Conception:

Most of my song ideas usually stem from a lot of rhythm, but this one I had 2 ideas that meshed well together. The initial melody that the synth plays, and the accented guitar punches. I originally intended for the melody to be played on guitar, but after a/b testing them I really liked the synth version better. This also let me focus on making the guitar more of a punctuating instrument and I could use a thicker tone without disruption. I think this choice gave me the best color between all of the instruments and I could play in Drop F. For some strange reason once I got this intro figured out, I just kept hearing "Is This What You Want" before it and knew that's what this song was called. Now that the intro instrumentation was pinned down I would focus on transitions. I knew I wanted to have a groovy riff somewhere in the song.

Writing & Structure:

Intro>Transition>Prechorus Riff>Verse 1>Prechorus>Chorus>Transition>Verse 2>Prechorus>Chorus>Break>Bridge Riff>Intro>Prechorus Riff

I had been listening to a lot of Thornhill's latest album "Bodies" and I just loved the guitar tone and grooves they came up with. This ended up having a big impact on the sound of my song as I tried to create a similar guitar tone. While creating the tone I had also made a riff that I really liked and fit well with the intro, but the only problem was that I it didn't feel right to seamlessly move into it at the beginning of the song. The intro need a bit more room to breathe, so I ended up making an EDM buildup with just heavy guitar chugs to get me there. I probably could have used a riser in the background, but it didn't feel right so I just stuck to the initial instruments.

With a solid riff written I moved onto what a verse would sound like. I knew I had to make a low energy verse since I think both the intro and guitar riffs are higher energy. This led to more guitar punctuation and mostly synth and vocals carrying the weight. For some reason I thought choir voices would be an awesome addition so I tried out some sustaining voices, but went with male voices since they are more bass represented.

Once we get through the verse I also wanted a pre-chorus as more of a gritty, anger ridden, build up to get us to the chorus. Here is where I repeated the groovy guitar riff. I wanted even more energy added so I added female choir voices as vocal "hits" or pulses to strengthen the build up.

The chorus is where it all gets let loose lyrically. You're angry, you're shouting at god, the world, or whatever is out there. Why is this happening? Why does it feel like bad is winning? Is This What You Want? That's the initial lyrical concept I had for this and I wanted to emphasize my own distaste for how the world has been working for only a few people. Anyways, I reused the intro backing here in the chorus, but couldn't use the melody as it clashed with the words. Each of them take the spotlight, so it only made sense to keep it as vocals.

Now the bulk of the song has been written and now we start stitching pieces together. After the second chorus I was thinking of some sort of breakdown, but it didn't feel right. I felt like a shift needed to happen in the song and so I created and actual break using the sound of glass, a synth impact, and dive bombing my guitar slowly. What better way to make an effect than just make it a palindrome and reverse all the effects as if it were being put back together? I thought it sounded cool, so let's do it!

This part of the song needed a lot of energy so I brainstormed another riff and drum groove and thickened it with synths. What better way to get out of this bridge than to just head right back to the high energy intro melody? This actually gave me goosebumps once I put my vocals into it and it still does. It's probably just the music nerd in me writing a coda into it since we are just returning to the intro and prechorus riffs to end the song on. This is where it felt right to smash the two together and bring the song to a close.

Synths? There's hardly any!

I think this song has the most synths I've used in it and it's still not that many compared to modern popular song standards. I used a lot for layering effects to amplify riffs and create more of an atmosphere. This seems like the way most modern groups are doing it, and now I understand why. Although most of them are very low in the mix, they are just supporting the main instrumentation and fleshing out their frequencies so everything just sounds bigger. It's actually really cool to hear the difference because it's so subtle, but enhances everything so much. After this experiment I am probably going to try and utilize more of them where and when they fit.

This song was incredibly fun to create and definitely one that I'm most proud of currently. My mix and master of it has improved quite a bit over the EP a few months ago and it will only continue to get better the more I practice. Thanks again for listening.