music theory

[nuxnamon]

started recently reading up on music theory.. In more practical use, how do u guys come up with a bass line..

Say your chord progression is I-IV-V (in the key of C), is it just a simple as taking the tonic of each chord being played and use that for the bass line (lower octave) since bass lines are supposedly monophonic...


or let's say your trying to build a bassline to a melody (no chords).. is it better to follow the concordant/discordant rules of intervals when playing or programming the bassline..

sorry guys, I am still very new to theory.. maybe it's common knowledge but I saw this thread and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.. I'm not even sure if I am using the proper terminology..

[Tone Deft]

common practice with bass players is how you described it. the bass player should hit the root note of the chord on the beat (1, 2, 3, 4.) certainly on the '1' you want to hit the root note, all other times are less important but often it's up to the bass player to keep the song nailed down while the guitar player wanks off. from there you can get more relaxed with 'the rules.'

my $0.02.

[jeffplaysmoog]

Oh man, see, this stuff really makes me excited! Right now, thanks in part to my friend at Berklee, I am moving away from using classical notation (I, vi, etc) and more towards jazz notation (amin7b5, etc) which seems more natural to me (after awhile that is, certainly not at first). But yeah, as far as the modes go, the 6th degree of the major mode should be harmonized with a minor chord. However, this brings up the fact that modes are meant to be mixed! Substituting the major 6th chord for the minor 6th chord is a great example of both mode mixture and secondary dominants. Let's use Cmajor as an example. Usually, as illustrated above, you would play an a minor chord to harmonize the 6th scale degree. If you instead substitute an Amajor chord (or better yet, Amajor7) you then have what they call V of ii. The Amajor7 chord acts as a dominant (V) of the second scale degree (dminor) and also allows for modulation possibilities (most common would be Fmajor). Anyway... I won't ramble on too much...

[Tone Deft]

dunno, for my playing swapping VI for vi is dissonant. can you put that into non-dissonant context? a chord progression that shows it working? jazz guys are always dropping acid in the theory Kool Aid.

[Nick the Zombie]

started recently reading up on music theory.. In more practical use, how do u guys come up with a bass line..

Say your chord progression is I-IV-V (in the key of C), is it just a simple as taking the tonic of each chord being played and use that for the bass line (lower octave) since bass lines are supposedly monophonic...


or let's say your trying to build a bassline to a melody (no chords).. is it better to follow the concordant/discordant rules of intervals when playing or programming the bassline..

sorry guys, I am still very new to theory.. maybe it's common knowledge but I saw this thread and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.. I'm not even sure if I am using the proper terminology..

This depends on the aspect of the chord that you want to accentuate. Like Tone Deft said, most of the time the bass player should be keeping the tonality of the music well-defined by playing root notes, but occasionally the bass player might want to play the 3rd, for instance, to emphasize the minor or major tonality of that segment of music.

A lot of the time my bass-lines come from revoicing chords (inversions) to create pleasing progressions of the bass notes (I really dig chromatically rising or falling basslines, as well as stepwise motion).

- Nick

[scott nathaniel]

dunno, for my playing swapping VI for vi is dissonant. can you put that into non-dissonant context? a chord progression that shows it working? jazz guys are always dropping acid in the theory Kool Aid.

What he's referring to is used more as a modulation technique. So you might go I, iii, VI, ii, and then the ii now become i. So it might look C, e minor, A major, d minor--now, d minor is the tonic, key.

[Tone Deft]

whoa, that's cool. thanks!

[scott nathaniel]

whoa, that's cool. thanks!

The actual progression I exampled might need a little tweaking to sound right. For instance, you' really want the Vi to be a seventh, i.e. A7. But in principle, it's pretty much correct.

