To carry on a running theme I've seen here...
What VST should I use for Analog Tarnce Music in the Phrygian mode????
sorrrryyyyyy...
Music theory questions
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- KVRist
- 31 posts since 5 Feb, 2005 from Dallas
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- KVRist
- 445 posts since 24 Apr, 2005
Oh, sod off.
It's not like any of you have never asked a stupid question before.
Now, to draw attention away from my mistake...
It's not like any of you have never asked a stupid question before.
Now, to draw attention away from my mistake...
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- KVRist
- 492 posts since 26 Feb, 2003 from Vancouver BC
Paul, dude... you just laid down the most cogently *realistic* approach to music theory imaginable.
Bloody f**king brilliant.
Seriously.
Kaden
Bloody f**king brilliant.
Seriously.
Kaden
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- KVRist
- 142 posts since 23 Sep, 2003 from Location: Location:
OK Seriously now ..
All I meant to point out in my first post is that there is confusion when you mix two distinct vocabularies - that of TONALITY and that of MODES. I think Paul's post shows that sticking to one makes things clearer.
I don't doubt that there are those who will disagree with what he wrote, or want to add to it .... what I am merely trying to point out is that you must either add to it using the same points of reference (in this case - those relating to tonality) or start a new explantation - probably from the beginning - using the alternative vocabulary (in this case - that of modes).
Perhaps there should be a thread for theoretical questions that divides the two - there are many musicians whose understanding of the way music works is from a 'classical' background who will explain things using one set of references, but there are also many whose frame of reference is based on other avenues of experience, for example jazz, who will see the same world with different eyes - or ears.
We are all here because we love music - we are all dancing to the same drum - but we all express our views in different dialects of what is, essentially, the same language.
We don't need to keep going over the same ground time and time again because of a simple misinterpretation that is easily fixed.
Peace!(to quote ToTC)
TechNoiZ.
All I meant to point out in my first post is that there is confusion when you mix two distinct vocabularies - that of TONALITY and that of MODES. I think Paul's post shows that sticking to one makes things clearer.
I don't doubt that there are those who will disagree with what he wrote, or want to add to it .... what I am merely trying to point out is that you must either add to it using the same points of reference (in this case - those relating to tonality) or start a new explantation - probably from the beginning - using the alternative vocabulary (in this case - that of modes).
Perhaps there should be a thread for theoretical questions that divides the two - there are many musicians whose understanding of the way music works is from a 'classical' background who will explain things using one set of references, but there are also many whose frame of reference is based on other avenues of experience, for example jazz, who will see the same world with different eyes - or ears.
We are all here because we love music - we are all dancing to the same drum - but we all express our views in different dialects of what is, essentially, the same language.
We don't need to keep going over the same ground time and time again because of a simple misinterpretation that is easily fixed.
Peace!(to quote ToTC)
TechNoiZ.
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- KVRAF
- 25049 posts since 12 Jul, 2003 from West Caprazumia
wrong - not all of them aredarrenn wrote: Songs are written in a specific key - be it major or minor.
bollocks!1. Only chords from the chosen scale should be used in composition of a progression.
2. Any chord progression should start from the I chord (i.e. C minor if the scale is C minor).
3. Melodies and basslines should also only use notes from the chosen scale.
4. Notes or chords that are outside of the chosen scale should never be used.
5. The relationship between one chord and the next is used to create tension or release - it is this tension and release that gives a song it's emotion or energy.
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- KVRAF
- 25049 posts since 12 Jul, 2003 from West Caprazumia
yup!MackTuesday wrote:In my view, the first rule is, "Do what sounds good." I think many will agree that theory doesn't tell you what to do; it rather describes what is commonly done in a structured way.
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- KVRAF
- 13446 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
and:PaulG wrote: This is pretty useless from a "sounds good" point of view in pop/rock/dance/etc. The things to do to "alter" sounds are what I mentioned above - flat the 2nd, 5th, sometimes the major 7th in a major scale, and 99.99% of every pop/rock/dance song will NOT go outside of these "rules" - which are more just like guidelines, anyway.
4. Same answer as #1. Pop/rock/dance tends to stay in the scale because it sounds better. NOTE THIS EXCEPTION - YOU WILL *RARELY* AND I MEAN *FRIGGIN RALRELY* EVER modify this with a minor 6th if you're using a major scale and v-v. It simply sounds like poop. The flatted second and flatted fifth generally work. Sometimes in the major scale you'll use the minor 7th - this can sound cool.
I'm not sure which songs you're refering to, probably your statements are true for dance, which isn't all that familiar for me, but as for pop/rock music this is just bullshit.
Unless you're disqualifying most of the Beatles material, EACH and every ABBA song, thousands of soul and partially disco songs and so on from being "pop".
I'm sorry if this is sounding harsh but really, what a nonsense. And you were even refering to Queen songs one post later. Try to analyze ANY of their songs following those laughable rules you made up and you'll see that close to NONE will even halfway fit your fomula!
Also, what about
Tell that to ANY rocker who's ever been touching the guitar since the 70s or so... Heck, close to the entire range of AC/DC songs is build on chords with 5ths but no thirds.NOTE THAT YOU WILL GENERALLY NEVER USE A 5TH HARMONY WITHOUT A 3RD. It can sound awful and is generally used for effect only, and if so it's not a "diatonic" (in the scale) 5th, but a "parallel" 5th (avoided like the plague in classical) harmony.
