Basic Musical theory.

[kaptainkewl]

This is a quick guide on actualy making basic Music. Anyone here probably has some sort of music making program so I'll just layout the basics. If you dont have anything, jsut download midimaker. Google it or something...

Chords: These are the basis of EVERY song you will make, The trick is to find the correct "key(I'll explain about that later) Because when playing certain chords, only 9 out of thirteen notes can be hit, the other 4 notes will sound bad, and clash with the song. Next time you make a song, Use the key of...A minor. This means, only hit white notes ( this means, no sharps or flats). An A minor is note A, note C, and note E all played at once. Try playing that with your strings. it will make a nice sound to it. And thats the basis for a chord. A minor chord consists of the original note (in this case...it's the A) then 4 semitones up is your next note (1a-2a#-3b-4c) and 5 semitones up from the second note (1c-2c#-3d-4D#-5e) makes the last note in a basic chord. The chord notes are now A C E. A major is the same thing except, 5 semitones up and then 4, not 4 semitones and then 5 like the minor.

Now that You know chords You can learn---

Chord Progression.
using a single Chord for the whole song is going to be VERY repetitive. And get boring quickly. So chord Progression is a set of chord's (usualy 4 measures long) that repeat, This allows for a familiarity to the song, but also allows it to be varied. My song here should show you what I mean. what I did near the middle was change the chord progression to a different set of chords for the chorus. It's a little advanced, but gives a relief from the main melody. Let's stick to the original key of A Minor for this part. A simple chord progresion could be (per 4 beat measure) Amin Gmaj Fmaj Gmaj and repeat after Gmaj back to the Amin. So long as you remember not to use any sharps or flats and use just a basic chord like I showed, This will sound quite nice. the chord progression is usually done on the Bass, but doesn't have to be. The Chor progression will MAKE your song, what it is. If you are on a sound program right now, Make this chord Progression and copy and paste it till its about 40-50 seconds long.

This Brings Us to the

Melody: Using your chord progression (AGFG) You want to use that as your basis for the melody. The melody Is the part of your song that people remember, those littlenotes, that shout the song out through the accuracy of it. The easiest way to do a melody is stick to using the notes in that chord. so if it's an A minor, use the notes A,B,C,E, of any octave. then when the chord switches to the G use the notes G,A,B,D and with F as you might know by now, Use F,G,A,C. These are "single" notes that you should hit for the time being, not chords. (Experiment by adding notes to your already made chord progression. Thats the best way to figure out how to make music sound right). Remember to change the melody around, because No matter what you do, your chord progression will bring the song along nicely, That's what it's meant for.

[kaptainkewl]

ADVANCED Theory:

Key: This is basically something that tells you what notes you can hit and what notes you cant. The key can be changed at times if you use the right chords after another. To do this, An example, would be, from the Amin to the Emaj chords. You go from being able to hit just the white notes and when you hit the E maj chord (E-g#-B) hitting an F or a g at this point will clash with the chord, you need to hit an f# or G# to make the sound correctly for the key. Now although this is complicated. It opens up a WHOLE NEW set of chord progressions, allows for maore caried chorus's and keychanges themselves have a unique sound to them.

You can always figure out a Key using

Scales: Scales are just an 8 note ascending or descending use of that key. An Amin's scale is actually ABCDEFG#A but in what I showed you, I dropped the G# to a G, all of the 7ths(the 7th note in a scale) in any key can be dropped. A minor scale for any note is
2semitones(a-A#-B) 1semitone (B-C)2semitones(C-C#-D 2semitones(D-D#-E) 1 semitone(E-F) 4semitones(F-F#-G-G#) 1semitone(G#-A ) Makign the aforementioned scale.
Whereas a Major is
2semitone(a-A#-B)2semitone(B-C-C#)1semit one(C#-D)2semitone(D-D#-E)1semitone(E-F) 2semitone(F-F#-G)2semitone(G-G#-A) This makes the sequence ABC#DEFGA An A major.
I know that sounds compicated, but I'm trying to allow you to understand each specific part, so that you can change keys with ease from knowing the theory behind it.

