I thought I would compact three different topics into one, rather than cluttering up the forum.

Is counterpoint worth studying if you're making trance?

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I started piano lessons a few months ago and the experience has been positive. I'm playing pretty simple songs right now, but it's nice to be able to see what song writers do that make songs boring, and what makes them interesting.

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While I was listening to a pair of two similar tracks with different BPMs, I realized that unless samples are time stretched and effects are synced, the static sounds will become more claustrophobic as the BPM increases, or they will "breathe" more when the BPM is diminished.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

If you plan on just making Trance the rest of your life, you hardly need counter-point. Or music theory for that matter. But I would suggest learning, because once you do, even if you thought you would only make Trance, you come to find that making organic music is a lot easier than you thought, and you may spring out into other types of music. Ive seen it happen time and again. Ask RichieV.

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Same advice as above really, you learned piano and you started to see new things.

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Ok?

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quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux Is counterpoint worth studying if you're making trance?

For the most part, I'd say probably not, or at least not as helpful as studying music theory in general. But, it depends on how counterpoint is taught. Back when I was a music theory major, I had a considerable amount of counterpoint coursework, but it was largely studying Baroque and Renaissance piano pieces, choral arrangements, etc. in a university setting under professors of classical music. I spent considerable time analysing the harmonic relationships between parts, looking for and avoiding parallel fifths ad nauseum, studying rhythmic interactions between parts, writing simple counterpoint pieces for piano (and solo instruments), etc. Granted, that was 20-some years ago, but I don't think that the in-depth knowledge of counterpoint that I learned in those courses have had much bearing on my productions today (yes I employ parallel fifths in my music ) and I've long forgotten much of it.

IMO, a decent music theory course would probably be sufficient and would probably cover just enough counterpoint to be useful, without bogging you down with concepts and exercises that you wouldn't find very useful for EDM production. HTH.

edit: in hindsight, I think the one area where counterpoint has been helpful for me has been in coming up with harmonies for vocals. I'll often make one or more copies of the lead vocals, pitch-shift them up/down and rearange the notes using the basic principles of counterpoint to create 2- and 3-part harmonies, then have the vocalist replace the "artificial" (i.e., pitch-shifted) harmonies with her actual singing.

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Last edited by cryophonik on May-14-2009 at 09:35

Counterpoint is very useful. My understanding of it is just that its a form of contrary motion designed to get the treble and bass moving in opposite yet complimentary direcitons. If your a half decent musician, your probably doing it already. Actually "learning" how to do it from a technical standpoint is probably less helpful than just practising some piano and writing more music TBH.

I think that was the only real question. In regards to your second statement, yes you will find learning a real instrument will help your writing.

And I didn't even understand the third bit. Have a big night last night?

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quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux While I was listening to a pair of two similar tracks with different BPMs, I realized that unless samples are time stretched and effects are synced, the static sounds will become more claustrophobic as the BPM increases, or they will "breathe" more when the BPM is diminished.

I get your point, but I think that it would feel more "claustrophobic" whether the samples are time-stretched (e.g., acidized) or not, relative to a slower tempo, because the same amount of elements would occur, but in a shorter time span. If the samples aren't acidized, it would feel cluttered and out of sync because the un-acidized samples would have an absolute length (i.e., not tempo-dependent), so the relative timing of samples would be thrown out of sync with each other and with the tempo. I think that made sense.

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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik I get your point, but I think that it would feel more "claustrophobic" whether the samples are time-stretched (e.g., acidized) or not, relative to a slower tempo, because the same amount of elements would occur, but in a shorter time span. If the samples aren't acidized, it would feel cluttered and out of sync because the un-acidized samples would have an absolute length (i.e., not tempo-dependent), so the relative timing of samples would be thrown out of sync with each other and with the tempo. I think that made sense.

I have a tendency to make easy ideas sound more complicated than necessary.

Let's say you have a kick drum that's 200ms long. The length of a bar is, let's say 400ms. If you increase the BPM so now that the length of of the bar is 300ms, than the ratio of the length of the kick to the length of the bar increases from 200ms:400ms to 200ms:300ms(1:2 -> 2:3). This is assuming that the sample remains the same length and isn't time stretched to accommodate changes in BPM.

Here's the equation to figure out how much silence per second you get(y) based off of the BPM(x) and sample length in seconds(z):

(1-z(x/60))=y

1 sec = 1000 ms

I forgot how to work my graphing calculator; someone else please graph it.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux I have a tendency to make easy ideas sound more complicated than necessary. Let's say you have a kick drum that's 200ms long. The length of a bar is, let's say 400ms. If you increase the BPM so now that the length of of the bar is 300ms, than the ratio of the length of the kick to the length of the bar increases from 200ms:400ms to 200ms:300ms(1:2 -> 2:3). This is assuming that the sample remains the same length and isn't time stretched to accommodate changes in BPM. Here's the equation to figure out how much silence per second you get(y) based off of the BPM(x) and sample length in seconds(z): (1-z(x/60))=y 1 sec = 1000 ms I forgot how to work my graphing calculator; someone else please graph it.

So assuming your retriggering the kick each bar then your theoretically getting a more crowded sound? I see what you mean now in the context of long kick tails/other one shots that occur reguarly but have some length.

And I think this is one reason I dislike hardstyle. They seem to forget that if you have a kick triggering at 145 bpm, you need to either make the tail shorter or turn down the volume to avoid swamping the entire track in mud and distortion.

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quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips So assuming your retriggering the kick each bar then your theoretically getting a more crowded sound? I see what you mean now in the context of long kick tails/other one shots that occur reguarly but have some length. And I think this is one reason I dislike hardstyle. They seem to forget that if you have a kick triggering at 145 bpm, you need to either make the tail shorter or turn down the volume to avoid swamping the entire track in mud and distortion.

I thought the busy sound is part of the idea?

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I have been taking piano lessons for the past 6 years , and well..

I find that making a classical melody is ALOT more easier than making a trance tune .. You dont need to follow basic 'supersaws' rule. Maybe its because anything sounds nice on the piano..

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plur.

quote:

Originally posted by noicuc I have been taking piano lessons for the past 6 years , and well.. I find that making a classical melody is ALOT more easier than making a trance tune .. You dont need to follow basic 'supersaws' rule. Maybe its because anything sounds nice on the piano..

there are supersaw rules ?

As far as the counterpoint question , in terms of opportunity cost, I would say counterpoint is something that won't really help you out as much as learning other things so if I were you , I wouldn't bother.

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Originally posted by RichieV there are supersaw rules ?

For example , you cant give a supersaw a piano melody..
It will sound bad

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