What to do with riffage?

I keep coming up with short, catchy (at least to me) riffs, but I can never turn them into songs.

I've got Rikky Rooksby's Song Writing Sourcebook, which is a tremendously helpful book, but I'm a bit stuck on something I just came up with.

The riff is D maj, F maj, G maj, all open chords. I thought it would be in D Major, but the transition from F to G sounds like a 4 - 5 movement.

If my ears are hearing correctly that would make the riff in the key of C.

I'M SO CONFUSED!!!

BTW, I've uploaded the riff below.

OK...

It's in D major. But... it does the old rock and roll thing with the flatted 3rd then making a chord out of it. So you can think of this as in D major but it uses a flatted 3rd and a flatted 7th for scale tones. In other words, instead of an F#m chord as the 3rd degree chord, we flat it like in a blues scale, then we further obliterate its connection with "traditional" music and create a major chord out of it.

Those old 50's rock & roll and blues records records started it and heavy metal continued.

Make sense?

A standard pentatonic or blues scale in D will work over this. But so will a D major scale but with the 3rd and 7th flatted. Which is a what? A D minor mode of some sort.

Or you can go D major over the D chord for a melody line then flat the 3rd on the F chord... just play around and see what notes you like against that chord sequence.

Damn, Lee!

I have no idea what all that means.

Of course, I freely admit a distinct lack of musical training......hell, I don't really know the names of most of the chords I'm playing.

So....what do I do with my riffage? Why I turn them into songs, of course.......one way or another.

I'll be posting up a song soon that started with a 2:00 electric riff that I tracked for fun and liked so much that I proceeded to cut it up in Pro Tools like a big ol' sausage and spread it out to make a pretty cool meal.....an exercize in which I very rarely indulge.

imo a series of chord changes is not a riff. To me, a riff is a melody line or at least something that has some substance.

not that you were asking about definitions.

the reason you cannot turn that into a song, is because its nothing really to build a song out of. Its just chords.

So what I would do with that is, play that recording over and over again while playing along with it. During your jamming, listen for melody lines or hooks that mesh nicely with your changes. If you can think of vocal lines or lyrics even better.

A couple of things are happening here. The OP has hit on a really interesting and fine point of theory. Very perceptive. The the whole F and G implying the IV and V. That's good. That isn't what's happening but good insight. Check my convoluted explanation above for clarification.

The 2nd thing is what WSpaceBoy talks to. It isn't really riffage. It's a chord pattern. And not to disparage it, but it isn't particularly unique either. But it is what great songs are built on. A simple sequence of chords.

I agree with VSpaceBoy. Let it loop and write to it. Write a riff to it. Write a melody to it. Write words to it. It is a great starting point for writing a song.

It's in D

Seems to me that trying to find a subset of notes that will 'always' work wherever one is in the progression is the same kind of approach that has had way too many would-be blues and rock players 'trapped' inside of pentatonic scales.

At different times and in different harmonic and melodic contexts within these three chords, it seems that one may find oneself in Am, in G, and, yes, in D major. You can 'throw out' potentially disharmonic notes until you're left with a dumbed down subset... or you can approach each pass through the chords in the context of the melodic lines you've been playing. Considering only the underlying chord context, it seems to me, is only part of the story...

Great point. But if he's asking the question, that tells me approaching it from your vantage may offer too many options. But yeah, you're right, it doesn't have to be in D. And expanding the options would lend itself to creating something a bit more... uh... expansive?

I have a book that, for reference purposes, lists essentially every chord progression that has ever been used in a popular song (Money Chords), so clearly that music theoretic aspect of songwriting is not an issue. Unfortunately, it's mostly worthless, because it won't actually help you with the real "money" part of the song: the instrumental riffs, vocal melodies, etc.

that would be dorian mode, no? 1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7?

I am the same often, with my song clips, except most of mine don't actually have especially catchy riffs. This one I think could be something though...

www.soundclick.com/auntacid

The song is actually called Aunt Acid. The first bit is weird and a conceptual part that ties in with the eventual video that'll be made for the song, so ignore it, but the actual main music bit I think is quite catchy.

I made it up, I've got no idea of the chords. I played it on the MIDI keyboard using one of the guitar things...put the bass on also using the keyboard, and the drums the same way...

If anyone can tell what the chords are, that'd be interesting I suppose.

I just don't know where else to go with it. lol

Yes that is Dorian mode.

Yes that is Dorian mode.

heh, yay, im learning!

Did anyone listen to my Aunt Acid riff? lol

We can talk about theory all night long and never finnish the song...But you want to write a song right?

I'll agree with the previous poster that what you've got there isn't quite a riff....it's a chord progression. But an excellent starting point. I will often start with just a chord progression.

What I would do is determine whether your progression sounds more like a verse or a chorus to you. If you can think of a good hook to go over it, I would make it a chorus, in which case you'll need at the very least a verse and a bridge. If you can't think of a hook you've probably got yourself a verse.

Once I have a chord progression and I've determined where exactly it will fit within the song (i.e. chorus, bridge, verse....) then the next step is finding other chord progressions that work well with the one you've got. Theory can help with that. If you're having trouble moving on from your progression than try writing some kind of transition by taking the same progression and tweaking it a bit.