The actual easiest way to change a key is using

The rule of fifths:
Basically we'll once again use the key of Amin. Any 5th note in any chord of the Amin key, is actually able to have the key changed without having the music clash. I showed the Emaj before, It acn also be changed to the Emin by droping the G# to just a G---- 5 notes ahead of this Emin is the B (1e,2f#3g4a5b) another 5th. This can also be a new key change to the Bflat Minor if your drop the note by a semitone.

I hope I got most of that right. I taught myself and figure knowing some basics can help alot when your doing stuff on your own. I at least knew notes when I started, and everythign else I picked up the more and more I played, later on I found the technical terms for them. I'll have more later on. But for now this is what I got.

[TimeBender]

Yay for learning!

Thanks for posting that.

[Setu-Firestorm]

The A minor scale you listed is actually the A harmonic minor scale. You forgot the natural minor, melodic minor, and the other modal variations of the scale.

[kaptainkewl]

As I said...It's meant as basics, To get started on. I taught myself, and the technical terms I have used...are about the best I could pull off Theres ALOT more than that, that I use when I make music, But I wouldn't know how to explain it. That's why I'm asking For others help in the process. Please feel absolutely free to add on to this, and If it gets good enough It might be stickied in the future or something.

[WritersBlock]

Yeah, it is just the tip of the iceberg, but then again, it's probably a lot more than most know about.

[kaptainkewl]

Well i roiginally made this for a user that had quite a few songs up, but none of them had any...musical sound to it, it just sounded abstract. So I knew he had a passion for making music, he just didn't know how to specifically. So I wrote that, I figured I just spent almost an hour typing that, I'm not letting it go to waste on helping just one person out. Theres so much theory to music, It's why it takes nearly 10 years to learn all of it. And ocne your done with that, you can learn jazz...which is pretty much breaking those rules and making it still sound nice. On the other hand, I can play most music I hear, just by listening to it, And that's something that reading music won't help you with. It's how I remade Wyldfires song actually :P

[kevs91]

That's a nice start, but if you're going to mention chord progressions you really should mention cadences.

[Winterwind-NS]

a few edits I'd like to make:

It's not entirely good to say that every song that one makes should be based on chords.
A good example that many can relate to is Koji Kondo. His style of composition is has
a great combination of romantic and late modern music. Although his melodies in the
Zelda series are amazing, some of his songs are completely reliant on the melodies
and the chords seem to just be a shadow for the various melodies. Playing the chords
alone, you might realize that it's often parallel motion which was popularized in the late
romantic/impressionist era (late 1800's - early 1900's).

I wouldn't completely advocate using 4 good chords repeated and calling it a decent
chord progression.

When you say something like "4 semitones up from A", that would actually equal to
C#. (A# - B - C - C#). I prefer to call semitones, 'halfsteps', so I'm gonna call them that for
this post.
So really, a minor chord is created by the root, 3 halfsteps up, and then 4
halfsteps above the previous.
Major chords are based on the root, 4 halfsteps up, and 3 halfsteps above the previous.
You might also want to explain the difference between minor and major chords, although
that sort of thing can best be interpreted by playing them.

For Chord progressions, it's good to teach them good resolving chords back into the
tonic, but then you'd have to explain roman numeral chord analysis.

telling people not to use chords outside of their key sig scale isn't a very good idea. It
restricts the potential of a piece's originality and it could hinder their ability to express their
intentions in more variant ways. Using notes outside of ur scale can be really helpful to your
piece is you're trying to incorporate things like chromaticism (a chromatic scale is a scale
where you just go up from any note up only in halfsteps) and dissonance.
A good example of both of those can be found in the middle section of my piano solo piece, Butterfly voice starting at 0:38.
I used it in that segment to get that feeling of struggling for love unabashedly.

