How to take writing to the next level?

[Grayburg]

I only know how to use chromatic notes in two situations, shown in this short example.

-using a major fifth chord in a minor key, but the setup shown is the only method I know

-using a sus4 > major on a would be minor, tonic chord in a minor key

-using a flatted fifth note in melodies, I guess, but I can only use them for solos

Other setups in songs confuse me. What should I be reading on now? I've got a couple newb books, but I think I've already extracted what I wanted.

[dannthr]

Two things:

Score study - it seems like you're focusing on rules a lot. That's good in the beginning, but eventually you want to explore the vast universe of music and possibility. I suggest seeking out scores of tracks that seem to have unique harmonic movement or chromaticism, and studying them: Analyzing how they make effective use of harmonies to create pleasing chromaticism.

Key is an illusion - Aspire to the point when you can create pleasing harmonic movement with absolutely no regard to key signature. Where chords have independent and mutual relationships, and where you use these relationships effectively. This can take a long time to master.

[Grayburg]

I did learn those two things from studying other songs. (

and

)

It's just that some other techniques just blow my mind, and it feels like I'm not prepared to even begin trying to comprehend them.

Like,

, the bass plays a minor sixth, while the lead plays a major second. Forms a tritone, doesn't it? Why's it sound so sweet, though? It's being preceded by some normal major-key stuff, afaik.

notes are from Eb minor, but it centers around the minor sixth. I've never seen a melody use minor sixths so liberally.. only very briefly, like in this chorus. Some mode business is going on, right?

I think there are some fundamental concepts I'm still missing before trying to examine those setups.

[Nase]

Like,

, the bass plays a minor sixth, while the lead plays a major second. Forms a tritone, doesn't it? Why's it sound so sweet, though? It's being preceded by some normal major-key stuff, afaik.

tritones of the root key sound dissonant, but the interval is gonna sound different in other functions.

like, take any seventh chord in major. the seventh and the third form a tritone. it sounds pretty consonant.

now you could move to the subdominant (C7->F7), which has another tritone in it, just a semitone below the old one (Bb/E->A/Eb). just for example.

in the pokemon tune the tritone is more transitory tho. as you can hear it doesn't stay on the major second too long but moves back to the root.

if it went on longer, you'd notice that it is kinda dissonant and begs to be dissolved.

and that's part of what makes it sound sweet.

the chord sounds like a minor iv to me. the bass is playing its 3rd tho, while the melody briefly adds a major 6th to the chord (the tritone you were talking about). then it fully dissolves back to the root major chord.

you'll generally find that chromatics in basslines have a lot to do with chord inversions. see stairway to heaven for an obvious example.

i'd play around with chromatic basslines a bit and figure out for yourself what kind of chord movements you can build on top.

regarding your 2nd example...where are all the minor sixths you're talking about?

it gets a bit minor sixish once it moves to the dominant, but even there you have a transitory semitone. strictly speaking, there isn't any minor sixth interval in the melody.

the whole chorus sounds like bloody normal melodic/harmonic minor to me.

i think you're getting too worked up about intervals and theory in general.

music is math in some way, but it's also extremely relative, and the math we use to describe it really just points out some interesting relations.

you have to find out for yourself what these mean to you.

questions like 'why's that tritone sounding so sweet' make me think that your idea of intervals is too absolute. any interval can sound sweet or harsh or anything. it all depends on where it sits, on what function it performs within the progression.

[Grayburg]

Thanks for the analysis.

About the second song, uh, I guess I don't know how to name notes. The first two notes in the chorus are C# and B, which B is the minor sixth in Eb minor, right? It's used throughout, and even rests on it, or whatever, after the chorus, too.

the whole chorus sounds like bloody normal melodic/harmonic minor to me.

This is probably something big. I have no idea how or when to use the melodic or harmonic scale over the regular one. I couldn't even tell that song used them, either.

[Nase]

This is probably something big. I have no idea how or when to use the melodic or harmonic scale over the regular one. I couldn't even tell that song used them, either.

wait i messed up lol. i meant normal/harmonic minor. no melodic.

i didn't listen to the whole song or try to determine its overall key. i listened to the section you linked to.

the first notes sound like a fourth and third to me.

then the chord changes from i to VIb. the melody then repeats the same 2 notes. if you align them with the new chord they actually function as a major sixth and fifth. so again, it rests on consonance.

then it moves to the dominant, and that's what harmonic minor is most prominently linked to, no exception here. it's nothing special, you just use the leading tone that is included in the dominant chord. you don't even hear the leading tone in this example until the chorus is about to repeat.

you mess up because you try to apply some very broad specs (like the song's key) to specific sections. you need more case by case.

[Garpocalypse]

You could analyze some crazy %#!t like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOX87__ScUY&feature=related

It might take a couple of years to get everything but once you get it you'll be a monster.

Also be careful what vidoes of his you watch. You may end up running to the store full sprint to nab Omnisphere if you're not careful.

[Grayburg]

aight koo; i'll rethink these things; thanks for tips

@gar23

go away with that stuff

[Nase]

You could analyze some crazy %#!t like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOX87__ScUY&feature=related

or he could analyse something that's structurally interesting and captivating..instead of figuring out bit after bit of pasted together progwank. ^^

btw, this might be a nice watch for you grayb

[Garpocalypse]

or he could analyse something that's structurally interesting and captivating..instead of figuring out bit after bit of pasted together progwank. ^^

Hey there, try to keep this on topic. This isn't about your dislike of Egypt and Egyptian flavored music.

