Riff examples: Scales/Modes to draw notes from: Writing Bulb/Meshuggah Stuff

[BWalter123]

Hey Everyone,
So I am a relatively novice guitar player (only 2 years under my belt) and am trying to expand the material I write. I know the basic stuff like pentatonics. major etc. and some more odd stuff, augmented/dim, dominant etc. and thus can come up with some decentish riffs that sound good. My issue is that I would love to be able to write stuff more in the vein of Meshuggah or Bulb than your average cookie cutter bands or simplish djentish stuff. I know that both the artists I mentioned are light years above me but could you guys give me some example riffs to kick start my writing as well as giving me some of the scale names and modes used to make stuff in that style? Thanks everyone.

 

[concertjunkie]

Hey Everyone,
So I am a relatively novice guitar player (only 2 years under my belt) and am trying to expand the material I write. I know the basic stuff like pentatonics. major etc. and some more odd stuff, augmented/dim, dominant etc. and thus can come up with some decentish riffs that sound good. My issue is that I would love to be able to write stuff more in the vein of Meshuggah or Bulb than your average cookie cutter bands or simplish djentish stuff. I know that both the artists I mentioned are light years above me but could you guys give me some example riffs to kick start my writing as well as giving me some of the scale names and modes used to make stuff in that style? Thanks everyone.

A couple of suggestions:

I found if I wanted to sort of acquire a certain "skill" I would learn songs or parts of songs i enjoy. Once I learned it, I would try to study it, see if I can understand the pattern (it becomes more obvious over multiple pieces of music), ultimately making it less "forced" to write what you want. It seems music is a constant of borrow-manipulate-create anew process, and some things are very difficult to point to a source. I would HIGHLY encourage you to listen to other things than what you want to create. Listen to some eastern music, jazz or electronic music of some sort, you may find yourself inspired by seemingly unrelated things, to create something fresh.

Secondly, I found in my experience, using Guitar Pro helped writing off time riffs, since it still isnt natural for me to do it, but it helps for seeing the part as whole, allowing for change, or to make something I can't play right off the bat and work up to be able to play it.


Thirdly, have fun, but be original and be yourself. Way too many clones around. Jake from Periphery shared with me something he learned from... I dont remember lol but I do remember the context:
Something along the lines of, a lot of bands now a days, you can tell their influences, since they are derived from two or three similar bands. Somebands of older generations or more "successful" bands pull over ten influences, many indistinguishable .

and lastly, good luck!

 

[concertjunkie]

Concert Junkie is correct.
Meshuggah and Periphery really don't use scales and modes in their playing from what i hear. Meshuggah especially. They write whatever sounds good. Periphery writes stuff very jazz influenced. I suggest,(if you don't already) listen to animals as leaders.
I suggest also learning major7th, major9th, minor7,9&11 chords/sweeps. Those are the harmonically complex chords that periphery commonly uses, ANd learn sharp and flat fifth chords as well for more dissonant sounds. Your diminished scale and whole tone scale should give you the the other dissonant sounds

And to add to that,
Piotrek Gruszja
Cloudkicker
Chimpspanner
Amogh Symphony

 

[Aerospace274]

Meshuggah do not use a "scale" but they do seem to have a common set of notes. I think it's something like F Locrian with a lot of accidentals. They basically use whatever they choose to. And Periphery do not use scales (at least not knowingly) at all either. Seems to be the strategy of hitting as many different notes as fast as you can there. If you want dissonance the diminished scales are a good place to look. I've been playing slightly less than you but I'm a pretty accomplished composer in my town. Most everything I write is in the same scale. It makes it way easier to come up with things naturally if you have a certain scale that you automatically play. For me it's D# Minor, or whatever the open 6th string is, in minor form. That way as I go onto my 7th and 8th strings, it gets darker in mood. (7th is A# Phrygian, 8th is F Locrian)
A good list of scales to check out for this style would be like
Chromatic
Diminished WH/Diminished HW
Whole Tone
Lydian
Minor
Phrygian (pretty much the 'default' metal scale)
Spanish 7 tone/8 tone
But really what you can write is not limited by the scale you choose. It's you who makes or breaks the song!

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

I dig how the dude in haunted shores fleshes out alot of simple chords into more lush and expansive chords. You can take the stuff you already know and modify it to be more complex that way

 

[Duke318]

There's nothing scale-based going on in the actual "djent" rhythm parts of periphery and meshuggah songs. I would learn your intervals, and learn what they sound like. An interval is just the distance between two notes. Learn what the different intervals sound like within the chromatic scale. Just practice moving up and down the fretboard with different distances between notes, until you know what they all sound like. This is something that has to be practiced until you can identify it without even thinking about it. Then you'll be able to compose melodies off the cuff.

 

[Vidge]

There's nothing scale-based going on in the actual "djent" rhythm parts of periphery and meshuggah songs. I would learn your intervals, and learn what they sound like. An interval is just the distance between two notes. Learn what the different intervals sound like within the chromatic scale. Just practice moving up and down the fretboard with different distances between notes, until you know what they all sound like. This is something that has to be practiced until you can identify it without even thinking about it. Then you'll be able to compose melodies off the cuff.

I agree completely. Here is a good site you can use to help. It plays two notes and you have to guess the interval. What he does though is associate the intervals with famous songs, it makes it much easier to learn.

One example, for the octave, its the first two notes of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. For the Maj7th inteveral, 11 semitones, is after the first 3 notes in the Superman theme.

Music Theory & Ear Training: Relative Pitch and Perfect Pitch Free Software

 

[Axe of Creation]

I don't mean to rehash what everyone said here. There were some great tips and advice given.

That being said, I would definitely learn some Periphery and Meshuggah tracks. You will begin to see patterns in their compositions.

Intervals will help tremendously. Especially when it comes to not only creating but recognizing chord structure. You can come up with some very cool, discordant riffs playing around with 2nd's and 7th's.

I can't express enough how important rhythm is, especially in this style.

 

[BWalter123]

Wow,
Thank you, everyone, for the great advice; I never really thought about intervals ( I am not good with theory stuff) and that opened up some new ways of thinking. It all has been helpful!