Commonly Used Modal Scales and Chords in Electronic Music

[fmr]

In passing though (because I realise this is a Music Theory forum), is such a thing as a professor of ignorance possible?

As George Bernard-Shaw wrote, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

Abd what about those who DO and TEACH? In music this is, and was always, very common.

Regarding this particular subject (modes and modal music) the work of the great composer Olivier Messiaen comes to mind. He not only DID as also TEACHED, and even wrote important works on the subject. "The Technique of My Musical Language" comes to mind. You may get it here. It's not just about modes, but there are important sections about modes (not the church modes - he used other modes, which he called "modes of limited transpositios" - but modes as a technique to work with). http://monoskop.org/File:Messiaen_Olivi ... nguage.pdf
A proof that there are those who DO and also care to TEACH.

[codec_spurt]

Regarding BB King, I have no interest in calling him ignorant. or diminishing his work based on his lack of knowledgeable. He was humble enough to recognize his limits, and my rspects to him for that. And at least he didn't create of blog pretending to teach others what he didn't know in the beginning, or claiming that was the right path.

But I bet you don't have that little squiggle in his index finger that gave all the girls the giggles. Vibrato some called it.


It's like Grace Jones says, it is one thing to say, another is to do you will find.

To do is another you'll find. My apologies.

[fmr]

But I bet you don't have that little squiggle in his index finger that gave all the girls the giggles. Vibrato some called it.

It's like Grace Jones says, it is one thing to say, another is to do you will find.

To do is another you'll find. My apologies.

Grace Jones? Who is she, and why is she being quoted here?

[codec_spurt]

But I bet you don't have that little squiggle in his index finger that gave all the girls the giggles. Vibrato some called it.

It's like Grace Jones says, it is one thing to say, another is to do you will find.

To do is another you'll find. My apologies.

Grace Jones? Who is she, and why is she being quoted here?

Good question.

She is one of the finest singers ever.

But you are right. | will bow out, she doesn't really belong here.

She was more a muse. Then again muses have no place in music theory.

Quite right!

[fmr]

But I bet you don't have that little squiggle in his index finger that gave all the girls the giggles. Vibrato some called it.

It's like Grace Jones says, it is one thing to say, another is to do you will find.

To do is another you'll find. My apologies.

Grace Jones? Who is she, and why is she being quoted here?

Good question.

She is one of the finest singers ever.

But you are right. | will bow out, she doesn't really belong here.

She was more a muse. Then again muses have no place in music theory.

Quite right!

What, that chick from the Bond movie "A View to a Kill"? It's your opinion... Let's keep on topic.

[codec_spurt]

But I bet you don't have that little squiggle in his index finger that gave all the girls the giggles. Vibrato some called it.

It's like Grace Jones says, it is one thing to say, another is to do you will find.

To do is another you'll find. My apologies.

Grace Jones? Who is she, and why is she being quoted here?

Good question.

She is one of the finest singers ever.

But you are right. | will bow out, she doesn't really belong here.

She was more a muse. Then again muses have no place in music theory.

Quite right!

What, that chick from the Bond movie "A View to a Kill"? It's your opinion...

Oh get it off your chest.

You obviously have no idea of who she is..

You have a superior attitude.


Why don't you give me a music theory question, mr. superior, and we will see if I can answer it.

[Sendy]

In passing though (because I realise this is a Music Theory forum), is such a thing as a professor of ignorance possible?

As George Bernard-Shaw wrote, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

That's rubbish and an insult to teachers.

Those who can't, become critics and naysayers.

[D.Josef]

This topic has devolved into pure crazy,

Okay, first things first. When the op first posted his "modal chords", an idea that has been thoroughly discussed and mostly refuted ONE topic below this one, Jancivil wrote a courteous explanation why it's wrong. To which, the answer was "sorry you didn't find what you were looking for", and something like "if you need help here are some software to find chords", which is the heights of arrogance.
I can kind of understand why Jancivil would explode over the guy.

Now, all that crap aside. As an EDM enthusiast, I'm kind of pissed by all the crap piled upon this culture by both "DJs" and detractors.

You DO focken need music theory for EDM! If you only ever use premade loops, then probably not much, but even a simple selector needs to at least know the circle of fifths. Good EDM is relatively rare (compared to all the shite generated daily), and interestingly always produced by people who are competent musicians.

Yes, you can start easy. Yes, you can get away with "learning by doing". Yes, you won't need any knowledge of jazz analysis at all. If you want to create your own loops - and after a while you probably will want to...
...you do need to know what polyrhythms are.
...you do need to know what major and minor are, and be able to create chord progressions.
...you need to understand that the more agreeable a piece of music is, the better it is for dancing. EDM is not Ligeti-style experimental obscurity. It's meant to be popular music. Popular means, "for the people".

The "people" want major and minor, and chord progressions they know and recognize. Not obscure experimentation. Not Aeolian. Not atonal. Not some weird shat you thought might be an interesting thing to try.

That actually makes it EASIER to make. The music theory that covers that is rather simple compared to all the other stuff out there. It's stuff every garage rocker knows, and they aren't exactly famous for being bookish nerds who masturbate to jazz theory.

