I’ve recently received messages from several people struggling to create good intros for their arrangements. For me there’s one key for making intros easy.

People often come to me for advice on arranging. But I find it difficult to come up with universal advice that would be useful and applicable without knowing the music / the exact parameters of the case in detail.

Arranging is a very genre dependent topic. The common ways of arranging drum & bass differ a great deal from, let’s say, what folks tend to do in techno or electro pop with vocals. Even within the same genre, there are great differences in approaches. It’s not like there are hard and fast rules you must follow.

However… For creating intros, there is something that I find applies quite universally. It’s a piece of the puzzle that a lot of folks are missing, because they instinctively think arranging music should happen in a linear fashion. Are you catching my drift already?

So I wanted to share with you my #1 tip for making intros: Instead of working on the intro as the first thing in your arranging process, make it the last step. Stop thinking about arranging as a linear process. Nail the main idea of your song first. Then expand that to further sections. Only start focusing on the intro after you have plotted out the rest of the arrangement.

Why is this better? For two reasons.

1. How can you build the right kind of intro if you don’t know yet what kind of track it’s going to be exactly? Let the most important parts of the song shape up first. Then make the kind of intro your song needs.
2. When making the intro last, you can build it simply by using the already existing elements. It saves you the pain of having to come up with completely new ideas for the intro. It also makes sure your arrangement stays cohesive. It’s called “intro” for a reason – the idea is to introduce the listener to what is coming up next.

Following this process makes it much easier for you. And it makes the intro sound like a natural part of your song, instead of being forced or out of place.

Want me to listen to your music and get more specific thoughts about whatever you may be struggling with? I don’t have the time to do that for everyone. But I have set up a 1-on-1 tier in my Patreon for folks who do want to get personal. Ping me there and I’ll do my best to help you out.