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I really want to try my hand at making music, so I figured I'd start trying to learn music theory. Currently going through musictheory.net, and I have How to Compose Music open in another tab for after that - so far so good. I still feel like despite learning this stuff, I don't know if it will help me actually make good music. It might help me identify when I've written something bad, but I don't know yet whether I'll be able to write something good instead. I'm worried that all it will do is reveal how terrible I am and how many years I'd need to practice to get good.  I'm 31, so I feel like I'm starting way too late to try and make music. Oh well, not like I have anything good to do for the next few decades.In more chill news, this one lesson played a B major triad, I heard it and went "wait a minute", tracked it out in Renoise, and then I got this for the first result for "that one waltz". 
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Sep 28, 2021 15:42
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Hawkperson posted:Never too late! But you’re right, learning theory should really be interspersed with like, doing stuff or it’s no fun. Grab something like Musescore (it’s free) if you want to practice your western notation skills or a DAW like Soundtrap (has a limited free version iirc) if you want to do loops and stuff and go to town I bought Renoise forever ago, so as long as I have some VSTs or samples or whatever an .xrni is, I can make something. Nothing I've made is longer than maybe 4 measures, and are mostly just random melodies or beats that I don't want to forget. I still don't know how to 1. put down melodies, beats, and harmonies that work well together, and 2. continue to expand on a single melody+harmony+beat combination to create an actual song. Maybe that will come with time. Booyah- posted:I think this is my favorite part of learning theory, you get to connect what your ear already knows and put words to it, then you start noticing it all over and recognize "oh this other song starts with a major triad" or "that's definitely a dominant 7th chord" or "a lot of these songs start on the 3rd of the tonic" That...might take a while if they're entire chords. I'm bad at picking out notes from a chord just by listening. It's a lot easier when they're broken up into like...individual notes (intervals???).
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Sep 28, 2021 17:06
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Helianthus Annuus posted:i got a lot out of this, and i think you will too: https://hookpad.hooktheory.com/! I’ll check it out, thanks!! I used to play piano as a kid. Parents forced me into it and I really did not enjoy the pressure or time taken out of my day to do it, so I never developed any muscle memory or anything. I still think of music in terns of piano, and I’m not afraid of a keyboard per se - it’s just far easier to write it all down and have a computer do it for me. Renoise is a tracker, like you would find on the Amiga. People used to write chiptunes on them. Apparently they’re kinda dated  but I find them straightforward, easy to understand, and flexible enough for my purposes. I’m not gonna be orchestrating poo poo anytime soon. Gimme some samples and VSTs and I’m happy.My tastes are kinda eclectic. Video game music (especially FM synth), 80s rock, industrial, not-ridiculous jpop, soundtrack, whatever this is. Celtic and folk are nice too, some old blues and funk bands are great, and I’m recently intrigued by prog rock. Some people find classical boring and often yeah, but there’s hype poo poo in classical too. I was a NIN fan as a kid, listened to all sorts of retro game OSTs, and I listened to some ELP recently, that was good! Still need to check out bands like Yellow Magic Orchestra and such. I don’t have a singular influence. I’ll cop to one inadvisable thing: my recent obsession has been Toby Fox’s music. Like goddamn!!! How does he do it!!! It’s good poo poo! I can’t figure out what his influences are or what exactly he does aside from “piano lol”, though. I don’t want to replicate his style, but I do want to pick apart his stuff and figure out why it’s good, for my own purposes. Lily Catts posted:The biggest takeaway I have from music theory is that it's descriptive, not prescriptive. It tells you why something like a chord progression works and why it sounds good, but that doesn't mean you should be using that progression. It's more to arm people with the knowledge and vocabulary of figuring out things for themselves. Absolutely, yeah. This seems to be answering the question of “why is X good” rather than “how do I make X good thing”, which is fine by me. That said, I’m still not at a grand level, and I want to at least know what else I can do. Just takes developing my ear, I guess. Hawkperson posted:There’s a reason we all swoon over Beethoven and co in the stuffy classical music corners, it’s because making two minutes of decent music is hard enough, making a full hour of listenable poo poo is god-tier Christ don’t I fuckin know it. I can’t even wake up the next morning and like what I’ve made
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 01:08
