Recreating the Genre I Hate Most - Bro Country [Songwriting + Structure + Arrangement]

I’ve posted the tabs for the solo and the mp3 at my Patreon:

Skip to 11:48 to just hear the full track
In this video, I show you how to make a modern pop country song, aka BRO COUNTRY. I walk through the arrangement and writing techniques used, from a heavy reliance on pentatonic minor and cookie-cutter song structure to more obscure harmonies and techniques.

I hate to be negative, and I don’t want to dismiss this genre outright. But you can’t like everything, and this genre just rubs me the wrong way for reasons that may become obvious in the video. That doesn’t mean it’s bad music though- you like what you like. There’s lots of “good music” in the jazz realm that I can not stand listening to, that doesn’t negate it. Similarly, there’s lots of simple pop that I enjoy regardless of its basic nature.


But even though I don’t believe in good music or bad music, I still believe in good natured criticism, and hopefully this video gets the point across- the genre is very easy to write. I believed that before going into this video and wasn’t sure how successful I’d be at recreating this genre, but now that it’s done I give myself a B+


I must say this isn’t my first crack at a writing a country song. A little while back, I produced and wrote a song with a local artist named Cara Jeanne, and we were aiming for a more mature version of a Taylor Swift song before she went full pop mode. If you’d like to hear that song, you can find it here:


I actually encourage you to do this sort of thing. It is a great way to build your skills and experience. As a modern professional composer, you don’t always have the luxury of writing in genres you like, so going way outside of your tastes like this is a surefire way to grow and evolve.


To expand on what happened with my harmonies- when It was only a parallel third, I liked it. But when I added in 6ths, it worked, but I felt it could be more interesting. Instead, I had the harmonies during the 2nd and 3rd choruses outline little bits of each chord tone as they tried their best to maintain a parallel motion. It didn't always work and I still don't like how they're mixed but it does add an incredible amount of interest to an otherwise simple pentatonic melody.

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