The melody section of your tutorial, I just don't agree with but the idea of using the 1, 2, 3, 5 notes
of ur key's scale is a good start for any new composer.

To explain key completely, you need to go through teaching the circle of fifths/fourths, which is no
fun so I don't blame you for omitting that haha

Great start to a new music theory thread. I hope more people add on to this!

[sorohanro]

great topic
i think is really helpfull for beginers, so congratulations to everybody involved here

[MusicalRocky]

At 4/18/08 06:11 PM, Winterwind-NS wrote: a few edits I'd like to make:

I love you and stuff.

But lemme think of something constructive to add.

That whole deal about coming up with chord progression and then copypasting that throughout: NO. Holy crap. Also block chords are really annoying and get boring quickly. (I used to do it a lot, but hopefully I've stopped now lol.) You gotta learn to use other ways of laying the chord foundation. And not only use arpeggios, like (from your example) A C E C, G B D B, F A C A, G B D B; that also would be a boring way of doing the bassline/lefthand/whatever. If your accompaniment to your melody is uninteresting, your melody has to be freaking amazing or your song will really fail.

Block chords repeated over and over, the same progression--the only time I can think that that's okay is a canon. Lol. Please don't make a canon.

Also, making the chord progression first, then the melody? Yes, Winterwind already contradicted this with his insert on Kondo; however, I know you base all your songs off progressions dood (Winter). I myself always base my songs off melodies. If I try to fuel my composing simply with the idae of a progression, the song will fall flat as I'm writing it. It doesn't matter if you start with a melody or a chord progression. Please, for God, don't repeat the same progression over and over. In fact it's quite interesting if you use a different chord progression under the same melody the second time it appears. Also you have to use other notes than the ones in the regular key scale, for (as Winter said) dissonance and chromaticism, as well as modulation. If you're in D major and you want to modulate to G major, using a D7/G chord (which has a Cnat, which is not in the D major scale lol) is helpful.

Whatelse.

I'm waiting for Simon to pop into this thread lol.

Good work guys.

Lawl

[Winterwind-NS]

At 4/18/08 08:21 PM, MusicalRocky wrote: Whatelse.

I'm waiting for Simon to pop into this thread lol.

ain't gonna happen
but i wish he would

[kaptainkewl]

I'm really surprised the amount that This has grown!
I tried to explain as best I could even though I have no realy musical theory training, I taught myself and Am going by learning what I knew from friends telling me the technical terms. As I said, I got the basics for the newcomers But anything beyond explaining that Would screw me over. As for people explaining for me to use the same chords in a chord pgrogression, I didn't mean that Ing eneral for every song you create, I just meant As a starting point, If it's your first time in music I don't think your gonna want to jsut learn the chords and then have a variated version everytime you play, thats merely a form of getting used to them.

Meh I'm done in here as far as I'm concerned, I'll most likeyl lurk and watch it grow, Maybe some one will be kind enough to Do an "advanced" tut. Thanks for all the support on this thread.

[sorohanro]

i'm too busy and my english is not very good ... so, instead of making some posts about jazz improvising or arranging i'll give you some links that i hope will be usefull
JAZZ ARRANGING TUTORIAL
JAZZ IMPROVISATION

[nal1200]

This tutorial sounds a little guitar biased, eh?

The key has literally no significance if your working in a DAW.

However playing on the guitar means you're going to be forced to play very generic, beginner-based chords unless you REALLY practice hand maneuvers and transitions to very awkward positions.

Hence why country is all based in the keys of C, Amin, Amaj, and G.

And by God's all mighty power, never openly denounce accidentals (notes out of the key) in songs, because their important in every type of music EXCEPT generic rock.

[sorohanro]

which one ?

[OneWhoListens]

Good stuff...learning a lot from this thread.

[NickPerrin]

At 6/11/08 02:30 PM, Nithalahk wrote: This thread is mind numbing. What ever happened to playing what felt right?

That works, but theory opens a ton of doors as well.