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That reminds me. I ended up heavily modifying the harmony to this grand and cheesy piano...crescendo-thing-does-it-have-a-name?, and if you change the harmony you might be advised to change melody to match. But 1. I kinda like it as-is and 2. I don't really know how to change it to fit the new harmony anyway. https://voca.ro/1b6dDRtoQpvX The harmony goes G-B-E, G-A-D, G-C-E, G-A-D. The melody is a gradual inclusion of G-C-F-A#. I think that means I ended up writing the harmony in E minor (E-F♯-G-A-B-C-D), while the melody is .Harmony 1 is an inverted E minor chord (G-B-E/3-5-1 instead of E-G-B/1-3-5). Harmony 2 and 3 are, uh...other notes in that scale. Looking at the piano, I guess that makes the harmony's progression:1. Third-fifth-root 2. Third-fourth-seventh 3. Third-sixth-root 4. Third-fourth-seventh I mean, if it sounds good, then no problem, right? I'm sure it's something done before, but I don't know enough to recognize it. Melody...no idea. I could change it to G-C-F#-A to match the notes in E minor, but that sounds extremely gross, so I think I'm good. What is happening in the harmony, exactly? And how does the melody relate to it? If it doesn't, is there a good reason I should bring it in line? Also, I guess I'm doing piano at the moment. 'spose I should look up some nice piano pieces for research and enjoyment. --- I also still need to figure out how to properly balance the volume and "force" of the harmony vs the melody. They're kinda competing, almost, and it's hard to pick one out over the other. Is there a name for that? --- EDIT: I also realized that I could split each bar (48 lines in Renoise with an LPB of 6) into either 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 or 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2. The way it's written in the tracker, there's 12 lines per 1/4 of the bar. What's even the time signature here...? 3/4, maybe 6/8 cause 3 + 3 + 2 = 8? Or something else? Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 14:38
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Phew, hectic work week over, so now I can respond.Helianthus Annuus posted:reminds me of the first few seconds of the FF6 intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDMWp1oLoA0 Hah, I was thinking it sounded like Final Fantasy music too, so I racked my brain and scoured Youtube. I think it's actually the intro to Hunter's Chance. Even when I try to be original it copies someone better than me  quote:IMO the most important information to take from music theory is the conventions around talking about music. Yeah, there's a hell of a lot of terminology I gotta brush up on. It'll be good to have an actual language to speak, though. quote:So, here's a term you can use to describe your music: When your bass note stays the same, and the other notes change, you can call that constant bass note a "Pedal point" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_point Good to know, thanks. I assume the bass note isn't necessarily the tonic, correct? quote:When you are talking about harmony, its easier to read chord symbols than it is to see groups of notes. G-B-E, G-A-D, G-C-E, G-A-D could be written G6, Gsus2, G6sus4, Gsus2. Or, since we have a G pedal note in the bass, it could be written as "slash chords": Em/G, Asus4/G, C/G, Asus4/G. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_chord How did you figure out that G-B-E was G6, G-A-D was Gsus2, and G-C-E was G6sus4? Similarly, how did you figure out that G-B-E is also Em, G-A-D is also Asus4, and G-C-E is also C (and not e.g. A minor which also has G C and E)? quote:As a guitarist, I prefer the slash chord notation. I used this tool to help me name these chords https://www.oolimo.com/guitarchords/analyze o  Well in that case, I have another question. When I made that clip, I always had G on the bottom. That's because if this was an actual piano or if it was three individual instruments, that configuration results in the smallest amount of movements for each finger or player. I got that tip from 8 Bit Music Theory's video on voicing and voiceleading. Is that something I should stick to as closely as possible in all instrumentation, even if it means that the key's actual tonic isn't the bass note?quote:Anyway, I mostly agree with the characterization of E minor, except for the presence of the A# in the melody. I can hear that G-C-F-A# is just ascending in perfect 4ths. Considering that, and the sus2 and sus4 chords in your harmony, I would rather call this some kind of quartal harmony, rather than say its E minor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartal_and_quintal_harmony what quote:Most of our conventions around music theory involve discussing harmony built from major 3rds and minor 3rds, not harmony built from perfect 4ths. If you want, you can call that Tertian Harmony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertian Yeah I'll stick to tertian from now on I don't have the brain cells for this  quote:maybe someone else can help you. i would just tell you to play guitar I tried to learn once! I found it physically difficult to play (I had and still have small, weakass hands). I still feel bad about wasting my guitar teacher's time. quote:ya its "Dynamics" sweet thanks ill add that to my wikipedia crawls quote:i think the melody should be louder than the harmony notes! you could also choose a different instrument for the harmony and melody. It might just be because I've mostly been loving around with piano so far, but I haven't explored using different instruments for melody and harmony. I really should, since a lot of the good stuff is varied in that sense. quote:i think its just 4/4 time, because thats the "default," and because i can count 4 beats between when you change the harmony. Interesting. Taking a look at the first part in Renoise:  It definitely splits into two sets of four beats. I guess that makes it two measures. Each beat is split up into 6 sub-beats, and I don't really know what that's called. I might be punching way above my weight here and trying to make something more complex than it needs to be - I'm gonna stick to