Dance/House melody + melody rhythm

[dek88]

The rules of practice define the performance.

the rules of practice defines the piece mike. rules has nothing to do with performance. it could be a requirement.


i am unsure what type of music you listen to but you strike me as the guy who believe a good foundation is what is needed for something to last longer, truthfully, the value of the performance is made by the performance of the musicians and not by how well educated they are.

you are not breaking a rule by playing out of tune or missing a key, the performance is just lost by doing it, but you are just not following the piece, and there is a difference.

...there are few rules for playing out of tune, context is lost, there are people who plays wildly good out of tune, i could name several, last 40 years there has come a multitude of instruments who let you do just that, music is made and defined with it, its not about rules. expression matters and musical notation doesnt cover it in that genre. and if you want to go that deep down between musicality and its rules of scoring, notation and expression on paper, then you are out of tune every time you change a key or a stroke on the majority of instruments that exists just to exagerate.

...out of time performances can be good in some places, not going to explain it, sound is in many places captured by the signature of how the rest of the world around translates it, movement, space, time, even cultures, not just solely on the the facts of the rules of music and notation.

and yes ok, Those who understand the value of music seem to do a pretty good job in performance as those who do not, but not given, you play with music you should become better. but you always need to rely more on your technique to be be able to execute your knowledge, knowledge in a musical sense is nothing without expression and without the ability to perform. not to mention the sound which defines it.

anyways, i just want to help jontah, i know dearly in what situation he is in and want to help him.

[tapper mike]

Puleassee......


Me: 1
15 years as a touring musician no less then three gigs a week all highly paid. 15 X 52 (weeks in a year) x 3 (gigs a week) roughly 2340 gigs conservatively.

You?

Me:
Opened for Santana, Buddy Guy, Hall & Oates, Duran Duran

You?

Me:
Graduated from Detroit Recording Institute.

You?

Me:
Was a session musician have done commercials infomercials and documentary sound tracks, Yeah I know you think that makes me a sell out because I'm good and what I do and am actually paid for it.

You?

I too started off as a young musician with a lot of talent yet no skill or knowledge to back up that talent. When I needed critical detailed information on how somebody did something that was not in my purvue I'd ask for help. Just do it and be cool with it is not productive help. In order for me to live up to my potential I sought out real knowledge practiced real technique while expanding my scope and abilities.

shankfiddle did real thinking analysis that is useful productive information.
You didn't provide details that really brought clarity to what was going on.

Those with a little bit of raw talent and no discipline don't last long in the music biz. They usually sit around and complain they were great for a little bit, the could have been greater but it was too much work. And usually someone standing back away from the dance floor can easily tell that it's just crap and the only reason why people are out on the floor is because they just want to dance.

[dek88]

im sorry mike, sounds like they used u real bad.

was probably a rule of practice which defined led zeppelin to you too.


the guy has been struggling for a year, with knowledge of all the basic music theory to find a 4 chord dance melody and you guys want to throw more theory at him for that, he obviosly lacks comprehension and needs execution, not more theory. he wants to do it but dont know how. simple, give the guy a keyboard and let the guy play.

[dek88]

this is the question;

HOW do those producers come up with those repetetiv melodies that actually is driving and works good on the dancefloor? I got the tools to do it. But I guess the rhythm stops me. ANY tips on how I can practice this or get a good melody rhythm going?

so you dont have to act smart, i was going to tell him they can do it because its simple when u know how to, u need to just start to hit your keyboard, listen to what comes out and go with it. simple as that. there are no rules, and you cant follow your knowledge of your musical theories when you grow as a musician, they are there for you to play back whats written and not what is going to be. new songs should come from your senses and not some chord progression which everyone uses because nobody are genuine enough to have a feeling and write new music. always most important to be able to play what you feel, not some fkn theory.

invitation to a pissing contest

[tapper mike]

I'll give you a very detailed explanation. And I'll tell you this. It's not the end of the world when you find out you don't have the stuff. There are things that I've tried, wanted bad, failed miserably at, and then had the common sense to stop doing.


Not directly related to the discussion we are having right now but... Take note of this thread.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344060

Simply having lots of tools at your disposal doesn't make one skilled or talented. Practice, Which bascially what VitamanD outlines. Gives you a focused grip on the tools you have, the skills you need, And the understanding of the medium As well of a sense of style.

[jancivil]

this is the question;

HOW do those producers come up with those repetetiv melodies that actually is driving and works good on the dancefloor? I got the tools to do it. But I guess the rhythm stops me. ANY tips on how I can practice this or get a good melody rhythm going?

He doesn't have the tools. this is like saying, buy me a stradivarius and now I have the tools to become a great violinist. the tools to do this thing involve the sense of rhythm the OP lacks. I listened to, around a half a minute of one of the things. It's baby music.

