Since I already fill this forum with half of its post, I figured I better start cutting down on my posts or I'll get banned for spamming or piss everybody off because I'm always asking for help.

The topic pretty much says it all. We'll address the first one first, as I think it will lend a hand to the second one.

Playing the piano with two hands. There are SOOOOO many EDM artists who play "fake piano" and just use their controllers for sampling for the most part and do all the writing with the mouse. I've been watching so many gear videos lately, and I see these guys just doing unbelievable things on a keyboard. I know its years, and decades of experience that allows them to do this, but I am a patient person. I don't live in the microwave world. I just need to know a good formula for learning this. I know practice is the key, but I don't know what to practice!!!!!

And on to topic too....maybe its just me but for some reason my productions are not coming to me like they used to. Lately I've been getting absolutely stumped after writing my chord progressions, and I've never really had any success building a track in a different way. I would like to stick to doing chords first but i need more ideas! I'm not talking about "write the melody next" or "do the drums and bass after the chords" - I'm talking about creative and intuitive approaches that some of you might incorporate in your production process that could help the light bulb come on for me (and hopefully others in my position) - It doesn't even have to spawn off the chords either. I'm not really concerned with the order in which the track is built. I'm more interested in learning creative ways of approaching them that maybe you guys can shine some light on.

As an example....here is something very basic that I do in my tracks for a bassline. I simply take the chord MIDI's and delete all the notes except the lowest track. We'll use the common ACE and EGB sequence here. What I do just drop my bassline 1 octave from the lowest note (in this case E and B) and bam, I have a simple yet sometimes effectIVE bassline. This practice is also very common with sub bass as well and the octave drop there will usually depend on the audio I'm working with.

I apologize in advance for the short story and two not-so-easy-to-answer questions, but I know there are some seasoned veterans on here who are willing to share invaluable advice and as always, thank you very very much. You would be surprised at how far just one little tip can go.

Subtle broke down chords and chord progressions and major & minor scales for me quite some time ago and it was something so simple yet it carried over and generated a ton more knowledge.

Again, thanks gus

I'm in the same boat with you mate. Is knowing chords critical? No, do I believe it would help me a lot? Absolutely.

I'm actually quite keen to commit to learning at least the basics of chord progression and learning to play the piano.

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Subtle did an excellent job explaining it to me. The first thing I have found with chords and dance music is you need to understand that a very large majority use simple, traditional scales. You don't need to spend time learning and practicing those off the wall scales (although it surely wouldn't hurt)

It's fairly basic. Your minor chords are the more dramatic, emotional, sad type tracks, while the major chords bring a more upbeat and happy feel. A lot of people despise these things because it takes away so much of the learning process and creates a musician who is reliant upon a chord library, but I almost always am looking at it when I'm writing.

http://musicreference.chordlibrary.com/

Go down to A and select Minor with the Chords button noted. You'll see exactly what we discussed above, the ACE chord. (One of the most popular in music) - You can then go down through those chords and develop your progressions. (I've personally thought about writing the MIDI for the frequent chords I use to save time)

If you select scales, you'll then get a display of all the available keys for that given scale. Keep in mind that these are not rock solid and only serve as a guide (a good guide, but its not the gospel)

I look at the scale when I'm writing the melody and the chords obviously when I'm writing the chords. Chord progressions are usually fairly simple. Rotating just ACE x8 and EGB x8 is somewhat popular and although simple as pie it can sound great. I usually try to aim for 4 chords but theres really a lot of variables.

Finally, for the chords you are not binded to just sit there and hold the keys. As long as everything is done in the proper timing context, you can hold A and C and individually press E 8 times, or 4 times, or wtvr while just holding A and C steady. As long as you're staying in the time frame, there's really no limit as to how you treat the sequencing. That's where the musician inside you comes to play.

Recently I've been writing melodies and chord progs. I used Ableton 7 for a while, but I ditched that for Reaper. Reaper 3 displays the note names on the notes themselves(which Ableton 8 does), and I can display both the chords and the notes of the melody simultaneously which makes writing much easier.

