How to Write Beautiful Arpeggios • Music Theory from Swedish House Mafia "Ray Of Solar"

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How to Write
Beautiful Arpeggios.

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Intro.

If you play all the notes of a chord simultaneously, you’ll create an instant emotion in your listener. This is a powerful technique, and the most common way to play chords. While allowing a chord to unfold and reveal its emotion one note at a time is arguably less powerful, in the right context, it can be even more beautiful.

One such context is the new single “Ray Of Solar” by Swedish House Mafia. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to Swedish House Mafia before, and I don’t know anything about them, but when I was going through the new releases on Spotify, this song instantly stood out thanks to its beautiful arpeggio intro.

And yes, arpeggios are widely used, but they’re almost always boring. Most producers clearly don’t know how to be creative with arpeggios. And as Swedish House Mafia uses so many clever hacks to make their arpeggios creative, we simply had to share them with you.

So, inspired by “Ray Of Solar”, here’s our 6-step method for writing beautiful arpeggios that will definitely stand out. But first… Tea!

Step 1. Chords

The first hack that Swedish House Mafia uses to make their arpeggios far more captivating than most other arpeggios, is an incredibly long cycle. Sixteen bars!

When listening through the new releases every week, it’s rare to hear chord progressions that are eight bars long, let alone sixteen. That long cycle draws you in, because it keeps on going, which in turn spikes your curiosity as you’re (consciously or subconsciously) trying to work out the pattern, i.e. when it repeats.

So, create a track for strings or pad. You can use whatever you want, as long as it can play chords. At the very end, when you’ve finished writing your arpeggios, you can change the sound to a solo cello, like in “Ray Of Solar”. Solo cello will make your beautiful arpeggios even more beautiful, but that’ll have to wait till the end.

Next, set up sixteen bars of 4|4 with a 1/2 note grid, and your tempo at 135 BPM. Swedish House Mafia is in the key of F♯ minor, but we’ll use A minor instead, as it keep things simple because it’s just all the white notes. Here are the chords:

1	2	♭3	4	5	♭6	♭7
Am	Bdim	Cmaj	Dm	Em	Fmaj	Gmaj

Now, spend some time choosing four chords you like. You can use whichever chords you want, but start on the root chord (Am), as that will anchor your progression into the key. Here’s the chords we chose: Am → Cmaj → Dm → Em.

Once you’ve chosen your chords, draw them on the grid (each chord for two bars), and also draw the root of each chord below it. You’ll know why in a few minutes.

Eight-bar chord progression with root note of each chord below (highlighted)

Step 2. Changes

Now it’s time for the second hack that Swedish House Mafia uses to make their arpeggios standout. Instead of changing chords every two bars, they change to some chords in unexpected places (i.e. halfway through a bar). The surprise of this not only creates a more fluid and alive sounding progression, it also keeps the listener engaged due to its unpredictability. As always, you can do whatever you want here, but just be sure to keep your progression to eight bars (we’ll get to the other eight bars next). Here’s how long we played each chord for:

Am - two bars

Cmaj - one and a half bars

Dm - two and a half bars

Em - two bars

Progression with second chord shorted and third chord lengthened (highlighted)

Next, copy and paste your progression into the second half (bars nine to sixteen).

Chords copied and pasted into bars nine to sixteen (highlighted)

Step 3. Foundation

Right, here’s the third hack that Swedish House Mafia uses to make their arpeggios so beautiful. By simply moving the root chord (Am in our example) in bars nine and ten to another chord, they transform an eight-bar progression into a sixteen-bar progression. This is an awesome hack, as it’s so simple but so effective!

When bar nine arrives, the listeners are expecting the root chord again because they’re expecting the progression to loop. So when they get a different chord instead, their ears tell them the progression is continuing as opposed to repeating. And that different chord will surprise them so much that they won’t even notice the rest of the progression (bars eleven to sixteen) is actually an exact copy. Instead, they’ll perceive this as a sixteen-bar chord progression. It’s a brilliant hack!

So, spend some time now moving your root chord in bars nine and ten to a different chord. Don’t rush this chord choice. It can take a while to find the right chord, as it needs to sound good coming from the chord before, as well as going to the next chord. We chose Dm.

Chord changed in bars nine and ten (highlighted), which creates a sixteen-bar progression

Once you’ve found that chord, it’s time to delete all your chords. No seriously, I’m not joking. We’ve got far more fun things ahead than simple triads, so say goodbye to them. But, keep the root notes below each chord, as that’s your foundation.

Sixteen-bar chord progression with chords deleted, leaving only the root notes

Step 4. Roof

Now that you’ve got a solid foundation for your progression, it’s time to build the roof. This consists of one note that sounds good over all your chords’ root notes. This common note will beautifully tie your progression together. We chose D.

Common note (highlighted) played over all the chords’ root notes

Step 5. Walls

Now that you’ve built your foundation and your roof, it’s time to build the walls (i.e. the notes in between). While I wouldn’t recommend this method for building a house, it sure is a fun way to be more creative with arpeggios!