common time for now just so things are predictable. --- Anyway, I got it into my head yesterday that I was gonna compose a waltz, because why not shoot for the loving moon apparently!! So I present to you all: I Don't Know What A Waltz Is because a waltz is just 3/4 time and some strings, right? I can't even guarantee it's in 3/4 I mean, it's not bad. It's weird, but it's not bad. Aside from the harmony being odd, it's got a nice melody. I really like how the lead violin and the backing viola play off of each other. The violin is generally active when the viola isn't, and vice versa. I can't explain why I did that, I just sort of did. Something about where the violin goes compared to where the viola goes is compelling, and I can't explain why. The violin tends to go up where the viola goes down, or something like that. And each phrase(???) ends on a note that wants to resolve to something, I assume the chord tones. I like that, I think it keeps it moving(?). Is there a term for that? The overall piece has this tension, uncertainty, and nervousness to it that is fascinating to me, but that I haven't really seen elsewhere. Actually, I can't think of any music I've heard that's similar to this. It sounds like it could be some sort of tutorial battle music in a strategy RPG or something. The progression is Dm -> Gm -> Am -> back to Dm. I think that makes it i-iv-v? Not at all typical, and god I think I'm developing a cliche of using minor keys and weird progressions. This also taught me how much loving work goes into making anything longer than maybe 15~30 seconds. This thing only reaches ~1m45s because I looped each section twice. Is that only because I'm inexperienced, or is it always like this? Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 17:16
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Helianthus Annuus posted:i have noticed that it's typical for pianists to have had a bad experience learning music as a kid... im glad you are changing your relationship to music now. It's always been a one-sided relationship. I love it and am fascinated by it, but it has never worked well with me and has always been kinda inaccessible (no access to audio workstations as a kid, no formal training aside from "loving learn piano already", lovely laptop until recently, no time to focus on it, etc.). quote:i like video game music too, but a lot of this other music is out of my wheelhouse. i will try to bring my perspective tho, fwiw You definitely don't have to like the same music I do to give good advice! So far this is very helpful.
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Oct 2, 2021 17:26
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Hawkperson posted:Yes, your waltz is in 3 and you can absolutely call it a waltz. The restricting criteria of a waltz is mostly in the dancing and your waltz is very danceable (also even that is up to one’s discretion; there’s more than a few classical “waltzes” that aren’t very good for dancing to). Lots of them have that “boom chick chick” accompaniment pattern but it’s not a requirement at all. ooooo  Alright, it’s successfully waltzable then! More than I expected going in, to be honest.Helianthus Annuus posted:I wouldn't think to use the word "tonic" to talk about that G in the bass, because it doesn't change. I think of "tonic" as something you resolve to, and the tension only increases in this recording. Huh, okay. Interesting. I’ve been thinking of “tonic” as the answer to the question “no, really, what key is this in?”. I guess it’s not that simple. quote:I think that kind of voice leading sounds great, so i encourage it! but, i like to hear the bass note move around, not just stay the same -- so i would would like it if you use that smooth voice leading in the "inner voices" but give me some tasteful movement of the bass note. That is a good point. It did feel a little boring…definitely something worth exploring with other compositions. Helianthus Annuus posted:thanks for saying that Hah, FFT makes sense. Uematsu didn’t compose its soundtrack, oddly enough. Funny coincidence. Listening to it again, I actually also hear a bit of this one track from Tsukihime…I don’t know if that’s just cause I used strings, though. quote:Dm -> Gm -> Am is not so unusual -- the chords are all from D minor! the i-iv-v rearranged in terms of its relative major (F major) gives you: vi ii iii -- the chords are all diatonic (means: no borrowed notes). Yeah, I recalled that I-IV-V is a common progression, so I figured I’d do the same here. (I just looked up the progressions online.) Looks like that progression might not sound the same for every chord, but it was nice enough so I went ahead. Never thought of it in terms of its relative major - that might be a good way to look at chords I’m unsure of…I’ll take a look at the differences between natural and harmonic, too! quote:Regarding the motion of the violin against the viola: it sound like you are describing counterpoint! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapuntal_motion Nice, so there is a name. I love that poo poo in music, it gives it this complex, well-developed quality that I find impressive. quote:EDIT: oh i forgot to give homework: play (or just track) these chords F -> Gm -> Am -> B -> C -> Dm -> E diminished (same as E minor, but with a flat-5 instead of a perfect 5th). The takeaway: these are the diatonic chords of F major (and of D minor), in order I ii ii IV V vi vii (or in D minor: III iv v VI VII i ii) So I get that F major and D minor are related, but is there anything about that relationship you can take advantage of when composing? Like, is there a particular trick to thinking of a minor pattern as majors or vice versa?