[Kor-Rune]

At 6/11/08 04:39 PM, NickPerrin wrote:

At 6/11/08 02:30 PM, Nithalahk wrote: This thread is mind numbing. What ever happened to playing what felt right?

That works, but theory opens a ton of doors as well.

He's right, a good sense of theory doesn't necessarily make you a soulless music buff that's all technique and no expression.

[thefev]

I say, learn theory first before go on to actual playing. But, if playing helps to explain theory, then, by all means, play. I guess you could play without theory, but it'd be kinda weird cuz you're just learning it like a zombie-robot. But NEVER compose without knowing theory. It's just weird.

[endlessnumber]

Some people have good enough ears to compose without considering theory. Some... don't.
Both types would be complimented by a knowledge of theory, regardless of whether they need or not.

[thefev]

I still stand firm of my opinion: THEORY FTW!!!!!

[kaptainkewl]

At 6/11/08 01:56 PM, nal1200 wrote: This tutorial sounds a little guitar biased, eh?

The key has literally no significance if your working in a DAW.

However playing on the guitar means you're going to be forced to play very generic, beginner-based chords unless you REALLY practice hand maneuvers and transitions to very awkward positions.

Hence why country is all based in the keys of C, Amin, Amaj, and G.

And by God's all mighty power, never openly denounce accidentals (notes out of the key) in songs, because their important in every type of music EXCEPT generic rock.

I find it funny you should say that. I taught myself, but I tuaght myself PIANO. And most of what I said was jsut stuff I picked up as I played. i had, very basic theory, like hit the white notes only and nothing will sound bad, and what a cmaj chord was. The rest I developed as I played. Odd that you say this seems like guitar. Thanks though.

[Sialys]

Just throwin' this out there for kaptainkewl

Guitars closest relative is the piano, maybe that's why?

Amazing thread by the way I'm learning a ton!

[NickPerrin]

At 6/12/08 07:56 AM, thefev wrote: But NEVER compose without knowing theory. It's just weird.

I say COMPOSE COMPOSE COMPOSE regardless. I also say you SHOULD learn theory if you're serious about music, but if you want to compose before you know any theory yet? Go right ahead and try. Basically all of my compositions up until recently have been done 100% by ear. In any case, the ear is more important than theory, because you will often be breaking rules to make something sound better. Theory is still an insanely vital tool !

[mkron]

Wow, all i can say is damn good job of teaching yourself all that stuff.
However, I think I'll through my two sense in about theory.

Firstly, we seem to focus a lot on harmony, and melody, when the most important thing is rhythm. As mostly electronic composers (no offense to you who use pen and paper, but I am mainly talking to the midi based peeps out here) some of us do not get a good basis in rhythm, because our beats are either premade or midi information. Here is the basics of musical rhythm.

The time signature: The time signature determines two things: A) how the measure is counted and B) what types of beats are in a measure. The simplest time signature from a theoretical position would be 1/1. The top number is how the measure is counted, 1 beat, and the bottom number is what type of beat is counted. In this case, a whole note. However, the most common time signature, and the one used most often on newgrounds, is 4/4 (yes for those of you who already know what this is, I am counting half-time and common time as pretty much the same, because on computer you either double ore half the tempo). This means for beats to measure, with a quarter note taking the beat. This is what is meant at quarter=120 or quarter=60. The number is the bpm, or beats per minute.
Here is a breakdown of how the beats work:
Four 16th notes= Two 8th notes
Two 8th notes= One Quarter note
Two Quarter notes= 1 Half note
2 half notes= 1 Whole note.

Technically, there is any number of divisions you can go down, for example four 32nd notes=2 16th notes and four 64th notes = two 32nd notes, however, because most digital composition is taking place more and more in midi piano role, it doesn't matter as much.

