music theory question

makehaste · Post by **makehaste** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:38 pm

ok here it goes,not really a ableton question but i think you people would have some good input for me ,i use live to layer guitars, accordians, melodiacas, and many other acustic instruments. i follow a basic rule if i write a good guitar riff i find all the notes i used and according to that and the circle of 5ths i try to come up with a part for a diffrent instrument. After i have a layer sometimes i have a bunch of samples from vinal or libary borowed CD. i have a bunch of stuff that fits rhythmically(sorry poor spelling) thanks to live but key is a problem. i have learned to trust my ears over the years if something sounds good than it is good but i also dont trust my ears can anyone give me any info of how others(yourselves) handle this issue. i never had musical theory so i am a super slow to the whole theory game im wondering if anyone does this the same. this is one of those questions where there are a million diffrent answers or ways of doing this i just would like to hear some other ways
thank you
ryan

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:46 pm

Writing out the notes you use is a great foundation.

In my home studio and in my guitar cases and whatnot I printed out all the
major scales, chord spellings, circle of fifths, stuff like that.. You should know how to spell chords, there's tons of web sites on that.

Keep it simple. A lot of great songs are just two chord tunes, it's how they're used that's important.

If you haven't learned your pentatonic scales, do that right now, don't stop until you can play every key at every fret, it's totally worth it.

Write out the notes you used, put them in order, from A-G, or whatever. Then look for the major scale that has all those notes. Not all the notes have to fit, some notes can be passing notes, it's your call, these decisions form how the tune will sound.

Once you establish a key, you can identify chords that fit that key by taking every other note to form a chord. For example:
C major scale:
C D E F G A B

C E G = c major chord
D F A = Dm chord
E G B = Em chord
F A C = F major
G B D = G major
A C E = Am
B D F = B diminished (ignore this one unless you're really into theory and/or jazz)

The pattern is ALWAYS the same:
I = major
II = minor
III = minor
IV = major
V = major
VI = minor
VII = diminished

With 4 note chords you get major7, dom7 and minor7 chords. I stop there because on the guitar 5 and 6 note chords are rare.

I dunno, I could go on and on and on about this stuff, it's as easy or complicated as you want to make it.

any questions? I know there are other people here who can help you too.

kennerb · Post by **kennerb** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:05 pm

Good tips Kung FU.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can use Live and other software to transpose the sounds to different keys. This could be a whole song, clip, or note.

I have had many interesting results doing it to things that I had played myself. I'll write something in a key and then transpose it to see what it sounds like. Sometimes it works out even better than what I had going on in my head.

It has been mentioned may times on this site and is worth mentioning again. Pick up the free Raven Spiral Guide. He puts his take on theory in interesting enough ways and has a lot of useful information.

www.ravenspiral.com/rsg2mt/rsg2mt.pdf

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:26 pm

I must be horribly jazz because I do make use of diminished chords, eg - the second inversion of bdim going to amin (in the key of c major) sounds alright to me. especially with a c bass, which would make it an extra jazbo chord of f dim 9 or something like that!

anyway, enough of that bollocks, my recomendation is these lessons
http://musictheory.net/
although a lot of it is about learning notation, there is gold in them thar staves.

also I found (a long time ago now) that staring at a keyboard while trying to figure out all those diminished and augmented chords really made them understandable as something more than a theory. Some people can compose on guitar, but personally I find working out voicings ( inversions and such ) much easier on keyboard.

leisuremuffin · Post by **leisuremuffin** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:30 pm

I'm just excited to hear i'm not the only one rocking the live/accordian combo.

Rock rock on my free reed brother!

.lm.

hade · Post by **hade** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:35 pm

I just fekkin love diminished chords! And am partial to the odd augmented note or two!

Has anyone mentioned modes in this thread?

Was one of the first things i learned on guitar, after all(literally!) the chords, and is a peice of waz to understand on guitar as it's all shapes..

But anyway - mode lesson no.1
Take C major scale - c d e f g a b
The c is the tonic, ie stuff always resolves back to it - like 12 bar blues - c - f - c - g - (f) - C
Now keep all the same notes, but use D as the tonic.. Noodle round with some licks.. and.. ooh, it's got a bit of a flameco feel.. Do this for each of the notes and you get a different "flavour" for each..

They've all got names, which I can't remember all of them.. Ermmm.. Dorian, Locrian, mixolydian, aeolean (ermm did i make that up?)..
some sound wierd others normal! My fave's are Dorian and Mixolydian - one's minor and one major.

For chords - try (ithink it's called) pan chromatic chords ( i may be wrong) but basically play any of the notes in the scale/mode - just make em up!

Someone earlier said 5 or 6 note chords on guitar are rare? Ermm, 6 strings, 6 notes!

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 4:07 pm

some small corrections:

the V chord is not major, it is dominant (b7) <---Mixolydian mode goes here!

the vii chord is _half_diminished (b3 b5 b7)

diminished has bb7, and i believe is the vii of a harmonic minor scale

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 9:26 pm

longjohns wrote:some small corrections:

the V chord is not major, it is dominant (b7) <---Mixolydian mode goes here!
the vii chord is _half_diminished (b3 b5 b7)
diminished has bb7, and i believe is the vii of a harmonic minor scale

No, what you're talking about are the 4 note chords, I only did the 3 note chords. I just left it up to the post originator to go form/learn/look up the 4, 5, 6 etc note chords. You cannot have a 7 chord with just 3 notes, unless it's a rootless inversion or somesuch 'trickery'. LOL at invoking the harmonic minor scale, it sounds like you learned this stuff at one point but have forgotten some of it. Diminished and half diminshed chords fall on the major scale, the harmonic minor scale is
1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, 7 which is not a mode so it does not fall on the major scale. You should be in the habit of complete chord spellings, b3, b5, b7 is not a correct spelling, that's like me spelling Ableton as "eton", it's misleading.