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Oct 3, 2021 03:13
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Also Occam’s razor dictates that the whole thing with those chords from before was definitely just me fuckin around.
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Oct 3, 2021 03:15
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Also I think it's actually F -> Gm -> Am -> Bb -> C -> Dm -> Edim 
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Oct 3, 2021 18:50
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Pollyanna posted:Anyway, I got it into my head yesterday that I was gonna compose a waltz, because why not shoot for the loving moon apparently!! So I present to you all: So I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and I can tell there’s lots of room for improvement, but I’m unsure of what or how. One thing I identified was the rhythm - it’s very one-note. It’s always a heavy accent on 1, which is sort of an artifact of how I composed it. I mean it kinda works, cause this was never meant to be a fast-paced or exciting song, moreso contemplative and focused, but I can’t help but think that it’s too insistent and lacking in variety rhythm wise. I might try mucking about with it, maybe delay the melody by an eighth or some bullshit. Also oops there was a post: Helianthus Annuus posted:you are not wrong, you can think of "tonic" as another word for the I chord, or for the first scale degree. Got it. I should really brush up on roman notation, I think it’s a pretty critical component that I’m missing or at least lacking in. quote:a chord progression should have the same effect on the listener, regardless of the key. but you should think of I - IV - V in a major key and i - iv - v in a minor key as different progressions. Very fair! It might not be the exact same progression but it was still good, so hey. quote:you can think of them as the very same key -- they have the scale degrees (notes), the same diatonic chords. It’s not that strange, a song has to come to rest somewhere. But yeesh yeah this is getting more complex than I expected, guess I got a lot to ramp up on. I still need to wrap my head around the circle of fifths and these modes, too.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:03
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Helianthus Annuus posted:IMO the melodies should be singable. From a singing standpoint, its kind of hard to sing this tune! Maybe a trained vocalist could make it happen, not me. Huh. Never really thought of it that way. That's one advantage that scores (and I suppose piano rolls) have over trackers - it's a lot more obvious how each note relates to the ones next to it. Maybe I should sketch the first part out in Musescore real quick -  What the gently caress? Uh, so a lot of the choices I made for sketching out a melody followed this video. Basically, each strong beat gets a note in the current chord. Any note. Which explains why it jumps around so much, and why it's so insistent on the strong beat.  It was enough to get me off the ground, but I should probably investigate other composition techniques.quote:But on the other hand, all of the motion HAS to come from the melody, because the harmony gets stuck on the same chord for a long time! Nothing wrong with that, everything has its place. You could put in faster chord changes, and that might be easier to come up with a cool melody -- one that moves thru the chord changes by making use of the chord tones! But it would be a totally different song.. Eh, I shouldn't get too attached to a single composition. There's interesting stuff happening in it, sure, but nothing I can't either mine later or grow past. As for the harmony being stuck on the same chord, yeah, by the time I started thinking about the harmony (i.e. the bass-y backing, uh, stuff) I was wiped out from sketching the melody, countermelody, and whatever that loving flute is supposed to be. So, I just left it as a reminder of what chord (key???) it was on. Can you tell I have no idea what I'm doing? quote:Rhythmically, maybe try experimenting with more triplet rhythms? I guess this is how you program them into your tracker: https://forum.renoise.com/t/new-tool-3-1-place-selected-notes-evenly/45426 Interesting - I'll try those out! quote:Other than that, maybe it would be good to do some faithful transcriptions/arrangements of your favorite melodies into your tracker, and then put wild, colorful chords underneath that melody to make something new? I've been transcribing some stuff, like from Deltarune, Devilish, etc. Most recently, I did Track 01 from Tsukihime (don't judge me too harshly). I came up with this, and besides the guitar VST being crap, it's a good example of countermelodies/counterharmonies. I like it a lot specifically for that! But it's really hard to understand the progression and how each note relates to each other when you view it in a tracker, which makes me want to switch to something with a piano roll instead. quote:I wouldn't get too hung up the modes! There's another way to think about them, where you mutate the major scale in place instead of shifting it around. It's easier for me to think about it this way: Interesting...I