But you DO need that. And the idea that using a DAW somehow replaces music theory is so inane I can't even start to address it.

[andrew71]

Tell that to the Indians who teach the Rag.

I know you are being ironic.

You are being ironic?

As Jack Nicholson said in Mars Attacks, "Why can't we all just get along?"

[jancivil]

Now, all that crap aside. As an EDM enthusiast, I'm kind of pissed by all the crap piled upon this culture by both "DJs" and detractors.

You DO focken need music theory for EDM! If you only ever use premade loops, then probably not much, but even a simple selector needs to at least know the circle of fifths. Good EDM is relatively rare (compared to all the shite generated daily), and interestingly always produced by people who are competent musicians.

Yes, you can start easy. Yes, you can get away with "learning by doing". Yes, you won't need any knowledge of jazz analysis at all. If you want to create your own loops - and after a while you probably will want to...
...you do need to know what polyrhythms are.
...you do need to know what major and minor are, and be able to create chord progressions.
...you need to understand that the more agreeable a piece of music is, the better it is for dancing. EDM is not Ligeti-style experimental obscurity. It's meant to be popular music. Popular means, "for the people".

I said it in this thread, there isn't any reason 'EDM' through itself has to totally suck. It's kind of a broad umbrella to be dismissing everything under it, but what goes on in its name on this board has shown to be really and truly GROSS. I have found things under the 'House' label kind of brilliant, because of the person's rhythmic skill and EXPERIENCE (Indian cat). And imagination.
I like groove, I like rhythm, I like body music. I don't find music with just a beat and not so much rhythm moving my body and I'm hard pressed to see what is inspiring to dance to out of say avicii. I think it's about something else which I don't really want to spend time ranting about atm.

I want to find good things in music. I am not the person here that is driven by personality to negate somebody! I just happen to have been someone in life to rid myself of a filter, of a certain fear of telling the truth to somebody. So I went into it, I do believe the person with the OP came in boldly with no sense or sensitivity and it serves no one to coddle such a person. How do you bowdlerize 'you're full of shit' and manage to get across? I don't care about it, I think that is bullshit. (For the record I'll be 58 years old in a minute. I don't have time for a certain layer of bullshit in my life.)

I have in fact taken time to see what the proponents of it have posted here, for instance canvassing for people with an ear and a clue to transcribe 'these chord progressions' (which half of the time or more aren't chord progressions, what they are trying to grasp are parallel sixths or thirds or something over an uneventful bassline) and suchlike. And these objects are not interesting, I mean to say dull. A lot of it is really so badly formed (and/or so mindlessly conformist and cookie-cutter*) I have to say it's 'rubbish' vis a vis the wide and wonderful world of music. The famous people under that umbrella, avicii et al, typically are not musically intelligent and feature no gift I can discern really. What I see there is True Assholes. And I think it is safe to say that a high percentage of people that got into this mindset 'I'll be a Producer' here accord with that more than the Indian cat with the fascinating House tracks. (*: & as though the form equates to a tasty cookie)

What goes on is a thrust towards coming up and out with PRODUCT having never been a musican AT ALL. There are individuals about that, having only ever moved some loops around in a sequencer timeline that is a mere clock yet insist they are musicians, and I just think otherwise. Now if you find yourself in that remark, what happened is this bit of self-awareness and that thing most human beings have 'deep down inside' us is rearing its head, honesty. Go with that and question your impulses, are you a musician? What does that mean? Is every person that shot some hoops or jogged an athlete?

[vurt]

happy birthday

[fmr]

happy birthday

+1

[jancivil]

Then of course we have academics, a couple in here. That's not even interesting to someone into EDM. Not in music at any rate. Someone who's into EDM is not interested in "starting their Ph.D. in church modes."

So, tell me again why this path of "nose to the theory grindstone" is the only true way to music bliss, especially for someone who's primarily interested in EDM? You keep changing the subject, probably because you realsie you're out of your depth.

As I said before, this is a music theory forum. We discuss musics theory. Yes, of course it is possible to be successful without knowing any music theory, but that's not the point. We're not talking about being successful, we're talking about music theory, which lies primarily in the sphere of academia.

He is totally moving the goalposts around justifying coming in here to sound off, like his religion was disrespected essentially.

Yes, we verge off into things like the roots of modes (I'm not an academic, I quit high school at 16 to be a guitar player and spent I think was 5 trimesters at a conservative kind of conservatory. and I tend to be thorough.) I did it in the other thread to show that 'dorian' is not founded in 'major'. That's a fact.

If you don't like music theory talk, why not use your time to read other things? You're trying to blot out the point here, which is the guy came in here with a top-down attitude yet is pretty much at the beginning as per the material. You, 'ghettosynth' are definitely and absolutely not going to push me around and not get a push-back, let alone modify my sense of my own right to use this space! What you did here is outrageous.

So, tell me again why this path of "nose to the theory grindstone" is the only true way to music bliss, especially for someone who's primarily interested in EDM?

