KVR Audio

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:11 pm

Alright..

So I've been strugglin' with this over the last couple of months, if not a year from now. I REALLY need to get this practice thing going on melodies.

I know all the scales, I know the theory behind alot of music, far far far from everything,but I know some stuff atleast, I know the circle of fifth in and out, all the scales in minor and major, as well as all the chord in all respective scales. I've been studying alot of music stuff such as note reading etc etc.

BUT, eventhough I hear some dance/house melodies in pure C major scale, I really can't pull it off! take this song for instance; Alesso's new tune, I tried to get it right on the piano, I'm not sure if I'm right but I ended up with noticing it's in A major scale, with the notes starting on E, F#, G#, D and that's about it if I remember it correctly..

Alesso's new tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... lPD86c26zA

it really is a REALLY simple melody, most of the dance producers seems to follow a specific scale, avicii's levels for instance.. following the scale along with almost no difference other than doing the scale backwards.

so my question is:

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? like the example above (Alesso's new melody/tune)... (reference video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... lPD86c26zA)

Experienced house producers/electronic producers with their tricks and tips are highly appreciated.

I've heared alot of people works with a loop in the background to feel the groove or something, I've tried it, but I really cannot work that way, it's not giving me any rhythm inspiration at all.

Where do the proffessionals get their rhythmic stuff from? it's hard to just sit down at the piano and play and try different rhythms, there must be any tools, advices, tricks, tips, whatever. ANYTHING.

I feel so bad over this, I really enjoy doing music, but this totally stops me and makes me so uninspired, so I tend to stick to the theory stuff alot more than sitting and doing music because I get so frustrated over this (don't get me wrong, I actually sit down all the days doing music, I'm in a music school, I sit and do it on my freetime, weekends, after school etc etc. I bascially do this every day). And I really have a passion for house music, I've studied and downloaded midi files for almost every song, tried to recreate alot of songs. Sure, this is a good practice, but it doesn't give me anything as far as rhythm goes. Every (well not every, but many of them are new to my ears) rhythm is unique.

Please help, my biggest struggle really is this!

Thanks ALOT!

manducator · Post by **manducator** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:27 pm

Could it be that you are referring to side-chain? It makes music pumping. It gives that extra drive to songs.

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:40 pm

manducator wrote:Could it be that you are referring to side-chain? It makes music pumping. It gives that extra drive to songs.

no, I've used sidechain on every single track, the pumping effect sure does it's thing, but the melody rhythms is the most important part for me..

if you listen to the rhythm of the melody in the reference video it's not just straight 16 notes, actually I cannot even tell what it is, I'm so bad at rhythms, I really need tips on this.

D.Josef · Post by **D.Josef** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:23 pm

jontah wrote:
manducator wrote:Could it be that you are referring to side-chain? It makes music pumping. It gives that extra drive to songs.
no, I've used sidechain on every single track, the pumping effect sure does it's thing, but the melody rhythms is the most important part for me..

if you listen to the rhythm of the melody in the reference video it's not just straight 16 notes, actually I cannot even tell what it is, I'm so bad at rhythms, I really need tips on this.

From what I hear, it's 1 - 2 - 3 - and - 4 - and for three bars, and then just one whole note on 1 for one bar, and it starts over.
If it sounds uninspiring and machine-like once you coded it, add a swing. (Ie. treating pairs of eighth notes as inequal.)

And go and grab a djembe from your local music shop, and you'll start to love rhythm.

It worked for me.

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:21 am

D.Josef wrote:
jontah wrote:
manducator wrote:Could it be that you are referring to side-chain? It makes music pumping. It gives that extra drive to songs.
no, I've used sidechain on every single track, the pumping effect sure does it's thing, but the melody rhythms is the most important part for me..

if you listen to the rhythm of the melody in the reference video it's not just straight 16 notes, actually I cannot even tell what it is, I'm so bad at rhythms, I really need tips on this.
From what I hear, it's 1 - 2 - 3 - and - 4 - and for three bars, and then just one whole note on 1 for one bar, and it starts over.
If it sounds uninspiring and machine-like once you coded it, add a swing. (Ie. treating pairs of eighth notes as inequal.)

And go and grab a djembe from your local music shop, and you'll start to love rhythm. It worked for me.

hehe I DO love rhythm, and I getting to know a djembe and learn how to play it would be really hard :/ I'm currently focusing on piano and guitar so I can master them 2 first.

I passed by this link here: http://www.trancecommunity.com/Forum/ne ... orial.html pretty interesting stuff.

Although I knew about most of the stuff.

My question is: how do you guys make melodies? just by playing single tones on the keyboard or do you make chords and break those chords up into a melody or play the chordmelodies directly? I've always thought about making melodies with just one finger (playing single notes and not chords), maybe playing chords as a melody is easier?

I'm still struggling like hell with the rhythm. But is it easier to get a good rhythm going when doing chords instead of just playing single notes? I noticed nicky romero uses this technique aswell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgcghNsWirk @ 0.15sec

Thanks alot for answers! really appreciated!

shankfiddle · Post by **shankfiddle** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:55 pm

The word you're looking for is syncopation.

The rhythm is straightforward. It's not sixteenths, I hear eighth notes. Try counting a steady stream of 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &...

In the first bar the notes fall on beats 1 2 3 & 4 &.
on the next set the melody starts on the & of 1 and the & of 2.