still don't quite understand what these modes are used for, but I'll definitely be investigating these! Maybe they can help inform how to make a good melody+harmony? quote:Regarding the circle of fifths: pick a starting key, lets say C. The keys on either side have all but one notes in common, F and G. But as you move further away from C, the number of common notes drops, with the fewest common notes between keys on opposite sides of the circle. C and Gb/F# Okay, so if I want to change key (which is separate from chord progressions, right?), I should consult the circle for the difficulty in doing so depending on my target key. I suppose I'd need to figure out what key I should move to - is that different from chord progressions? I still don't quite get the difference between being in a certain key (e.g. D minor), playing a certain chord (e.g. D minor I), and playing notes in a scale (all the notes in a D minor). The difference between a key change and a chord progression is also a little confusing to me. For example, I can tell that some short of shift is happening in the key/notes/scale in Track 01, but I can't identify what.
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Oct 19, 2021 17:10
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Got it. In that case, analyzing more complex compositions might make things hard on me. I tried applying this analysis to Track 01 listed up there, and the harmony (the lower octave piano notes) goes C->D->B->C. But that doesn't seem to be enough to figure out a chord progression (prolly cause there isn't one). I did find that the melody piano is always roughly about 5 semitones above the harmony piano, and checking the notes when you do that reveals that the notes are something like C D E F# G A B. Based on the above, that'd make the melody piano...C lydian + 5 semitones or something? I have no idea what's going on, and it's probably more worthwhile to analyze other compositions.
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Oct 19, 2021 20:54
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I thought G is the V of C, not B? I ii vii I is the closest to what I identified, yeah - but we might be splitting hairs in the end. Agonizing over exactly what the progression is is less important than the music itself. I also really need to internalize music theory as a descriptive lens rather than a set of building blocks. I've started to get too far in the weeds there and get distracted from actually creating.
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Oct 20, 2021 00:28
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It's a random track in a visual novel from 2000, I wouldn't expect music theory to have accounted for it. It sounds nice to me, but I'm insane, so it doesn't have to make sense through that lens.Helianthus Annuus posted:this Track 01 is weird, it doesn't sound like the music I listen to! might be hard for me to analyze it too. Complete shot in the dark here: maybe it's just not western convention? This is a Japanese composition, after all. I know that a lot of Japanese composers took inspiration from eastern modes and music theory, e.g. Ryu Umemoto used a lot of concepts from Zen Buddhism in his works. quote:something about the B in the bass... i find that disagrees with the notes in the other voices. And as i said, its unusual that the melody starts on an F over a C chord in the key of C major. I think I might know why that's done. Compare the original to this version with the melody piano and guitar pitched down by five semitones. When you do that, the melody and harmony start to look very similar:  And if you apply the same to the backup harmony (the strings), they also start to match:  But as you can hear in the previous clip, it all kind of blends together. It still sounds very nice, but it's a bit dour and monotone. It's important to note that the song isn't meant to be completely grounded and happy - in context, it represents a hospitable yet unfamiliar environment in the game. My guess is that the song was originally written with everything in the same chord(s), but for the sake of harmonic variance and clarity, everything besides the bass piano track was pitched up five semitones. That'd explain why the melody starts on F instead of C. Why five semitones, I don't know - but it sounds nice to me. Five semitones up from C would make a perfect fourth, right? I don't really know what a perfect fourth is used for, but I recall that it has a measure of tension when compared to I, so maybe it's intended to elicit that. Investigation also led me to Laideronette by Ravel, which is very pretty indeed! And hilariously enough, the entire composition is clearly influenced by Japonism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MSZKjaSOrw quote:can you show me where that F# is? I'm trying to hear a F#, but i just hear the F at the start. and F# sounds out when i play it on my guitar! I dont doubt that it could have been used somewhere in the middle without me noticing, tho. When the strings first come in, they play (A-E)-(G-D)-(F#-C#). (A-E) and (F#-C#) are on the one-beat. It adds some nice tension and uncertainty, but I have no idea why it happens. Maybe there's a key change...?