The hard work is already done, so this step is pretty easy. Simply play around with the notes of each triad. And remember, you don’t need to play the 5 of any chord. The root is essential, because it’s the foundation. The 3 is essential, because it determines the major/minor quality of the chord. But the 5 merely thickens the texture, which is nice, but not necessary. Also, if you don’t play the 5, that frees you up to play something else instead, like we did with our Cmaj, where we played two roots (see MIDI below).

What’s cool here, is that your “roof” note can result in a triad ending up as an extended chord. For example, in our progression, the “roof” note (D) turned our Cmaj into a Cmaj(add9) - for more on add chords, read Rhythmic Chords PDF.

Chords filled in (highlighted) between root notes below and common note above

Here’s a bonus Swedish House Mafia hack, which is totally optional. Where you’ve got a chord that’s longer than two bars, it may get boring. So, by playing the notes of that chord in two different positions (i.e. inverting it), you freshen up the chord.

If you’re new to inversions, it’s just playing the same notes but in a different order. If you want to use this hack, cut your long chord, then rearrange the notes in one.

We played two different positions of Dm7 - for more on 7th chords, read Rhythmic Chords PDF. We did this by cutting it and moving the A (5) down to D (1). This hack creates an illusion of changing chords due to the movement of notes, which is so clever, because the ear is tricked into thinking it’s a new chord, but it’s not.

Chord played for the longest duration is cut (highlighted) to rearrange notes

In the cut Dm7 chord, A (5) is moved down to D (1) [highlighted]

Now that you’ve finished the chords in the first half of your progression, copy and paste them into the second half. But, don’t copy your first chord, as that’s a different chord in the second half.

Chords copied and pasted into bars eleven to sixteen (highlighted)

And now you can fill in that gap with the “surprise” chord you chose in Step 3.

“Surprise” chord in bars nine and ten filled in (highlighted)

And if you want to spice up this surprise even more, you can use an inversion in this chord too. Use the same method as above. The chord is Dm7 in our progression, so we repeated the earlier Dm7 positions, which will give the listeners something familiar while also being surprised by a chord they weren’t expecting.

Chord in bars nine and ten cut (highlighted) to rearrange notes

The A (5) in our cut Dm7 chord is moved down to D (1) [highlighted]

Step 6. Scissors

Alright, this is the step you’ve been waiting for! So, sharpen your MIDI scissors, as they’re about to embark on a massive cutting job. First things first, though, change your grid to 1/8 notes. That’s the note value we’ll be using for our arpeggios.

Now (and this is super important), duplicate this track. Then on the duplicated track, delete the chords and keep only the root notes below. You can revisit this track later and add notes to it in order to turn this into your bass line. Next, on the original track, delete the root notes below and keep only the chords above them.

Root notes below are deleted, chords above remain (original track)

Also, feel free to duplicate your original track and play it the way it is (alongside your arpeggios). A warm pad sound on this track will provide a lovely harmonic backdrop for your arpeggios. This is what we did in our example.

Right, so there are numerous ways to slice up your chords into arpeggios. You can choose any of the options below and you’ll end up with beautiful arpeggios.

As there are four notes in each chord, to create pleasing arpeggios that are even in rhythm and duration (i.e. half a bar), you can start on the lowest note and ascend to the highest note - this is what Swedish House Mafia do in “Ray Of Solar”. Or, you can do the opposite. Start on the highest note and descend to the lowest note.

Those are the most common ways to play arpeggios. But, there are many other options too, like the arpeggio pattern we use. We start on our highest note, descend to our second highest note, then descend all the way to our lowest note, and then ascend to our second lowest note (see MIDI below).

You could also start on one of the middle notes. It’s totally up to you, so have fun playing around with the different options. The only caveat, though, is that whatever arpeggio pattern you choose, continue that pattern throughout your sixteen bars. This pattern will become familiar to your listeners, which will increase their enjoyment. The repetition is comforting, the chord changes are captivating.

And finally, change the sound on this track to a solo cello (if you want). Then sit back, click play, close your eyes, and enjoy your beautiful four-note arpeggios!

Final arpeggios, played on solo cello

Make Music You LOVE.

I know you want to be a confident producer who finishes songs, and loves the results. In order to become a confident producer, though, you need decades of knowledge and experience. To gain that knowledge, you need a good teacher. To gain that experience, you need decades of practice. That’s overwhelming!

I understand that searching for a good teacher is frustrating. Most courses are taught by YouTubers who are not qualified in music, and are not qualified teachers either. The few who are qualified in both, have no industry experience. I feel your pain. Truly. Most of my music teachers were bad. That’s why I studied music and education in order to become a lecturer, and why I created Hack Music Theory.

Also, over my 30+ years of composing, I developed a unique method called Song-Whispering, which I’ve used to make music with multiplatinum Grammy winners. In my one-of-a-kind online apprenticeship, you’ll learn my method and turbocharge your music with my decades of knowledge and experience.

Enroll Now and stop wasting years of your life learning from bad teachers and trying to get better through trial-and-error. Transform into the confident producer you would be in 10+ years now, and start loving your music!

Ray Harmony
Multi award-winning college lecturer, teaching since 1995
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