popularity and global influence, where the sounds of Trap music occupy both the mainstream and the underground, developing into subgenres where more and more people can express their unique vision.

      Trap music has a huge number of artists and fans who are always hungry for more. We should consider why this music is growing so rapidly and why it so easily grabs the listener. What could it be? Maybe its defining features such as its crisp snares, hard-hitting 808 kick drums, melodic synthesizers and rhythmic hi-hats. Maybe its strong rhythms, sense of foreboding and dark atmosphere plus the possibility to layer rap and vocals with it. Maybe it’s both factors.

      Regardless, you will learn how to harness each component of Trap music to its maximum potential in the chapters of this book.

      1.3 This book

      This book is divided into nine chapters. Two chapters take up the majority of the book–these are about percussion and melody. These chapters are broken down into smaller sections, exploring the different elements that constitute the whole.

      Most sections conclude with a summary and exercises. The summary is only there to look back upon after you’ve read the chapter–alone, it won’t be sufficient to understand the concept.

      I strongly suggest you do the exercises at the end of each section, as tempting as it may be to move to the next one. Doing these exercises will not only embed the knowledge from the book in your memory, but you’ll start to hear the individual components of Trap music coming together as you do so. You will go from being unable to create the sound you desire to hearing it come from your speakers, with you having created it.

      With that in mind, let’s get started!

      Chapter 2 - Drums and percussion

      Rhythm. The foundation of music. Nature moves in rhythm, and in turn we love rhythm. It is something that is always there inside and outside of us, we merely need to learn how to hear, feel and use it.

      The fundamentals of rhythm are based on the simplest of mathematics - one, two, one, two. Just like the ba-dum, ba-dum of the heart or the left, right, left, right of walking, Trap’s beats are structured around this one-two pattern - a big, low kickdrum followed by a crisp snare drum. What makes Trap interesting is all the detail in between the one and two.

      Look at this diagram:

      Now divide the space between the one and two in half:

      And again:

      And once again:

      These spaces have created are the fundamental property of rhythm - mathematical partials of the whole. In case you’re unfamiliar with music theory, the first diagram was cut in two, the second into four, the third into eight and the fourth into sixteen - this relates to the terms fourths, eighths and sixteenths in contemporary music. You are far from limited by 16ths either - you can also cut the bar into 24, 32, 48 or even 64 parts for far more intricate rhythms - but more on that later.

      This division of a bar is the basis for a piano roll in music software - see below for an example–one musical bar divided into 16 parts:

      As the goal of this book is not only to give you the instructions for successful beat making but also to awaken the inner artist in you, let’s use your imagination with a quick exercise:

      Imagine you’re walking down the street. Take two steps in your head – left, right. Listen to the sound in your head. Now repeat this sound three more times in your head and then keep repeating it by slowly increasing the speed of your steps. Listen to the sound created. If you could imagine this and you heard the beat and a sense of escalating tension, that means you have a good inner sense of music and you can understand basic rhythm and dynamics.

      In case you followed this exercise and you went even further, adding a different rhythm or melody to the above, then congratulations - you just discovered the inner artist in yourself that is ready to compose! If you didn’t, don’t worry. You’ll have discovered it by the end of this book!

      Summary 

      ––––––––

      1) Musical rhythm stems from dividing musical bars into smaller portions. 

      2)

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