Post Malone Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson covering the style of Post Malone, an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer born in New York.


Music Style:
His music has been described as a "melting pot of the country, grunge, hip-hop and R&B", and that's because he blends different music genres including pop, trap and rock. In this lesson, I've composed a tune inspired by his most popular songs like "Wow", "Rockstar" and "Sunflower", but with a more guitar oriented arrangement.

The idea is to incorporate and introduce Trap and Hip-hop music here and to give it a guitar perspective. Most of the songs and artists based their music on electronic beats created with software like Fruity Loops or Ableton. However, there is a nice (at least for me) recent tendency to real instruments in order to get a more organic sound. This happens mostly on live shows, but it's also starting to happen on some artists/bands like Twenty One Pilots, Grandson, and off course Post Malone.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
We are talking about hit songs, so most of the chord progressions used here are based on the most used Pop chord progressions. Trap and Hip Hop have a "dark" and "sad" feel, most of the songs are based on minor keys. This composition is in G minor tonality (Aeolian mode) and as you can see in the main video, the chord progression is based on 2 chords: Gm (Im) and Eb (VI). The scale used for melodies is G minor aeolian, and as you will see in part 1, I tend to target chord tones.

Techniques:
There are not tricky techniques here so this is a great lesson for beginners that want to get into the pop/trap genre, and also for more advanced players that want to learn how to arrange a hit song. In this one I use the following techniques: Alternate Picking, Down picking, Double stops, Palm Muting, Slides and Vibrato.

Sound:
I used Fractal Ax8's Deluxe Verb, Cubase 9.5 to record audio and midi, Groove Agent for drums and Trillian for bass. I've also used Strymon Mobius Quadrature effect for the first melody. This effect emulates a classic ring modulator. Check the exact setting here:



Tuning: Standard 440.