How to Come Up with Ideas for Mashup Songs

     I have written this article to explain - from my perspective – what the best ways are to come up with ideas for mashup songs.

     Although I've been making mashups for 7 years, I still don't know how to sync music up to beats. I could easily figure it out if I tried, but so far, I have gotten by well enough without resorting to learning how to use tools that would allow me to do that. As far as I'm concerned, it's easier to use Audacity (and approximate the tempo) than FruityLoops.

     But be warned, also, that lacking a solid, stable, consistent backbeat - that has the same tempo the whole time - is practically an indispensible tool, which will help you mask any syncing problems, or quiet or overly complicated percussion, which you may have to deal with if you try to make a mashup without it.

     I should really learn to use FruityLoops or another program, and/or take DJ lessons, but using Audacity without syncing has worked for me so far. So I'm not yet a valuable teacher on making mashups. But for those whom are interested in learning how to come up with ideas for mashups, I at least have the following advice to offer.

     If you're interested in music, then you might have seen a video, or read an article, about “songs that use the same four-chord progression”, and how dozens of songs are the same. Here are some links which pertain to that topic.

     http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/73-songs-you-can-play-with-the-same-four-chords

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75uSi1zoZtc

     You could choose any two of those songs – or any three, or four, or even all 73 – and mash them up together.

     However, when learning how to make mashups, keep it simple at first. Don't try to make more than two or three songs run together at the same time, until you have had enough practice mixing two and three songs together.

     Here's an article about “piano fake books” that allow you to “fake” a song by reducing its complexity.

http://takelessons.com/blog/what-is-a-piano-fake-book-z06

     These books, written for guitar and piano and other instruments, provide usually just the lyrics and chords. If it's a guitar book, it will often show how to finger the chord; and if it's a piano book, then it will often contain written music (such as the melody of the vocal part).

     If you can't find a song in a physical music book, then you can find the chords to songs by doing an online search for the title of the song plus the term “chords”. Sometimes they are wrong, however; you can make sure that the song hasn't been transposed into a different key, by playing the written music on an instrument while you play the audio of the original song out loud on a speaker system.

     Another way to find out the chords, keys, and tempos of songs, is to visit the website http://tunebat.com, upload the audio file of the song to www.audiokeychain.com, or use an Apple application called “Song Key Finder”.

     If you look up the chords to songs, you'll notice that many of them tend to follow certain common patterns and structures. A song whose chords are “C, F, Dm, G” and a song whose chords are “G, C, Am, D” would have the same chord progression if they were in the same key.

     In music theory, the way you would notate both of these chord progressions is “I, IV, ii, V”. This means that the first chord is a major chord based on the root note, the second chord is a major form of the relative fourth of that root note, the third chord is a minor form of the relative second of that root, and the fourth chord is the relative fifth of that first root note. LOTS of songs follow the pattern “I, IV, ii, V”, but lots of OTHER songs follow a pattern loosely based on the same one, such as “I, iv, II, V7”, and countless other combinations.

     So many songs have such similar chord progressions, that you could put many of them in the same key and tempo, and it would sound like one song (very noisy, but it would still sound like one song).

     You have to train your ear, and know a little about music theory, to recognize when songs have the same chord progression. But there's an easier way: the more you notice that two songs are similar to each other – for instance, if their tempos are close, they're in the same key, or they have the same tone and timbre (or genre) - the more likely it is that they will sound cool when mashed together.

     Audacity is available for download online for free. Find out what operating system your computer is, and specify it in the search for the program, along with the term “free”.

     I generally follow these ten steps when I make a mashup using Audacity:

     1) Choose two, three, or four songs that sound alike.

     2) Make sure that all of the sound files are the same format (usually mp3 or wav). You can convert audio clips into different file types by visiting the following link: http://online-audio-converter.com.

     3) Import the audio files into Audacity.

     4) Isolate the part that's the same in each of the songs. Do this by moving unmashable portions that you intend on using, and by deleting unmashable portions that you don't intend on using.

     5) Use the Tempo tool, to decrease or increase one clip and/or the other, in order to make the tempo of the audio clips the same.

     6) Use the Pitch tool, to decrease or increase the pitch of the audio, by a certain number of notes (or half-steps), in order to make the key of the audio clips the same.

     7) Match the clips together in different combinations.

     8) Listen to those mashed combinations of clips, and decide which combinations you're going to use.

     9) Decide in which order each combination of clips will appear, so you can start developing the structure and flow of your mashup.

     10) Complete the mashup and export it as the audio file type of your choice.

     The following link leads to a list I published in early 2019, which consists of more than 600 sets of songs which have similar structures, chord progressions, and/or timbres. I would make mashups based on this list, but I have better ideas saved away. I published them because I'll never be able to create all of them.

     http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/ideas-for-mashup-music.html

     All of my readers are free to use ideas on that list. I suggest choosing a set of songs by doing the following: Visit the list online, pull up the “search” or “find in page” web tool, see whether an artist or song you like is on the list. and choose a set of songs.

     If you're ready to try Audacity and FruityLoops, or learn about how to use them, check these out:

     Video about making mashups in Audacity, and finding instrumental and a capella versions of songs:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzlvBxX7gYE

     Making mashups in FruityLoops:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RPFf8p3wxw

     Email me at jwkopsick@gmail.com with any questions. Requests for mashups may or may not be honored; the shorter the clip you request, the more likely it is that I'll help you.

     You can learn more about mashups by searching for the topic on YouTube and Wikipedia.

Written and Published on April 24th, 2020