One of my main problems is to come up with chord progressions that work well for trance.

Can some of the pro's share a few tips? I tried some of the 'usual' I-IV-V stuff but doesnt seem to work well for me.

I read somewhere that trance chords are usually minors. I'm not entirely sure why as Im only learning the theory myself at the moment.

[edit] on a semi related note, another good way to get a tune sounding pretty cool is this tip which I picked up yesterday - either from here or a diff forum, im not sure which.

basically, choose a tune you really like - i chose Motorcyle's ATRC - then think about what notes are in that tune. Try and recreate it in your head/sequencer and see what comes out. Unless your pretty darn good your not going to get it first time, but the resulting tune may be pretty reasonable. I managed to get the first two notes spot on from the main melody which I am well chuffed with, considering I have only been learning musical thoery for abotu two weeks!

Once you have the new melody, filling out the chords is easy as pie!

Last edited by Mossy on Jan-04-2004 at 12:28

quote:

Originally posted by ravan Can some of the pro's share a few tips? I tried some of the 'usual' I-IV-V stuff but doesnt seem to work well for me.

Try moving up or down a third and changing major to minor when you do it. This is a very common chord change. Example (moves C-major to A-minor):
C-E-G
A-C-E

Also try moving up or down a tone or semi-tone. Example:
Eb-G-Bb
C#-F-G#

quote:

Also try moving up or down a tone or semi-tone.

Move WHAT?

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quote:

Originally posted by Digital Aura Move WHAT?

black key/White key/black key (i hope, I don't know how to play piano)

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I usually just play some random progressions on the keyboard while recording the midi notes, then listen to them over again, and decide what's best.

Really, I think it's all about messing around and listening to the stuff you're writing closely. A really easy way to write them is to try and use as many notes as possible from the original scale in the successive chords you write (a la naked angel :P)

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Originally posted by Masonious you win again dude - and nice move shoving the whole i figured out how to order pizza thing in my face. i tried that 4 and a half months ago and woke up with a Taiwanese transvestite but to Ygrene it's just, "anoother day in the life, noooo biggieee".

Last edited by Fast Turtle on Jan-04-2004 at 20:18

I really love the principle of contrary motion. I'll give an example of what this is:

Say you play G4# F4# A4# D4#. At the same time (simultaneously) on the octave above it play F5# A5# F F6#.

This is called contrary motion because as you'll notice the top melody moves up, the bottom moves down, the top melody down, the bottom one up. I think this is a type of counterpoint. It sounds so dramatic (many movie scores use this strategy). Sounds better if you begin by playing the first melody to establish a harmonic context, then the second pass play both at the same time. The bigger the leaps, like the simultaneous D4# F6#, the more dramatic.

To give you idea of what your doing, your just adding intervals. So, the D4# and F6#, even though F6# is a couple of octaves away from the D#, is playing a minor third. Same goes for the other notes. Hope this helps.

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Last edited by Etherium on Jan-05-2004 at 07:12

quote:

Originally posted by Etherium I really love the principle of contrary motion. I'll give an example of what this is: Say you play G4# F4# A4# D4#. At the same time (simultaneously) on the octave above it play F5# A5# F F6#. This is called contrary motion because as you'll notice the top melody moves up, the bottom moves down, the top melody down, the bottom on up. I think this is a type of counterpoint. It sounds so dramatic (many movie scores use this strategy). Sounds better if you begin by playing the first melody to establish a harmonic context, then the second pass play both at the same time. The bigger the leaps, like the simultaneous D4# F6#, the more dramatic. To give you idea of what your doing, your just adding intervals. So, the D4# and F6#, even though F6# is a couple of octaves away from the D#, is playing a minor third. Same goes for the other notes. Hope this helps.

That is indeed a kind of counterpoint.

I made a little example to show anyone who doesn't understand what he's talking about what he means. The piano in this file starts with a low melody, then a higher one begins countering the lower one with opposite directions. Then a string progression begins, and after the kicks begin, etc. Bassline is just based on the scale.

mp3 - http://www.audiobeats.com/~cboor/counterpractice.mp3
flp - http://www.audiobeats.com/~cboor/counterpractice.flp

Sorry some of the stuff sounds so crappy. I tried to make it with all FL stuff except for the superwave, which you'll need to download if you don't have it.

Note the fact that there is a chord progression, but that it all happens in the same scale.

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quote:

Originally posted by Masonious you win again dude - and nice move shoving the whole i figured out how to order pizza thing in my face. i tried that 4 and a half months ago and woke up with a Taiwanese transvestite but to Ygrene it's just, "anoother day in the life, noooo biggieee".

Last edited by Fast Turtle on Jan-04-2004 at 22:27

Nuclear - thats pretty awesome!

I realize you can go the hardcore trail-and-error route and just experiment the hell out of it, but I think you can do better if you have some toolbox / theoretical knowledge of what you're doing before you start doing random chords. So I'm loving these suggestions here so far!

Everyone has his/her own ways of course

You can use the original scale as a guide for the progression, though. IE, if you play a c minor triad, play a D minor or D# minor one next, and then mess around with the notes to get something in agreement of the progression. I usually just play around with them until I get a sound I want.

If you look at most chord progressions in songs, you'll see that they usually base themselves around a single scale (as I mentioned before, naked angel is a good example; though a whole bunch of chords are played in it, all of the notes in the chords are from a single scale, B minor)

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quote:

Originally posted by Masonious you win again dude - and nice move shoving the whole i figured out how to order pizza thing in my face. i tried that 4 and a half months ago and woke up with a Taiwanese transvestite but to Ygrene it's just, "anoother day in the life, noooo biggieee".

Let me speak from experience:

Even a basic knowledge of music theory will help you write music better. Trial and error worked alright for me, but after one (one!) quarter of music theory in college, I was able to recognize WHY melodies and chords work.

And multiple quarters later, you learn many more interesting things.

As was mentioned earlier, most recent 'big' trance songs are in a minor key. It adds a bit of tension, while still allowing things to be upbeat.

And a ton of Psy/Goa is on the harmonic minor, diddling around the upper notes in the scale, around that augmented 2nd interval...

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Here is something I whipped up using contrary motion. Notice in the third pass the cellos begin playing the counterpoint.

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]

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