Do you really not know what a straw man fallacy is? I don't think JJF believes that. I'm in favor of learning things off of records by ear and if you're going to get into the mechanics of it do it alongside the rest of musicianship, such as in learning pieces of music that employ the principles. But no. We have seen threads where I insisted on becoming somewhat a musician, and get an instrument and learn some music and the reaction of people that resent that was strong to say the least. And here's you, even though you play instruments, desperately trying to shore up this whole shitty attitude. What's with you? Resentment, clearly, obviously, starkly.

The context is someone doesn't know what modes do. He evidently had no real interest in it. The entire exercise is fundamentally off track. But you hated to see a fellow EDM proponent dissed at all, and so you took this opportunity to make a giant stink in myriad ways. But the approach was wrong and I think it's safe to say he revealed his arrogance in more than one way.

[jancivil]

Thank you, gentleman. It's a long minute, I'm using the vernacular, but I'm far closer to 58 than 57 at the moment.

[ghettosynth]

This topic has devolved into pure crazy,

Okay, first things first. When the op first posted his "modal chords", an idea that has been thoroughly discussed and mostly refuted ONE topic below this one, Jancivil wrote a courteous explanation why it's wrong. To which, the answer was "sorry you didn't find what you were looking for", and something like "if you need help here are some software to find chords", which is the heights of arrogance.
I can kind of understand why Jancivil would explode over the guy.

jancivil wrote

Absolutely useless for Aeolian, exactly the problem one would avoid. Mindlessly stepping through seventh chords (and later some things, who knows what they are? Why would you have a midi and no text to even say what the chords are?) produce the hazards of making it sound like major, all the tensions that make it pull to major are present. When you get away from this obvious major thing the impression is more of randomness.* Some of it's a real mess, too.
Any idiot can have stepped through things and slapped chords on it. Anyway, you don't know what you're doing.

That's not polite, that's rude. The op then wrote

jancivil: Thank's for your response. Fair enough and sorry to hear you didn't quite find what looking for.

This is a polite response from someone who believed that they were offering something of value. You are free to disagree that it's of any value, however, I suspect that anything clickable, downloadable, and copy/pasteable, is of value to someone.

He then goes on to explain his intention for how he expected these to be used.

The midi-file reps chords used starting with triads and then moving on to more rare ones: 7th, various 9th etc. I intended the midi-files as a reference only. If you really want to use those chords I would go for the VST presets for midiChords VST (I personally find it a very handy chorder ). Further, the SMART chords VST presets (Based on Apple Garageband) might serve you even better as a smaller set of chords fitting nicely together.

This is just someone politely offering a product and trying to provide some value in the form of some chord presets. Seriously, you don't think that people use chord tools?

Oh but woe is him for misreading a response. In fact, this is what caught my attention because I knew that jancivil would blow a gasket at anyone daring to suggest that she might need a midi chord tool. She didn't disappoint of course launching into her typical diatribe full of personal insults mode of communication.

I'm not looking for anything. What a way to distort the situation. Does it look like I'm asking? I'm telling you. I know what I'm doing. You do not.
...
Fucken EDM people, man.

Then ends with a condemnation of EDM people who might dare to come into her church and start talking about something of interest to him.

He responds, again reasonably considering the provocation specifically letting the forum know that he wasn't trying to teach anything. Did you read his blogpost? It's a few lines, a few midi files, and some plugin presets. OMFG, the world's going to come to an end if someone shares a few presets that aren't "approved!"

FYI: I'm not here to teach you or anyone else anything. If the stuff ain't u'r piece of cake, simply forget about it. It is really just that simple.

To this we get more insults and vitriol.

You've shown the shitty attitude by posting that shite in the first place.
...
Don't insult my intelligence, goddamn.

You see, that's what it's really all about. OP is right, he posted a topic about "music theory" that might be "of interest" to EDM producers, and if the local "experts" feel that it's beneath them, then they should just avoid the post. I'm not judging the quality, I don't think that matters.
After a few more vitriolic posts we get this form JJF:

I assume this thread will likely be locked soon, but before that happens I just want to say a couple of things just so you know that jancivil is not just one angry individual with an axe to grind...

In this case, jancivil is quite correct.

That is, even JJF agrees that she's over the top but he's not willing to say much more than that because these threads offend him as well.

You DO focken need music theory for EDM!

First, not everyone does for everything even if you don't "only use premade loops." But of course, in general, a certain amount helps, nobody in here is denying that. And, BTW, I started spinning records long after I started playing music and that was long before I started writing electronic music. So please don't assume that because I defend some practice that it's my practice.

Good EDM is relatively rare (compared to all the shite generated daily), and interestingly always produced by people who are competent musicians.

In your opinion. You've not presented evidence of anything other than your preference. Don't get me wrong, I agree that good EDM is rare, but I don't agree that it is "always" produced by "competent musicians." In fact, the best stuff that I've heard is generally produced by comptent DJs with some music skill.

That actually makes it EASIER to make. The music theory that covers that is rather simple compared to all the other stuff out there. It's stuff every garage rocker knows

So to bring this back home, tell us what garage rockers know about modes?

But you DO need that. And the idea that using a DAW somehow replaces music theory is so inane I can't even start to address it.

Who said that? The quote was that a particular producer felt that "musicianship" got in the way of production.