As for "structurally interesting" this reminds me of a quote from my freshman year at college.

"You're going to spend the first half of your life learning the rules. Then you're going to spend the second half trying to find ways to break them."

To the OP, if you know the classic method of musical analysis you really can't go wrong with some Bach Chorales or Beethoven Piano Sonatas then try to work your way up to a Fugue or two. But if you want to take stuff like this anywhere you need to know what's going on musically today as well. Not many people are interested in music as it was two and three hundred years ago. And those composers mind you(Vivaldi was the maaaaaaaan!), were doing what was contemporary for their time. Beethoven learned Baroque and Classical music as a student then spent the rest of his life pushing us into the Romantic Era.

Learn as much as you can about everything, You can find something to learn from everybody and everything. Even people like Jordan Rudess.

[Darangen]

There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn the ins and outs of music. As long as you keep in mind that theory is more of a guideline and not absolute rules it can help you out immensely.

Just don't let it stomp out your creative side. Music is basically math, but when you start thinking of it as more math than art you start losing creativity.

[Nase]

sorry gar. ofc anyone in this forum could learn a lot from jordan rudess.

it's just that i hate his band

i do enjoy his quest for absolute ultimate gear endorsal. when i wanna see someone wanking out on a spanking nu synth, it might as well be jordan rudess.

and it probably is.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

The purpose of music theory in my opinion is to better understand the workings of music. This leads to you being able to transcribe the sounds in your head MUCH easier. That's the goal

If you want to "take your writing to the next level", stop thinking about the theory so much and just keep making the sounds in your head happen.

[Garpocalypse]

If you want to "take your writing to the next level", stop thinking about the theory so much and just keep making the sounds in your head happen.

This.

And this:

[dannthr]

It's not as important that you know the rules as it is that you understand why the rules sound good.

Don't think of it as a list of things you can and can not do, think of it as a dictate of relationships--of consonance and dissonance; stress and release.

Music is a linear artform, that means it's important what comes before and what comes after because that's how it will be experienced.

Before, present, after.

Key signatures are confusing because beginners understand them as a skeletal guideline for composing music, when it's really about instrument transposition than anything else.

A key signature is a completely irrelevant structure to the composer outside of merely understanding harmonic relationships. (The orchestrator and arranger is more concerned with key signature as it relates to instrument and voicing transpositions.)

So in order to press on in your studies, I would recommend shucking thinking about key signatures as a basis for your harmonic relationship analysis and think more closely about the relationships between individual intervals and harmonic expectation.

Instead of thinking about everything as it relates to the established keys tonic, think more about how each individual harmony relates to that which comes before it and that which comes after as centered around that harmony as a base point.

What this means is that you have a moving frame of reference. Your frame of reference is always the present and what came before it gives you your momentum/direction/force, what comes after is what we expect or predict as an auditor based on this direction or momentum, but what comes afterward is a probability, not a certainty, and there are a lot of potentials.

Expanding your harmonic horizons means exploring the more unlikely potentials.

Here's a little theme I sketched on the piano earlier today:

http://www.dannthr.com/temp/DR_Sketch_2012-02-04_c.mp3

It's pretty simple, I spent maybe a half an hour writing it and learning how to play it on the keyboard without totally mucking it up. But I also wrote it on the keyboard.

This sketch was, in a way, a response to this thread. I wanted to express a natural sounding, pleasant melody that started with a predictable harmonic language but then pushed outside of that language in a way that didn't seem unnatural or overly forced (though there was a deliberate force involved in its creation).

By the time you're halfway through the short theme, I've created a harmonic expectation which is very conventional/stereo-typical. Then I introduce a not totally wacky modulation from our established key, and then I just start moving and using melodic momentum and harmonic mirroring to create an expectation which lands me on a completely new tonic feeling.

The harmonies are all accessible to one another, and this is why writing on the keyboard is good, because it allows you to think about harmonic availability and accessability without dwelling specifically on our key signature.

The harmonies are as follows:

Cm, Bb, Cm, Fm, Cm, Ab, Eb, G, Cm, Db, Fm, Bb, Db, Eb sus->Eb, F.

The first 6 harmonies are very conventional, and the G is not totally unexpected. Moving from Cm to Db is probably the oddest push out, but I use the melody to facilitate that harmonic movement, as it emphasizes the 4th from C to F, which is very pleasing. Then I set up a melodic mirror to facilitate the next phrases so that on the repetition, instead of going from Fm to Bb, we go from Eb sus to F (which is facilitated by repeating the melody so that we fulfill an expectation to arrive at F). Arriving at the F note rather than say, the A part of the F harmony is what makes it work.

This explaination is why it works, however, not a description of how I wrote it.

You need to sit at the piano and do it, you need to sit down and then write and get used to using harmonies that are close/near-by or accessible and every time you feel like your harmony is resolving toward something super predictable, try to find an alternative harmony that is just a little less predictable.

[Nase]

that about wraps it up

[Obtuse]

This.

And this:

I have Victor Wooten's The Groove Workshop. Its 100% awesome and inspiring.

[Garpocalypse]

I have Victor Wooten's The Groove Workshop. Its 100% awesome and inspiring.

Yea, Vic is the man. I've met him twice so far and each time it was life changing. I shook his hand too. You know, the one that he plays with.

He's write about music being taught incorrectly in schools though. About every lesson I've ever had had a bunch of "no! that's not right! play it this way!"