Filling in the Blanks Part Two: Pads Of all the parts in your arrangement, the importance of a pad is often the one most overlooked. And what a shame, as the right pad part can bring a track alive, increase its poignancy and emotional impact,...
So far, we’ve taken a look at the most important set of rhythmical instruments in modern pop music; the drum kit. The kick, snare and hi-hats form the basis of almost every groove you’ll hear. But there are many other instruments available to us...
Filling in the Blanks Part 1: Bass Lines First considerations Many of us who have been in bands remember quite clearly the clichés associated with each member. You know the sort of thing; the singer is a rampant egotist (and usually a little thick), the guitarist...
What’s a scale? We can define a scale as a progression of notes in an ascending or descending order. If you play the note C on a keyboard, and ascend through the next seven white notes to the right of it you have just played...
Rhythm! The rhythmic basis of a song has never been more important than it is today, but you might be fooled into thinking that this importance is a modern phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth! We could trace the role of rhythm in...
What is a Hook? Quite literally, these are the aspects of a song that ‘hook’ themselves in the listeners mind. It’s quite easy to recognise what makes a good hook, but slightly more difficult to define it. Here are some examples: Musical hooks: 50 Cent; ‘In Da...
Song Structure Structure is a way of describing how something is put together. Everything has structure, from a tree: roots, trunk branches, leaves, to a house: foundations, walls, roof. Every romantic Hollywood movie you’ve seen follows a structure: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy...
Introduction: Welcome to Point Blank’s hit writing course, your introduction to success in the music industry. At the end of each session you will be given a set of course notes which expands on the subjects discussed during the day, and allows you to listen...
1. Introduction Absynth is a semi-modular synthesiser that brings together elements of everything we have looked at over the length of the course so far. It is capable of producing many different types of synthesis (and it’s a sampler too) and has an overwhelming number...
1. Introduction This week we’re going to continue on our journey into building different types of Instrument in Reaktor. As you’ve already seen Reaktor is capable of producing a wide range of synthesis and the library is stacked full of Ensembles that can give you...
Book a free 15-minute one-to-one phone consultation, with one of our friendly admissions specialists. Let's get your music moving!
