KVR Audio

silentjames · Post by **silentjames** » Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:03 am

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to write House music 'uplifting, funky, happy, ravey 90's inspired I guess... and need some simple starting out tips. There's a plethora of info on the net, but nothing simply explained regarding this subject.

I really do seem to melt on theory

whereas sound design, engineering, remixing fine... music theory *melts*

Here are some example's below of chord progressions and the kind of style i'm going for from recent tunes

Calvin Harris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yLPbeMxVCA

Benny Benassi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2oRqyn7ToQ

Sub Focus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRJbHmvtIU

Chase & Status http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91V0Cqx9TzM

Apparently minor scales are used alot for Pop & Dance? Is this correct? Do the above fit this thought? Should I be sticking with minor scales for these types of poppy dance tunes? Natural minor? I think I need to set some kind of creative limitation so I can just get on with it to begin with, before I delve into all the complex theory. Any advice here?

I do wonder how do the pro's go about this..? Some of them openly admit to not being able to play the keys at all... so I do wonder where I am going wrong with trying to write 'happy sounding progressions and melodies...?

Should I be picking a scale like A minor, make a chord progression using the notes in the scale - A B C D E F G A
make a bassline using a nice run within them notes and then a melody using them notes also? Sounds too simple?!

This is all very new to me as I come from the DnB world where chopping breakbeats and making 3 note basslines doesn't require any musical theory at all!

Please advise a newbie to chord progression + melody - thanks

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Sat Nov 30, 2013 10:49 am

Natural minor. A good starting point is a chord progression like Am - F - G, with the Am being longer than the other two. That's a lot of 90s Eurodance especially - off the top of my head "Be My Lover", "No Limit" and "Coco Jambo" all have that progression though in different keys - so if you want a 90s inspired limitation to get you started, that should work. Then try playing melodies using notes in the A minor scale over those chords.

tone303 · Post by **tone303** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:49 am

Yeah most 90s music was in natural minor, except goa which i forgot the name of that Indian scale But the A to A all white keys minor and that particular indian scale were my favorites for a long time.

tone303 · Post by **tone303** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:55 am

My 10 year old February 2004 song Afterburn is 90's-like, which is a particularly melodic semi-goa-like track was just in a standard minor, as were many other old Fruityloops songs. It seriously needs re-mastering, i didnt quite know how to do that well then. This links to an embedded auto-start player, no DL needed

http://180upload.com/2aw3ufzue0mk (Fruityloops + VSTs, 2004)

tone303 · Post by **tone303** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:58 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgUxFgZksgQ

silentjames · Post by **silentjames** » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:44 am

Cheers for the info guys, natural minor it is.

In terms of writing possible chord progressions - any tips? I'm going to have a good experiment this weekend but do some progressions work better like 1, 3, 5 or 1, 3, 6 etc... i'll be wanting to avoid the diminished chords right?

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:39 am

Start with 1 6 7 or 1 6 3 7.

Commercial 90's style Dance Scales (help!)