"It's as if the producer took the same rhythm from bar one, copy-pasted it, and moved it over one eighth note which resulted in some rudimentary syncopation." What happened in what I heard was, in the second iteration, the the rhythm was truncated by the value of one 8th note, half a beat in 4/4. Literally, ie., copy/paste. This is not what a skilled musician will have done. It isn't 'driving rhythm'. It's transparent how mechanical it is, by how awkward... it isn't anyone feeling the riddim. It's shit. Seriously, find a better model; and know that if you're going to trawl for people to do your homework, the people that can do not really respect this stuff.

The one thing that would make it have the forward impulse it does have is there is a strong root movement in the underlying chords, which underneath a static melody like that can have that effect.

Your characterization of the situation is 'he's struggled for a year'. Yeah and welcome to reality, the reality of 'you have to have the applicable skills to accomplish a given task'.

this is the second incarnation of the same topic. this one has 'dance' music in the title, I guess to get rid of the kind of comment I leave, you should get some experience with songs. I guess that this dance music/house or what-have-you is somehow sui generis to someone. You should get out more.

(I identify myself as a composer. I do not tend to have problems with creativity or flow. I can pretty much apply myself to any music and find out what happened, what goes into it, if I take the time to do the work. I got there over years of applying myself to learning. I know about how a song is made from having played many songs, in many styles. I went for 'many styles' because I had that curiousity. I did not believe I was ready to write songs after one year of having an instrument, or two. But, and this may be a crucial difference, one enough to discourage me from even trying to respond to this kind of thread anymore, by the time I entertained the idea of 'could I write something myself', I recognized that the songs I would model after were GREAT SONGS. These EDM exercises are NOT. There is a certain futility to the exercise of trying to show someone something when this discernment is so absent.)

Tbese posts are to me strangely childlike. Here's someone asking how to develop rhythm. You do some things by your own hand, by your own curiosity and drive. One thing to do, yet again, is beat on things and play around with rhythm. I think at ten years of age I wouldn't find a driving rhythm with this, four-on-the-floor and a tune that made Mary Had a Little Lamb seem like the product of seriously accomplished intellect by comparison.

One year of having a computer and some software is not one year of having the tools to write music, having never played any.

you cant follow your knowledge of your musical theories when you grow as a musician, they are there for you to play back whats written and not what is going to be.

Oh really? I grew by leaps and bounds with information, and before I had the information I had gained some experience to provide a ground for the information to have meaning. I have said more than once theory is no recipe book, but people that compose music are often enlightened about the mechanics of it. Much as a writer of prose will have benefited from the English Composition course in the high school. Look, you identify with the OP and are sympathetic. This bespeaks your particular level, which wouldn't tend to be that of a knowledgable person, with experience in these matters. I would advise caution as far as schooling the class on 'when you grow...'.

new songs should come from your senses and not some chord progression which everyone uses because nobody are genuine enough to have a feeling and write new music. always most important to be able to play what you feel, not some fkn theory.

invitation to a pissing contest

this in response to someone lacking the tool to bring to the task. Whether or not this 'year of struggling' has an outcome of some information one might regurgitate, 'theory', it doesn't apply to the understanding of some incredibly simple music. He has no feel for rhythm by his own words, so what's going to be 'written', from 'senses' and feelings? This is daft and it's again strangely childlike, naive. You'll be at a stage where you emulate what's been done. If you can. This is one way to find out if this, 'music', is for you. If you can find out some things from hearing it and 'monkey hear/monkey do'...

[dek88]

Simply having lots of tools at your disposal doesn't make one skilled or talented. Practice, Which bascially what VitamanD outlines. Gives you a focused grip on the tools you have, the skills you need, And the understanding of the medium As well of a sense of style.

thats what i said but you said that just doing it doesnt do anything, now you imply that he needs practice which is the first thing i said in this thread. by physically doing it, thats the practice.

i dont understand what you guys are on about. me. you? me. you? like you just want to argue for the hell of it.

and jan, he does have the tools, you just need to read it more carefully.

[shankfiddle]

I've been studying hypnosis and brain function, and applying these concepts to music. What I've read is that in any cognitive task, people use three primary representational systems, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. More intelligent (and of course, i believe intelligence can be learned, it's not a have-it-or-you-don't thing) people have more complex representations (you can roughly read the number of steps in a cognitive process by the number of accessing cues the eyes make): for example, good spellers have a visual-auditory check process, two steps. I have a tenth grader who is a brilliant writer/poet, he comes in every day with a new slew of vocab words that are above even the GRE level. When you ask him to spell a word, his eyes dart all over the place, make four accessing cues, twice more cognitive function than "normal" for the same task.

I believe that TRAINED musicians, meaning they learned to play an instrument from an early age (as opposed to the hobbyist electronica producer who got into it in their late teens cause it was hip) whether fiddle, guit, keys, flute, whatever... the act of practicing, listening, learning an instrument forces the brain to develop more complex cross-representational maps in the mind. (this is kinda what everyone means when they say just learning theory is not enough, not enough to have the tools, you have to develop them to the point that they are ingrained in your subconscious) you have to work at developing these three modes of listening--which happens automatically when you practice and learn an instrument-- and of course combinations thereof... I find that most beginners have a strictly kinesthetic approach, which holds them back.

