My creative process behind composing a jingle.

Music is a universal language.

A language that everyone speaks. Music communicates feelings and emotions that can be felt by everyone at some capacity. This in particular resonates with us musicians, who have a way of communicating ideas using our instruments as our voice; and notes, rhythms and phrasing as our vocabulary.

For his upcoming podcast, I was recently asked by a good friend to write a jingle - a short, memorable tune to pull in the audience. Time to put on the creativity hat.

Note: music lingo ahead.

It’s going to be a light - hearted podcast filled with banter, so immediately I could hear a swung rhythm, which has a distinctive type of ‘bounce’ (think Stevie Wonder - Isn’t She Lovely). I decided on a moderate tempo - 110bpm - to build enough energy and excitement, while keeping it chill, like a small gathering of mildly tipsy mates. After all, that’s what I would picture as the perfect scenario for brewing witty discussions.

For the chord progression I drew inspiration from the standard 12 - bar blues. There’s just something so laid-back and cool about it, where there’s a nice balance between tension and resolve (think Stevie Ray Vaughn - Pride and Joy). For this piece however I leaned more into building tension. I wanted to give the listener a wave of excitement when the dissonant chords resolved at the end. To facilitate this, I drew from the genre of jazz - a pioneer of complex and unconventional chords that work together like yin and yang.

A jingle wouldn’t be memorable without some sort of catchy melody. I could hear a simple, yet goofy Rhodes piano melody that would hook the listener at the start. Although repetition can make something catchy, I didn’t want the melody to lose meaning by having it played too much. Instead I decided to slip in a flavourful jazzy guitar riff to retain the listener. The chromatic runs in the riff would also complement the tension built through the underlying chord progression.

Finally, beyond rhythm - keeping, the drums were paramount at highlighting accents and fills. These two elements are very important in creating a sense of flow and rhythmic excitement. While the kick, snare and ride kept groove, the crash would create dynamic highlights every few bars, and the toms would create percussive variation leading into the next segments.

Take a listen to the jingle here.