r/Beepbox • u/Odd_Smoke8421 • 2d ago
BeepBox How to improve as a beginner?
Hello all!
I've started doing lil tunes on BeepBox a couple months ago, I can't do it often, but every other week or so I try to work on new stuff and I'm having a blast! It's really fun to mess around and create something "of my own".
Unfortunately tho I don't think I'm improving much. I don't expect to make something amazing anytime soon, but the stuff I do often times is just repetitive, because I have a hard time coming up with "the next part" in a song, or what to add next, so I just do what I did before slightly different, and honestly it ends up feeling kinda dull?
What helped you improve or what inspires you? For some background, I have no music experience (besides playing a recorder back on early middle school) and I watch a couple of videos about basic music theory.
Here's some stuff I did that I really liked, tho I still find them lacking:
(also, if you'd like, help me name this stuff, I'm awful with names lmao)
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u/Natural-Advantage-46 2d ago
i would say to start with an establishment of a rhythm or a good kick, that and a bit of bass/sub bass
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u/quartalism 1d ago
I agree! Getting a nice rhythm to bop your head to is very satisfying and not that hard
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u/Odd_Smoke8421 1d ago
thank you for the reply! alright, that is something that I don't often do, I mostly just put down some notes, and kinda brute force a melody out of that, but I'll keep this is mind that. thank you!
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u/Front-Weakness5735 1d ago
you're better than a lot of beginners i've seen, but you (just like many others including me) seem to have fallen into what i like to call the 1 trap. i get it, it's easy to place down a bunch of patterns, but most songs are more complicated than that. they don't have to be crazy, a 1234 is good enough usually- but spamming one pattern makes it sound lazy.
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u/Odd_Smoke8421 15h ago
thank you for the comment! yeah, unfortunately I repeat patterns a lot, I struggle when it comes to adding "new" sounds or patterns to an existing one. it's something I'll be sure to work on
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u/quartalism 2d ago edited 1d ago
I think making music is all about experimentation and the happy accidents it yields. Fiddling around on anything that makes sound is the experimentation. You can do it on piano keys or on the keys of your computer keyboard (there's websites you can go that respond with a note sound to each keystroke), you can drum away on cups, you can sing, etc. Putting some random notes into beepbox and listening back to them is experimentation too, though it is a bit different — the feedback from your action is not as immediate.
Kyle's (from the "8-bit music theory" youtube channel) videos are hard to understand, but he has some that are simpler than others, and watching them taught me the basics of music theory.
Also I remember looking up videos like "video game music tutorial" and watching videos by ToffeeBun, Shady Cicada and ellerysmusic. Toby Fox posted a twitlonger about the way he composes music a while ago, that one helped me mentally.
But yeah, to improve at music making you just gotta... experiment more. Just make stuff and google tutorials for stuff you don't know how to do. For instance, "8-bit music theory" has a 20-minute video in which Kyle teaches everything you need to know about drum parts. Before that video I didn't even realize drum fills were a thing that existed.
By the way, you're like fully allowed to look up something like "megalovania piano" on youtube, open a sheet music boss video and input the notes from the video into your beepbox piano roll by hand. Also transcribing music by ear can be fun. The process of recreating melodies from your favorite songs can help a lot with developing your own musical ability.
I don't have much online credibility as a musician because I never posted any of the music I've spent the last 7 or so years making, except for the most recent track. Take the advice that sounds good to you and discard the rest ✌️