If you're still using Ableton 7, you can write your chord prog, and then push the whole thing over by whatever the length of the chord is. So if all of your chords are one bar, push over the whole chord prog by one bar, write, then delete that chord prog. By the end of the melody the chords should all be delete.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

Going up the scale. Press a key, skip 3 keys, press the next, skip 2, press the next. Major Chord.

Press a key, skip two, press the next, then skip 3, press the next, Minor Chord.

You can do this without following a scale, or with following a scale. For the most part, the rules don't change either way.

What else do you need to know in order to make progressions?

Most of theory is simply assinging names to concepts you already know. You can go learn the names of every chord, but knowing what it is called will not help you make better music. Its very much like learning in a Logic class, you go and learn the names of what you already know. Knowing the names of logical fallacies for instance, doesn't help you figure out logical problems any better. You improve your logic, and your musical creativity, with practice.

Yeah, thats extremely simplified, but that is what I went off of, and I have made awesome progressions. As for playing piano, take a year lesson. Playing an instrument isn't hard, the hard part is using chords and melody in an awesome way, and that takes practice. No two ways about it.

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I'm going to disagree with this advice, to an extent:

quote:

Originally posted by sixofour.604 As for playing piano, take a year lesson. Playing an instrument isn't hard, the hard part is using chords and melody in an awesome way, and that takes practice. No two ways about it.

I'm sure that I have a different perspective on this considering that I took ten years of piano lessons, but you can't learn how to "play the piano" by taking lessons for a year. You can learn to find your way around a bit, and perhaps read music (previous musical experience helps), but I wouldn't consider you a pianist at this point.

That's not to say that you have to be a pianist to write decent piano melodies involving two hands.

Even after my ten years of lessons, I don't feel like I am a "good" pianist. That being said, I don't think that taking lessons for a year would be a bad thing, either. I'm certain it would help your productions. So, I don't disagree with that part... but moreso I guess with the "playing an instrument isn't hard". Everyone is different, but I actually find it easier to compose than to play when it comes to the piano. YMMV.

As for the trouble with the inspiration for tracks... if you're not into changing your methodology, perhaps you can change your environment. Make your studio space a pleasure to be in. Change the lighting. Change your curtains. Re-arrange your workspace. Add a plant. I know it sounds crazy, but when I make my space an enjoyable place to work and be inspired, things seem to go much better for me. Make sure it doesn't feel like "work"... this is where uninspired productions come from.

Just my two cents.

Sure, everything is different for other people. My exprience in music theory classes was that I already knew the concepts they taught, all they did for me was attach names to those concepts. Many other people do not have that same exprience.

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E = mc²/2

E = mc² is the optical illusion of E = mc²/2

Click me to find out why.

I cant help too much with this one - but i will agree that making your environment an attractive place can be one way to urge creative juices, i mean its like looking at a hot woman, if shes good you get those good feelings if shes well the opposite your not going to want to be creative with her at all!

And, me personally to help with my chord work, i took up piano as i had no prior knowledge of piano at all, except just countless hours tinkering away moving from one note to another in the hope that it sounds pleasing.

Your questions are indeed tuff, to answer them accurately especially when your talking about unearthing your intuitive nature.

I think cease all moments is a key too. i mean if you having dinner and something springs to mind, that alone is a chance in time, and perhaps the best, as its truly naturally driven by intuition, and not per say forced by willful intent etc etc.

not sure if that did anything for you but hope it helps

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Practice is not the key. PROPER practice is the key.

Take piano lessons. Simple. You'll learn quicker, and most importantly, you'll learn the correct way.

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quote:

Originally posted by sixofour.604 What else do you need to know in order to make progressions?

Uhhh... being able to play one chord has nothing whatsoever to do with chord progressions.

A chord progression is a sequence (progression, durrrr) of chords. Some sequences sound good. Others sound like crap. Others sound good but are used in 90% of the tracks out there so you want to avoid them if you're trying to come up with something that sounds original. And still others, might sound like crap if you just played them as straight half notes in root position, but can sound extremely cool with the right rhythms and inversions and adornments.

It's that last set that's really interesting, and not coincidentally, the set that's almost impossible for somebody who doesn't know the theory to just stumble on. Part of it forms the basis for jazz, and it should be no surprise that a lot of the pioneering jazz musicians (not blues) were classically trained.