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Oct 20, 2021 15:45
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Helianthus Annuus posted:thinking about this one again.. I'm glad you like it! It doesn't surprise me that the second and third parts are better, the first part was written with (basically) a typing keyboard in mind, and it wasn't played live. That explains why it jumps around so goddamn much. It also followed these tips to writing a melody, and I needed to fill in some notes to go from D6 to F6 to A5. Cause I wanted a curve that still had the notes in D-F-A (which is just C-E-G shifted up one white key ).Agreed on too many melodic ideas. I spent like an entire day on the thing trying to add something new wherever I could. Interesting to note that they're competing against each other, cause the more I listen to it the more that makes sense. Especially that goddamn flute. There's good stuff in here, and there's a bunch of individual musical ideas that sound good, and some of them play off of each other well! Part 2's lead melody and countermelody, and part 3's countermelody are my favorite parts. Just that the rest doesn't play along well. It's a bunch of ideas thrown together without much thought to the overall composition, which is probably why the melody+countermelody is my favorite part.
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Oct 20, 2021 16:01
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Triple post!! I've been reading about the difference between tonality (major and minor) and modality (Ionian et al.). I think that might explain a lot of what I've composed in the past - I tend to stick to the white keys, but instead just start from D or F or something. That's effectively modal, not tonal, and I've been trying to fit all of my old compositions into majors/minors when they never were to begin with. Man. This hurts my head. I'm just gonna make music and see what happens.
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Oct 20, 2021 19:43
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Speaking of voice leading, this video in voicing and voice leading was incredibly helpful and also just good fun. Also Final Fantasy music! https://youtu.be/itj-6S1pMQ4 Helianthus Annuus posted:ya if you are using the white keys on the piano, and treating some note other than C as the root (or tonic) then you can call it modal. I dunno if its correct to say its "not tonal" though. I dont really know what it means to be "not tonal," other than like Schoenberg's stuff. Yeah I think what I meant to say is that I ended up developing via modes rather than major/minor. Maybe. Head hurty. quote:speaking of chip tunes, video game music, do you like the Cave Story OST? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFbr3kjReok Pixel’s phenomenal, yeah, and Cave Story is a banger of an OST. It’s a good reminder that music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive, and you don’t need it to make good music. I haven’t listened to the OST in a while, I should give it another go. I think it also has a lot of influence on me, somehow…it’s hard to talk about my influences when it basically boils down to video games and bands like Nine Inch Nails
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Oct 24, 2021 |
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Oct 24, 2021 21:13
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Well, you know what I mean. People intuitively know when they hear good music, so you can make something good entirely by iterating on it and teasing it out.
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Oct 25, 2021 18:46
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My foray into composition continues, and oh poo poo this is hard actually.  The more music theory I learn, the more I can recognize in other (western) music. But that doesn’t exactly translate into composition skills…there’s so much more than just knowing keys and scales and the circle of fifths. Makes for fun videos, though.
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Oct 27, 2021 02:32
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Video game music is just a large chunk of my influence. I didn't necessarily come into this to make video game music, just music in general. Delving into music theory was a way to dip my toes in and wrap my head around exactly what the gently caress was going on, what was likely to sound good, and why I liked the things I liked. For creating, it's helped me think of what to reach for first, but what I end up really proud of has nothing to do with it. It is my hope that by analyzing tracks using music theory, it will become easier to make music, the music I make will improve significantly, that I will become more confident in what I make, and that I will be able to make something I’m truly proud of and that is impressive. I’m looking for a way to actually be good at what I do, and my hope was that music theory would fit for that. That said, yeah, video game music (especially more retro music) doesn't really make a lot of sense from a typical western music theory perspective:  https://vocaroo.com/1eUx44Di6f9W G mixolydian ( ) and a big ol' sus2 for the harmony, and then it becomes A minor. And not a fifth in sight! 
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 28, 2021 |
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Oct 28, 2021 02:21
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I'm watching an 8-Bit Music Theory video on Nier (some of the best soundtracks, ever, both main games, I'll fight you on this) and this cropped up: What does "brightness" mean in this context? I know brightness in terms of synth, which refers to the upper harmonic content of a sound, but that doesn't really make sense here.