[Incy]

Bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store
Didnt know how to play it, but he knew for sure

That one guitar, felt good in his hands
Didnt take long, to understand

[jeffplaysmoog]

Try this:

Cmajor, eminor7, gminor7, Amajor7, dminor7, Fmajor, Gmajor7, Cmajor [gets a bit less smooth at the end, but I don't want to get too crazy]

Now, there are a few ways to analyze this progression. Since it is only for a moment, I would not say this progression modulates to a different key. Rather, it hints at dminor, a technique which is often referred to as tonicization (a momentary hinting at of a different key). If you were to analyze this progression chord by chord, it would look something like this:

I, iii, v ii, IV, V, I [Cmajor]
iv, V, i [dminor] - tonicization [tonic means the root chord of the key, i.e. the d chord in the key of dminor)

Now, as you can see, the first line represents the key of Cmajor and the second line represents dminor. The overlapping chords illustrate the chords common to each key. The tonicization beings with the gminor7 chord. gminor7 is not a chord that is diatonic (meaning from the same scale - in this case Major) to the key of Cmajor. gminor7 is, however, diatonic to the key of dminor (natural minor harmonization goes: i, iio, III, iv, V, VI, VII). Since we are momentarily in the key of dminor the Amajor7 chord represents V which, of course, always wants to lead to back to i. That dminor (or i) chord is also ii in the key of Cmajor so just like that, we are back. Follow that with a quick IV, V, I (the cadence) and we firmly establish ourselves back into the key of Cmajor.

If anyone wants, I can record this example and post it... Apologies if I am getting carried away...

[Sage]

...it was just chords and scales you could learn everything about theory in a matter of hours.

Yeah, right pal..."if it was just chords and scales you could learn it all in a matter of hours...."

Get yourself a copy of Piston's "Harmony" (which is just the FIRST stepin the study of classical theory), work it "in a matter of hours" (never mind that it's usually spread out over TWO SEMESTERS in college-level courses) - then maybe, just maybe, you might be ready to move to the SECOND of a multitude of more steps before you even GET to Orchestration (where you can THEN learn the fine art of dynamics/tempo notation that you cavalierly refer to as "theory".

Well done on completely misunderstanding what I was trying to say.

And I have done college courses on the subject, so don't be so patronizing.

[Android Bishop]

I just popped in a few pages later in this thread to find myself completely lost as to what the fuck anyone is talking about at this point. I need to learn 2 music

[Tone Deft]

Sage - check yourself man, all you've posted in here is off the topic. let's find some mutual respect and learn some musicshit!! I too thought the 'few hours' comment was out there, could you elaborate? maybe you can see it our way as in it was a pretty big statement to make.

Cmajor, eminor7, gminor7, Amajor7, dminor7, Fmajor, Gmajor7, Cmajor

should that be a Gdom7?

it's kinda clear. a bit wordy in the explanation maybe. I think you're saying that two keys can have common chords, play with those common chords in the progression and you can jump between keys (insert chords not found in each key) without making it sound like an outright key change.


are there rules of thumb as to which chords are better or worse for this? I might guess that changing the V would be awkward due to the V-I pull being so strong. lesser modes such as ii iii and viio being less tricky to play with?

audio or midi clip examples would be great!!

good stuff!

[Sphinx]

Love the subject of reharmonization! Tone Deft - astute observation - V Maj7 isn't that common of a voicing, certainly not in classical forms where the dominant (or dominant 7, 9 etc.) plays a key role in leading toward resolution to the tonic. A Vmin7 is a more likely V chord to be found in jazz and rock, giving it a modal-esque feel...a classic example of this would be James Taylor's "Fire & Rain" (I- v min7 - IV - I - V - VII). I've always heard that chord as a VII with the 6th in the bass - certainly once leads to the other nicely. The V Maj7 can be effectively used to modulate to another key though!

[jeffplaysmoog]

OK I uploaded the audio file (really small, only 266kbs) here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/7pvzp6

As far as the Gdom7 goes, I used the gminor7 chord to illustrate mode mixture/tonicization. Gdom7 (or gmajor7 - G7) would also work here, but it would make the whole progression a bit less smooth (give it a try). The gminor7, in this case, comes form the key of dminor, so it sets up the momentary key shift really well. So, yeah, I think you have the point Tone Deft (sorry I do like to ramble on about this stuff). The only thing you should be careful with is the distinction of what qualifies as a mode. ii, iii, etc. are not modes, they are chords. Modes include: Major, minor, dorian, etc.

There are rules of thumb to be sure, but too many to go on about here. You are correct that substituting the V chord is a bit uncommon, but it can still certainly be done. A best practice for learning this stuff is to make sure keys are closely related (for example shifting between Cmajor and dminor - they are only separated by 1 flat - C has none, dminor has one). It is much harder to use keys that are far apart. If the keys have a close relationship then it will be easier to find common chords that both keys share.