Please do not invoke modes if you can't even name them. Modes are just annoying, difficult to learn but once the lightbulb goes off you look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. On music theory boards it's the most talked about topic and there's a lot of misconceptions. They can be used to shed light on a composition but this isn't the place to go into them.
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian

Both of you guys are giving bad advice, please stop it. I'm just trying to keep this sane, ya know? It's not like the original poster is getting anything out of all this.

/end rant

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:00 pm

oh yeah, the reason for me checking this thread was that I forgot an important tip on connecting notes to a major scale.

These are the major scales:

Code: Select all

C  D  E  F  G  A  B                        
G  A  B  C  D  E  F#                        
D  E  F# G  A  B  C#                        
A  B  C# D  E  F# G#                        
E  F# G# A  B  C# D#
B  C# D# E  F# G# A# = Cb Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb
F# G# A# B  C# D# E# = Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F
C# D# E# F# G# A# B# = Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C
Ab Bb C  Db Eb F  G
Eb F  G  Ab Bb C  D
Bb C  D  Eb F  G  A
F  G  A  Bb C  D  E

Notice that in each scale each note is only used once, ie you won't have a B and a Bb in the same major scale. Also, 3 of the scales (B/Cb, F#/Gb and C#/Db) can be written in 2 different ways.

So... when you put the notes in order and stuff's not adding up, consider that every note has 2 names, as in C=B#. It takes practice like everything else. The piano keyboard is a great way to visualise all this. I learned on guitar where visualisation is odd but transposing is dead simple.

velocipedewheels · Post by **velocipedewheels** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:52 am

Correction, it is not always
I MAJOR
II MINOR
II MINOR
and so on.

Therein lies the danger of looking for theory answers on a tech site. The responses to this post contain many incorrect answers. Sorry guys.

Anyway, the chord progressions to follow vary from major, to natural minor, to rock minor, to phrygian mode, and all sorts of variations. The best person to answer your questions, is a good music teacher.

Also, chord formulas are best learned by interval (NUMBER) not letter. Otherwise, you have to RE LEARN it every time. If you know a C major chord is C E G, and a C minor chord is C Eb G, then do you know an E and E minor chord? Nope, because you learned letters, rather than intervals. Intervals do not change. Letters do. Learn intervals and you will know the system.

Amanda

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:06 am

velocipedewheels wrote:Correction, it is not always
I MAJOR
II MINOR
II MINOR
and so on.
Amanda

With three note chords the harmonized major scale is always
I - major
II - minor
III - minor
IV - major
V - major
VI - minor
VII - diminished

I use Live, do you think I might be a musician who knows and applies theory? This is really basic stuff. Why you hatin? I'm trying to help.

You posted that you do prog rock, so I'll guess you can explain to me how I'm wrong.

Rock minor?

What is that? It doesn't lend you cred.

I've been on plenty of music boards, I've learned theory on them and taught literally dozens of people modes from the basics to the intermediate level. I'm very comfortable with the information I've posted and am will to discuss.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:36 am

sorry, i take jazz oriented lessons so everything has 7ths. my teacher doesn't even call 3 notes a chord, she calls it a triad.

i wish you hadn't gotten all dickish on this thread

velocipedewheels · Post by **velocipedewheels** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:57 am

Yes, you are correct. WIth the harmonized major scale, that is the proper classical progression. You did not specify that before. Therefore, it was incorrect because you said "IT" is "always like this" not "MAJOR" is always like this. See?

Rock music bastardizes classical, primarily in its "major over minor" or "minor over major" chord progressions and pentatonic ionian (major) and aeolian( relative minor) scales. This bastardization of classical chord progressions is accomplished by using certain elements of major progressions, and, certain elements of minor progressions.

Therefore, what is often referred to as "rock minor " progressions, is the end result.

I am sorry if you feel that my referring to this as "rock minor" does "not lend me cred." Also, I was not "hating." I said, most of these replies contain incorrect information. Then I apologized, i.e. "SORRY GUYS." I don't know how you can get any friendlier, but hell, I tried .

I guess just hearing answers like "start a c major scale on d, that's kinda like flamenco" are just absolutely incorrect, and in my opinion, the person seeking the answer, would like to know correct answers, not incorrect ones. Like when I ask a software question, I prefer a correct answer.

And no, just because you use Ableton, does not mean I assume you know what you are doing when it comes to theory. The two are unrelated. That's kind of like saying "well I own a Les Paul, don't you think I know Mixo-blues?"

bye 4 now.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 3:00 am

since you've offered your knowledge, maybe you can help me understand how half-diminished and diminished chords come from a major scale

velocipedewheels · Post by **velocipedewheels** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 3:01 am

yes, 3 notes are a triad. those are a chord by definition.
major scale
1 2 3.4 5 6 7.1 with 1/2 steps from 3-4 and 7-1.
minor scale
1 2.b3 4 5.b6 b7 1 with 1/2 steps from 2-3 and 5-6.
same as major except b3, b6, and b7.

major chord - (triad)
1 3 5
minor chord (triad)
1 b3 5 same as major except b3.

major seventh chord
1 3 5 7
dominant seventh chord
1 3 5 b7
minor seventh chord
1 b3 5 b7
half dim or minor 7 flat 5 chord
1 b3 b5 b7
fully dim chord
1 b3 b5 bb7 (double flat 7 is same as major 6)

so in reality, half dim and fully dim chords are a lot closer to minor than major, due to the intervals used.

i edited this a bunch of times, didn't want it on the next page for some reason.

anyway, intervals. study those, as well as notes. intervals are more relative.

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