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Nov 3, 2021 18:38
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Voice leading very good, though I don’t claim to be a master at it or any other construct. I really need to get back to composing, I’m distracted by hardware
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Nov 23, 2021 18:04
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sus4 is my favorite chord, I think. I default to it a lot
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Nov 27, 2021 18:07
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Helianthus Annuus posted:i think you just love quartal harmony! i do too. yoooooooo hell yeah this is super cool tytyty EDIT: Ahahaha, something about this was familiar, and sure enough, check out the upwards motion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOy_AQrSw6U&t=24s Stacked fourths, D G C F A#. The best part is that A# pings A, which is the major third of F - and the fifth is also present because of C. It actually resolves! Also, I never noticed the original battle theme intro underlying it  Good poo poo, my dude. a.p. dent posted:i guess i was the one who said it was descriptive recently. i just mean that it describes music without judgement, it's up to you to decide if traditional harmony sounds good to you or if you want to branch out. but yes, it also tells you what are the "standard sounds" and that stuff is standard for good reason Lol nah I've said that recently too. IMO I think we're conflating "music theory is derived from what we hear and perceive, it's not the source of truth for how to make good music" with "music doesn't have any rules whatsoever and you can do what you want cause it doesn't really matter". It clearly does matter, cause it has structure and exhibits patterning - it's just that it's not as simple as writing a bunch of steps down like an 8th grade math formula and following them. Or at least, those steps and identifications don't explain everything. There's no GUT. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Nov 30, 2021 |
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Nov 30, 2021 15:03
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What exactly is it when you transpose a phrase by a few semitones? It's some sort of key change, but I'm having trouble quickly identifying what. Say, for example, that I have this sorta chugging placeholder bassline for a metal(-ish) track in IIRC A minor: https://voca.ro/1gm0ee1UoJeB It starts off in the key of A minor (A B C D E F G), then drops two semitones down to what I think is G Aeolian (G A B♭ C D E♭ F G). I haven't really studied diatonic scales, and am really only used to whatever's happening with majors and minors. So, I don't know if this is a common pattern despite it showing up a lot if you just gently caress around and transpose by a small number of semitones. Does transposing entire phrases by a number of semitones (aside from a perfect fifth, obviously) have a particular name? Is it a known thing?
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May 29, 2022 19:41
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Is it really a chord progression in a single key if it shifts to incorporate notes that aren't in the home key (i.e. B♭)?
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May 29, 2022 20:08
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i moveds my hands down two semis and makededs the notes what look like g aeolian on wikipedia
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Jun 1, 2022 03:09
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G minor is two semitones away from A minor???? 
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Jun 1, 2022 03:26
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IME drums are a very “gently caress it sounds good” part. And historically artists “borrow” drum patterns from other artists all the time, they’re not quite like a melody or something that’s more unique or nameable. These two videos are pretty much all I know about drums. https://youtu.be/voXkdxjyqRM https://youtu.be/FoMmVlAvjmM I haven’t watched these two videos, but they seem interesting. https://youtu.be/kT_kojcfIX8 https://youtu.be/TKodQQD9AmE Come up with a few patterns, do a small fill at the end of every 4 measures, do a big fill before you change drum patterns. Vary up the drum line over the course of the track by making stuff quieter or louder or more or less hectic, etc. Understand syncopation and anticipation+approach notes (both rhythmic and tonal) and what a groove is. That’s about all I know and (try to) do. Uhhh some other content I guess idk https://youtu.be/ItsMmqTOgKo Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jun 14, 2022 |
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Jun 14, 2022 19:00
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This is more of a techniques question, I guess. What exactly is going on around 1:40 here? https://youtu.be/ypuaJLHK_LQ?t=1m40s This is something I’ve seen a lot on guitar or bass, generally as part of a solo or fancy bassline. The notes flow freely one after another in almost a purposeful fashion, but I can’t figure out the pattern if there is one. They’re cool as poo poo and I wanna write good bass and solos, but idk what I’m doing most of the time so Is this something that would be outright composed, or is it just flitting up and down a particular scale?