But no two instrumentalists are equal cause training on different instruments tends to emphasize development of different skills, bowed string players tend to be more developed auditory-kinesthetically (dealing with intonation/tone issues), pianists tend to be much better audio-visually (having to translate between notation and chord patterns in real-time), and guitarists tend to be more kinesthetic-visual (rhythm and chord patterns). So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

I think a lot of these disagreements are between those listening to this rudimentary EDM stuff kinesthetically, while the more educated among us are using a more complex combination of audio-visual-kinesthetic representations.

Nowadays when I hear a friend say things like "I don't listen to classical cause I like music I can dance to... I like to FEEL a beat" I interpret that as "i only want to use my kinesthetic sense, I'm not actually listening to the 'music'" and I laugh in their face.

Just some food for thought.

[shankfiddle]

in a more helpful vein:

those with difficulties "feeling" rhythm, try developing the other two systems

try to do it visually, envision a sequencer, start working in a sixteenth note grids and see the rhythms in your head until subdivision is second-nature.

Hear and listen for the steady repetitive beats, close yer eyes and don't move, force the auditory cortex to work, the main beats at 1, 2, 3, 4 and then LISTEN for where the syncopated beats fall relative to the steady beat.

then go back and combine all methods, you'll be able to feel rhythm much better with this mental visual grid, and also with a sharper ear with respect to rhythm. just going with what "feels good" will only get you but so far.

[Loki Fuego]

So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

Oh yeah, Skrillex, who spends all his time in a DAW is a miserable failure for sure.

I think a lot of these disagreements are between those listening to this rudimentary EDM stuff kinesthetically, while the more educated among us are using a more complex combination of audio-visual-kinesthetic representations.

Nowadays when I hear a friend say things like "I don't listen to classical cause I like music I can dance to... I like to FEEL a beat" I interpret that as "i only want to use my kinesthetic sense, I'm not actually listening to the 'music'" and I laugh in their face.

You made some interesting observations in your post, however this passage reminds me that some people can't simply accept that the world is different. They need to invent theories which would justify their arrogance.

Back to the topic:

In order to create a driving melody, you have to understand that apart from purely rhythmical aspect there are melodic accents involved as well. I.e. each melody has its own inherent rhythmical accents.

Try to play straight the following melody (16th notes, "-" denotes pause): C-E-C-G-C-C-E-G
Even though it sounds boring, it has certain accents. Now move unaccented notes away from 8th division to make the melody like this: C--EC-G-C-CE--G
It already sounds better.
Now remove the least important notes to make the melody like this: C---C-G-C--E--G
Sounds even better. Now just try changing the notes to see which melodic patterns works better with this rhythm. You'll notice that some works, while others don't.

You doesn't need to study a lot of theory to learn how to do this. You just need to feel the music and its inherent accents in order to do this. And the more you listen and the more you practice the better you become at this.

[Brouwers]

So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

Oh yeah, Skrillex, who spends all his time in a DAW is a miserable failure for sure.

You do know that skrillex was in a band and was a singer right?

[Loki Fuego]

So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

Oh yeah, Skrillex, who spends all his time in a DAW is a miserable failure for sure.

You do know that skrillex was in a band and was a singer right?

Yeah, and he wasn't a great success until he had started programming everything in DAW.

Or are you trying to convince me that being an ex-singer gives you an edge in programming that crazy Skrillex stuff in DAW?

[Brouwers]

So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

Oh yeah, Skrillex, who spends all his time in a DAW is a miserable failure for sure.

You do know that skrillex was in a band and was a singer right?

Yeah, and he wasn't a great success until he had started programming everything in DAW.

Or are you trying to convince me that being an ex-singer gives you an edge in programming that crazy Skrillex stuff in DAW?

Yes everything helps

[Loki Fuego]

So learn ANY instrument, the only thing that will surely 300% make you fail in the music world is if you do not physically play and spend all your time in a DAW.

Oh yeah, Skrillex, who spends all his time in a DAW is a miserable failure for sure.

You do know that skrillex was in a band and was a singer right?

Yeah, and he wasn't a great success until he had started programming everything in DAW.

Or are you trying to convince me that being an ex-singer gives you an edge in programming that crazy Skrillex stuff in DAW?

Yes everything helps

Why do people how play instrument say that you need to learn playing something in order to make better music. Because for them it's hard to program a melody as good as the play it.
On the other hand I first learned to program melodies. And when I hear a melody for me it's quite easy to imagine it in piano roll. When I see a melody programmed in piano roll I almost can hear it. So when I compose for me it's easier to program melodies rather than to play them.
It's just a different approach. So you won't convince me that if you learn how to play instrument you would be able to make better music.

[shankfiddle]

So you won't convince me that if you learn how to play instrument you would be able to make better music.

well then, case closed