Songwriting, Part 16, creating riffs & bass lines instead of chords

– pick key & mode
– come up with 2 bar riff
– use tension & release variation to extend riff to 4 bars
– select strong notes in riff & write all chords that have that contain that note (ex: if note is c and the mode is Am, write chords in the key that have a c note in it: Am, C, and Em)
– select from all possible chords & decide on progression
– use variety of tension /release direction as well as variety in harmonic rhythm to come up with chords in a complementary section
– write new riff based on new complementary chord progression