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Jun 21, 2022 14:41
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So it’s not some sorta complex pattern and it’s just going up and down??? drat, maybe I’m seeing complexity when it’s not actually there.  I think I’m psyching myself out…maybe I’ll experiment with arping up and down a scale and seeing what happens.One thing I do like about that particular example is the cool effect you get when the beginning of the scale doesn’t line up with the first beat in the measure. I forget if that’s called polymeter or polyrhythm. Edit: I think it has to do with the rhythm and which beats are accented. If the sixteenths of a measure are split into 6-6-4 with a kick at the beginning of each, a straight up traversal of the entire scale is less interesting and compelling than starting the scale over at each division, and it’s even weirder if the scale starts at 8-8 instead of 6-6-4. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 17:28
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Yep, major and minor third are defined by their distance in semitones. Three semitones is a minor third, four semitones is a major third. Five semitones gets you the cool kids club of a perfect fourth (not assuming augmented or diminished). I most certainly did not double check myself against Wikipedia what are you talking about hahaha. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jun 29, 2022 |
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Jun 29, 2022 10:27
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Helianthus Annuus posted:can you identify these intervals by ear? internalizing the sound of each interval is much more important than instead of learning to read them from a score. https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-interval Oh god I’m really bad at this. I can’t even identify octaves consistently. I’ve gotten rusty since my piano days.
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Jun 29, 2022 20:56
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Too much talk of scales and modes. Talk to me about musical form!! About how large scale compositions are structured, what the elements of those structures are, what we know works and why, and how to critique and iterate on your own composition’s form. Form is very neglected in comparison to scales and intervals and it should have equal representation because that’s like half of making music.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:51
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Oh, I actually have a harmonic question. Are G and D one fifth away, or one fourth away? Cause D4 is 7 semitones away from G3, but G4 is 5 semitones away from D4. Changing a chord from D4-G4 to G3-D4 is doing something to how this sounds.
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Dec 17, 2022 21:20
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Yeah, a recording would help a lot.
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Jan 14, 2023 20:46
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I don’t even know who Jacob Collier is.
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Jan 31, 2023 19:33
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Kind of a weird theory-adjacent question. What’s the term for the interplay between parts and voices, and the narrative it forms over time? As I continue to make and listen to music, I’ve noticed that you can think of quite a few compositions as a dialogue or a conversation of sorts. Meaning that each part or voice puts forth their particular musical idea that is then responded to in some way by another voice. You hear this a fair bit in classical music and in film scores, but I’ve heard it in prog rock, metal, video games, and early ambient/cosmic music. I’ve done some googling, but I can’t nail down one single concept that refers to this. Here’s a few good examples of what I’m talking about. Pay attention to how each part enters the song and how everything else reacts: https://youtu.be/X2b8_eZtjvo https://youtu.be/AsG3sw51yYI and https://youtu.be/Q9ieYLHc1fQ https://youtu.be/iu_YVswb3p4 https://youtu.be/8OZCyp-LcGw https://youtu.be/czaNPWhil0c (and, of course:) https://youtu.be/mYdf0yqK_Fc It’s not quite call and response, that’s kind of a special case of the general behavior I’m thinking of. It’s not voicing either, that’s more to do with harmonic distribution. Voice leading could be seen as a parallel version of this, but what I’m thinking of is more sequential and based in cause-and-effect. This is clearly a thing, I just don’t know the name. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Feb 13, 2023 |
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Feb 13, 2023 20:02
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That’s about as far as I got, yeah This seems so vague and broadly-encompassing that I think this:webcams for christ posted:like one answer would be "that interplay is simply what a very good orchestrator/producer/arranger does when they have mastery over a large timbrel palette" is probably the answer. It’s just something that sounds good and is cool in music. It’s not counterpoint cause it’s not a tonality thing, more of a structure thing. Hawkperson posted:Is the end part of We Don’t Talk About Bruno a good example of what you’re trying to describe, Pollyanna? It’s impressive for sure, but I’m thinking more like the beginning of the song where the melody is split between the couple’s two distinct timbres. The talking between the two is a pretty literal example of what I’m thinking of, but it doesn’t have to be actual speech. webcams for christ posted:the allusions to dialogue made me think of Form Analysis more than contrapuntal writing, i.e. Antecedent & Consequent Phrases This is getting close, but antecedent and consequent involves one voice evolving over time, whereas I’m talking about multiple voices and the decision to play one, the other, or both at any given time. webcams for christ posted:I think Counterpoint is more coherent in narrower contexts. I would use Polyphony in a broader sense Polyphony might be the closest term for it. That and general part-writing. I’ll do some reading and watching - thanks!
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Feb 14, 2023 01:00
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Unrelated: this is a good example of metric modulation. https://youtu.be/6Tu5tLE4flc
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Feb 24, 2023 17:00
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