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.

Edit: To get a little more comfortable with rhythmic transcription you should find these rhythms you don't quite fully understand and play them in using a midi keyboard. Then quantize to either sixteenth or eighth notes (triplets?) and study what's going on.

also: subdivide! it's the answer to most rhythm issues.

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:41 pm

shankfiddle wrote:The word you're looking for is syncopation.

The rhythm is straightforward. It's not sixteenths, I hear eighth notes. Try counting a steady stream of 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &...

In the first bar the notes fall on beats 1 2 3 & 4 &.
on the next set the melody starts on the & of 1 and the & of 2.

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.

Edit: To get a little more comfortable with rhythmic transcription you should find these rhythms you don't quite fully understand and play them in using a midi keyboard. Then quantize to either sixteenth or eighth notes (triplets?) and study what's going on.

also: subdivide! it's the answer to most rhythm issues.

I do understand rhythm and syncopation etc. A note landing on an offbeat (not on 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. but inbetween on the "and"), the problem is that when I PLAY the melody, I don't get it to be rhythmic. I first record a static melody and then correct the rhythm using my DAW's piano roll/sequencer.

Is there any way I can practice this rhythmic aspect? I mean, in some kind of easy way on the piano?

Subdivide, explain?

What I think that I'm thinking of (I could be wrong), is MOTIF, are there any MOTIF excercises? I'd really like to get a better in depth of understanding this. Aswell as rhythm itself, I'm so bad at rhythm. I think this would make my music much better.

Also, anyone got any answers of my chords & single note question which I stated above?

Thanks alot for answers, great so far!

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:25 pm

EDIT: I just checked out all the videos of Dancemusicproduction.com , they're mentioning motif, rhythm, melodies, balance, pitch with steps and skips etc.

But I'd like to get more indepth info about this. Any clues of tutorials or so on where I can advance in this? or simply become better at developing rhythmic patterns together with melodies?

shankfiddle · Post by **shankfiddle** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:05 pm

well what i'm hearing is that you mentally understand the syncopation but have trouble physically executing it.

What i mean by "subdivide" is count time-intervals smaller than the notes you nave to play. The rhythm is syncopated eighth notes, so you should be subdividing by counting sixteenth's. if you are subdividing it's really hard to miss your beat.

1 2 3 + 4 + + + 3.+.4.+. not subdividing - more difficult
1...2...3.+.4.+...+...+.3.+.4.+.
subdividing - easier to precisely place your notes in time

so to practice subdividing:
if your metronome is going
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
you should be in your head with your even more precise mind-metronome counting
1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...

then practice syncopation by simply accenting different beats
1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...
..+...+...+.+...+.....+...+..+.+
+..+..+.+..+..+..+..+.+.+...+...

dammit it didn't format nicely like it did in the edit window...

leighbeynon · Post by **leighbeynon** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:21 am

some interesting stuff here, since the op knows all scales, he might know all chords, so can i ask some advice?

i want to create nice simple chord progressions, do you recommend only using progressions from a given scale ? or shifting chords from other scales?

jontah · Post by **jontah** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:18 pm

leighbeynon wrote:some interesting stuff here, since the op knows all scales, he might know all chords, so can i ask some advice?

i want to create nice simple chord progressions, do you recommend only using progressions from a given scale ? or shifting chords from other scales?

Within' dance music atleast, I think it's kinda forbidden to change scale in the middle of everything, since you build around a scale throughout the song. So keep yourself close to one scale which you like and build blocks around it. I have some real troubles about rhythm, I really can't get it down to the piano..

Loki Fuego · Post by **Loki Fuego** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:51 pm

Try playing your melodies over the beat. This would make it easier for your to feel the groove you are playing.

Anyway, I never worried about PLAYING rhythm, as I always fine-tune what I've played.

dek88 · Post by **dek88** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 6:34 pm

jontah my friend, just play a chord, any chord. play the same chord over and over again against the same beat. soon enough you split the chord with the beat and you end up with meeting elements... what does it sound like? change the patch... tweak the sound... play the same chord over and over again against the beat, just listen... out of nothing that is how you create.. that is why those chords are in that order... you continue to find your chord progression, is it sad? is it happy? octave change here? major, minor, flat, sharp, just play it out, little by little as good as you are you can step it up with the beat, you basically fill in the chord progression with a combination of harmonics and in the direction you want to emphasize on, sad, happy, in whatever the context of the song between you and the piano. thats how they do it. maybe allessandro doesnt even know what keys his melodies are played in if you ask him, he just did it because it sounded good to him in context and built his song around it. something like that.

music is not defined by the rules of its practice but by the ears of its listeners.

tapper mike · Post by **tapper mike** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:52 am

I beg to differ with your assertion.

music is not defined by the rules of its practice but by the ears of its listeners.

The rules of practice define the performance. The value of the performance is what draws acceptance by listeners. Very few if at all like an off key, wildly out of tune and out of time performance.

Those who understand most intimately the value of these factors seem to do a pretty good job in performance as to those who do not. Those who get it do so by accepting the challenge of learning new skills and mastering them.

flowdesigner · Post by **flowdesigner** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:52 am

dek88 wrote: music is not defined by the rules of its practice but by the ears of its listeners.

good stuff

Dance/House melody + melody rhythm