u/KingAlexGilbert

When we all start out, we are trash, bottom of the barrel, nails on a chalkboard connoisseurs. Instead of flowing on a beat, we get lost in it. We mumble and ramble our way with no coherent patterns or story to the end of the instrumental.

Everyone starts here, I think I am just now getting out of this rough patch of learning. It took me two LONG years of studying, grinding, and adapting, though.

This makes me wonder, how long did it take all of you until you made the beat bend to you, instead of the other way around?

How long did it take until you started flowing well on instrumentals and people​ actually enjoyed your raps?​ ​

I posted this in r/makinghiphop but my exact question didn't get answered. I think they thought my question was basically "how do I flow?", when I was more asking "Could this way be a blueprint to learning how to flow?".

This is what I said in the post and my method:

I have struggled for years now with how to flow on a rap beat. Claps, snares, kicks, hi-hats, I saw their patterns, but didn't ever know how to slide my vocals in nicely to get a good flow. I would think I did REALLY well, only for other people to hear it and say, "I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard."

So, I quit rapping for a few months after years of progress, until a really talented beatmaker gave me an instrumental to rap on. It was an extremely complex beat, yet it had one element I understood well: a simple piano melody. With that piano, I could actually count the bars in a song. When I started writing lyrics, I came up with this strategy.

The piano keys hit 8 times before resetting. That means they hit twice in a bar, then loop after 4. The 1st and 5th piano keys hit with more intensity than the others. I made sure every word I wrote landed exactly with the piano strike.

So, the piano goes:

DUH duh duh duh DUH duh duh duh

So, I write:

LIVE it up and THROW it back down.

That is my chorus repeated 6 times, with the beat getting more complex.

A few lines in the verse go:

YOU can't un-der-STAND my pain (pause)
YOU can't un-der-STAND my struggles
YOU can't un-der-STAND my name (pause)

I made sure the syllables lined up with the piano keys, and when I came up short, I added a pause.

My most complex lines go:

MUSICALLY illiterate
CONFUSINGLY ignorant
FOOLISHLY belligerent

I didn't focus on the extra SFX: the claps, snares, kicks, bells, jingles, shakers. I, at some parts, forgot they were even in the track. I just locked in on the piano melody and made my words/syllables strike at the same time.

My question is, can this rapping process work? If everything on the beat is musically sound, can I write my lyrics to only one element while ignoring the rest and have it turn out just as fine?

I know it is hard to judge without hearing the actual track, but is my overall train of thought on the right path?

Thank you for your help!

TL;DR: If you ONLY write to the melody of the track, ignoring other elements like kick, snare, clap, hi-hats, can you still have a good flow​?

​I have struggled for years now with how to flow on a rap beat. Claps, snares, kicks, hi-hats, I saw their patterns, but didn't ever know how to slide my vocals in nicely to get a good flow. I would think I did REALLY well, only for other people to hear it and say, "I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard."

So, I quit rapping for a few months after years of progress, until a really talented beatmaker gave me an instrumental to rap on. It was an extremely complex beat, yet it had one element I understood well: a simple piano melody. With that piano, I could actually count the bars in a song. When I started writing lyrics, I came up with this strategy.

The piano keys hit 8 times before resetting. That means they hit twice in a bar, then loop after 4. The 1st and 5th piano keys hit with more intensity than the others. I made sure every word I wrote landed exactly with the piano strike.

So, the piano goes:

DUH duh duh duh DUH duh duh duh

So, I write:

LIVE it up and THROW it back down.

That is my chorus repeated 6 times, with the beat getting more complex.

A few lines in the verse go:

YOU can't un-der-STAND my pain (pause)
YOU can't un-der-STAND my struggles
YOU can't un-der-STAND my name (pause)

I made sure the syllables lined up with the piano keys, and when I came up short, I added a pause.

My most complex lines go:

MUSICALLY illiterate
CONFUSINGLY ignorant
FOOLISHLY belligerent

I didn't focus on the extra SFX: the claps, snares, kicks, bells, jingles, shakers. I, at some parts, forgot they were even in the track. I just locked in on the piano melody and made my words/syllables strike at the same time.

My question is, can this rapping process work? If everything on the beat is musically sound, can I write my lyrics to only one element while ignoring the rest and have it turn out just as fine?

I know it is hard to judge without hearing the actual track, but is my overall train of thought on the right path?

Thank you for your help!

TL;DR: If you ONLY write to the melody of the track, ignoring other elements like kick, snare, clap, hi-hats, can you still have a good flow​?