Besides the basic breakdown of notes, there also dots. If you add a dot to a note, you are lengthening it by one half its original value. Seems compliated, but isn't. For example, a normal Half note is worth two beats. A dotted half note is worth three. So a dotted eigth is worth one half and a quarter( yes i know that equals 3/4ths, but when counting, you usually don't count in fractions), a dotted quarter is one and a half, and so on.

There much, much, much, more when it comes to rhythm and the notation of rhythm, but I really can't describe it all in one post. There are triplets, which substitute three beats for a space of two, complex time signatures like 5/8, compound time signater like 4/4+43/4, and many other things.
However, I'd like to address the main problem I saw with this tutorial: there is no talk of intervals.

Intervals are the distance between notes. For example, the distance between a C and a G is a fifth. Intervals determine how the song sounds, how chords are built, and ultimately the difference in tone.
Intervals can be broken down into categories. Firstly, there are consonant and dissonant intervals. Consonant intervals are intervals that do not need to be resolved. Take the C-G example. C-G make a perfect 5th, which is a stable sound. This is because G rests in the harmonic series of C(look it up on Wiki, basically its that when you place a C, the C vibrates other notes besides just C). However, if you were to raise the G a half step, making it a G#, you would get an augmented 5th, a dissonant interval. The Dissonant interval wants to move either up to the 6th or down to the fifth, to try and fit into the harmonic series. Think of it like a magnet in physics, with a positive being next to a negative but not quite there yet. Composers use dissonance to create musical tension.
The consonant intervals are: Perfect Unison, Major third, minor third, Perfect fourth, Perfect fifth, Major sixth, minor sixth, and Perfect Octave.
The dissonant intervals are: minor 2nd, Major 2nd, Augmented 4th, Diminished 5th, Major 7th, minor 7th, and Diminished Unison.

The intervals can then be divided up into five subsets. Major, minor, Augmented, Diminished, and Perfect.
In layman's terms, Major intervals sound happy, minor intervals sound sad, augmented intervels sound uber happy, and diminished intervals sound uber sad. Perfect intervals have no tonality, neither major or minor.

Now, how does this relate to chords?
Firstly, a simple triad (or chord with three notes) has three notes, a root, a third, and a fifth. The root is the most important note. Lets take the original example of A minor. The root is A and the fifth is E. Notice how when you play only the A and E it doesn't sound either happy or sad. Now, to add the minor sound, play a C. The C is a minor third up from A, and the E is a Major third up from C. Any minor triad(disregarding inversions) is made by two intervals, first a minor and then a Major. A major triad is the opposite, with a Major on the bottom ( in this case it would be A to C#) and a minor on the top (C# to E). To make a diminished triad, use two minor thirds, and to make an augmented, use two Major.

There, I think that clarifies things.
Note*
And music theory does take forever to learn. All of what I've talked about in this post is trivial. Composers do not think in terms of C then I should go to G and then transpose to another keyality. Focus more on the way your music sounds and how it progresses. Don't worry about theory unless you are doing an exercise, such as writing a Fughe or counterpoint. Just write. Take a class if you want to learn.

Also, I have had basically 11 years of theory and am off to UCLA as a Performance/Comp Major. I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING. But if you need help on basic stuff, like transposition or harmonic analysis, message me.

[Mutantspider]

Heehee, I have FLstudio 7XL version and now you thought me what I always wanted to learn, the basics how music work, thank you so much, I have to try making music now!

[ZooSafari]

Ya its pretty simple actually, all you got to do is learn the scalezors :D

Btw the Amayor scalezor is wrong, the correct one is: ABC#DEF#G#A ^^

[mkron]

There is an immense amount of theory and practice behind improvising. It doesn't just come out of your fingers or mouth.

[SymbolCymbal]

I really cant comprehend musical theory ..i just started playing piano a few months ago... im acctually a drummer... an awesome drummer i mean...hahaha... i just went with patterns i found in the keyboard...its prolly why i have problems changing key in my songs... when i do change key its purely accidental but i can hear when something sounds good.. you can hear in my music how i rarely change key.. but when i do it sounds great