It's great that you think playing an instrument is easy, and that you write awesome (haha) progressions without much formal training, but you might want to lay off posting your self-indulgent narcissistic masturbation to cover up for the fact that you don't have any useful advice.

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To Stephen: You'll find that a majority of tracks, including non-electronic ones, are based on the same bog-standard chord progressions, in particular I-IV-V-I. Now consider that II can almost always substitute for IV, VI can sometimes substitute for I (it'll sound "partially resolved"), V7 can substitute for V, and III can usually be shoved anywhere in the middle, and take into account 3 different possible inversions of each one, and you already have hundreds of combinations to work with, based on that one basic progression.

And the thing is, even though the result will have a completely different character depending on how you spell it out, they'll all sound "right" because they're derived from the same progression that's well-known for sounding "good" to most people's ears.

That should hopefully give you a few ideas, and of course there are dozens of other standard chord progressions you can start with (you can look those up). Most of a classical track is just transitioning from one well-known progression to another and occasionally modulating; most electronic tracks literally just repeat the same progression forever.

The point of learning this - and it's next to impossible to explain in a few paragraphs, people on this forum have tried and failed many times before - is that once you have an absolutely rock-solid foundation such that it's second nature to spit out a standard, boring progression, it's not really such a huge leap to start bending the rules and/or improvising. But unless you have that foundation, any discussion of those second-order practices won't really make any sense to you.

For example, another common practice is to substitute a suspended version of the V chord in place of the standard one, or use it as a transition for IV to V, but that isn't really going to make sense to you unless you know what V and suspended are, and while I'm sure we could explain that (or maybe even find a wiki link), it's just one of hundreds of such tricks/techniques, and you'd be able to figure it out intuitively after Harmony I.

I know what you mean when you say you want ideas, you want easy answers, but honestly, it's a really easy answer - take a couple of theory courses, or at least follow the courseware from start to finish. It's effort, yes, but if it's the compositional aspect you're interested in, making real tonal elements as opposed to just one-note bassline rhythms and layers of drum sequences and power chords, then it's invaluable to know.

I'm sure somebody here will once again decide to try to take on the Herculean task of distilling 3 years of music theory into one forum post, and of course fail to make any serious impact. Knock yourself out.

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@Diginut

"know the theory"...all that means is you know what the concepts are called. Again, knowing the name of a concept, ie. what everyone agrees to call it, doesn't help you become a better musician. As for Jazz, jazz is horrible music. If its the result of people spending countless hours in music theory class, then I can see why so many people have such a bias against learning theory. And I would agree with them.

You either have music down, and learning theory is just a way to add names to what you know..or you don't have it down, and learning theory probably won't help you much. That is the advice I am giving. And its much better than anything you have said Diginut, all your shitty advice leads to is more Tiesto-wannabes. Its the same bland crap you see in countless interviews and QA for . And the world doesn't want any more of that.

I'm not saying learning theory is bad or what ever, i'm saying if you don't already have a strong grasp on musical concepts, theory isn't going to magically make you hans zimmer. Ive seen music theory classes. On average if there was 200 students who took the class, only like 5-6 actually used the information, and went on to be musicians. This shows that learning theory isn't some magical musician maker.

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Last edited by sixofour.604 on Aug-03-2009 at 02:47

shizzam this is getting heated. The debate over intuitive intent and instructive discourse!

Im not really one to comment to much as my ability in production is somewhat limited at this point in time. But from an outsiders point of view there is much to be had in terms of, constructive criticisms with reference to advancing ones musical ability from both learning from others, i.e. in a classroom or learning through the natural innate ability that man so earnestly progresses within.

Like sixofour mentioned just because you partake in theory doesnt mean your to become a wonder musician, but then perhaps you will, as that's maybe what your missing some instruction to help crack open that nut of intent thats all bottled up. Second, there is the alternative side to instructive learning that of (free will an desire) bound by no limitations. Ultimately you seek the same end in both attempts that of forward movement - and to this is there an answer no - just common sense! As both offer foundations to progress from, a la but the choice to where to progress from".

I think what i have written in my signature speaks of some truth - well 2 me it does so.

all the best - i think this thread has become very informative if you can weed out the ill mannered growth that it has spurred.

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