Making beats is easy when you know how to get started. After you make your first couple of beats, you will get this process down. Don’t get involved with stealing other peoples beats. Be original in your beat making and it will pay off. You will earn peoples respect and build a strong sense of pride in your work. Use these tips to get you started on your way to some cool hip hop beats.

If you don’t know what samples are its time you learn. Samples are short recordings of music that you use to create your hip hop beats. To make them your own, play an instrument. You don’t have to know how to play it. Be creative and experiment with different combinations of notes. Use different instruments to record a variety of samples.

Sometimes it may not come to you, inspiration to put together a sample. So to help with this musical block, listen to music. Not just your favorite tunes, but a wide variety. Listen to classical. Listen to heavy metal. Listen to rap, hip hop, and country. The idea is to go long with what you listen to. Widen your exposure to music. It will inspire new and fresh samples.

After you create your short sample beats, move on to constructing your hip hop beats. Your samples are your guide, not your beat. Your samples are a starting point. Combine them, mix them, mold them into something new, fresh, full of hip, full of hop. Imagine building a puzzle. To help build your puzzle and keep your samples on tempo use a simple drum beat track.

Wrap up your beats by putting yourself into them. Insert how you feel. Add your joys, your sadness. Put your pain and emotion into them. At times be simple. At times become complex. When you feel inspired go with it. And most importantly, have fun with it. If you don’t enjoy it, why do it?

Read Aaron’s article about how to make hip hop beats.