Did I get your posts wrong? Really, I don't want to sound like an asshole, but they read to me like some really whacky theory made up without a lot of things to actually be proveable... but then, as said, perhaps I've been getting things wrong.
Anyways, in general, if there is something like "pop" (or soul/rock/dance/blah...) theory or "golden rules of harmony" it's got to follow the very same "rules" as jazz theory. Actually, jazz theory is pretty opened to a lot of things as an analysis tool.
But then, and I'm sure this is what one HAS to remember, theory usually isn't a truly great tool for inspiration.
It's a nice helper when you try to learn an instrument. It's also of great help if you need to arrange or rearrange some stuff. It might further help to enhance your reharmonizing skills (which falls into the rearranging category).
But it won't help you to come up with most riffs of AC/DC. The same is true for those housy/dancey stab minor chords (using organ or "hoover" sounds) moving around parallely - which probably has been the result of someone fooling around with a patch that had a single pressed key playing a minor chord. And it also won't let you come up with, hm, say, the chord progression of Lenny Kravitz' "Let Love Rule".
You can analyze all those (even if it'd be quite some stretch regarding a lot of tunes), but as far as composition goes, theory will be of less help.
You may even find yourself caught inside theoretic rules once you studied them too much (and yes, I do know this from personal eperience...).
For instance, coming up with an intermediate C7 when moving from a Cmaj to an Fmaj chord is most likely going to sound very plausible to your ears. So, there's your variation in your boring Cmaj to Fmaj movement. Great. Does work fine when rearranging or reharmonizing things too. But, as it's just following one of the most likely solutions for such a movement, it won't sound fresh, new, revolutionary or whatever.
And that's what a lot of great pop songs seem to be about when it comes to theory - using exceptions from standardized harmonic patterns.
Btw, that's also one of the reasons "modal" jazz has been invented. To simply break out of some rules and treat each chord as an own "quality".
The exceptions to be found in pop music are quite different, but they just exist as well - such as guitarists being too stupid to play more than two notes simultaneously inventing a whole new genre, namely riff based rock using stuff moving parallely in 5ths. Or maybe it's just been a sound thing and those guitarists simply discovered that 5th chords were the only ones truly working with heavily distorted sounds. Whatever.
At least there's quite some exceptions of "harmonic rules" to be found in a shitload of pop songs.
You can still analyze most of them fine following those rules, but you won't find yourself composing anything "fresh" if you only stick by them. In addition, even most of the possible excpetions have been covered allready...
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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- KVRian
- 1305 posts since 30 Jan, 2004
Sascha,
Yes - strong statements totally misunderstood.
I AM a rock guitarist from the 80's and the comment on parallel 5ths was about harmony lead lines, NOT the typical "power chord" that rockers use. This should have been plainly obvious.
Now, I always do like reading your other posts as I feel you do frequently contribut equite a bit, so understand that these statements reflect a clarification of your comments rather than you personally.
The whole concept of 7th chords is what jazz is based on (that and syncopation, obviously) but 7th chords in rock? Are you serious? Try to play a 7th chord with the same distortion tone as your love of AC/DC sound and it will, yes indeed, sound like mud.
They are hardly EVER used in rock due to this except for the minor 7th chord built on the 6th scale degree when done.
Again - most of this is based on the trends and not the exceptions, so bringing up ABBA's "Dancing Queen" does not really fit the mold, yet "Take A Chance On Me" sticks to the diatonic world pretty straightforward.
Remember - these answers are to questions for someone looking to understand what generally happens most of the time - not the exceptions. Obviously the Beatles were experts at "breaking" the rules AND STILL HAVING IT SOUND GOOD - which is TOTALLY the point of my comments - and even KISS used both major/minor 3rds or M/m 6ths in the same song - tastefully generally it's used in the same phrase.
These comments are not to defend myself or what I wrote but to clarify for those reading that need this material not to get hung up in special exceptions that obviously have expert writers.
Take Green Day, as a modern note, for example, or any rock band with a standard tuning for their guitars, and you'll find that the guidelines stated in my original post hold true for most of the things that they write - especially the more radio-oriented songs.
Funny, re-reading your last comment about "nothing fresh"...I thought so, too, when in the 80's people made fun of AC/DC as a "three chord" rock band...but then you had bands like Rage Against The Machine which, following that mindset could be considered "one chord" rock bands.
And it's not really breaking the rules that makes things sound good, it's the tasteful use of them.
Look at Avril's latest album. A whole friggin' album of songs written with a 1-6-3-7 minor progression...but that's my favorite progression, so I don't really care.
To end this hopefully on a better "note" there is definitely enough talk about sounding "fresh", etc. My guidelines were meant to, if followed, help someone who is looking to understand practical rock/pop/dance songwriting sound "good".
Save "fresh" for the 'fridge.
That's all.
Any more comments like thesee and it'll be my last post. I am not interested in debating theoretical issues. Follow these guidelines in this genre (and they're not the only guidelines, obviously) and, on the level that the questions were asked, the result should sound "cool".
And Sascha - between you and me - show me ANY rock song with distorted guitar that had ANY sort of "C7 when moving from a Cmaj to an Fmaj chord". The comments you write are entirely true, but with the question as stated, and having a background in teaching theory from a point of view of helping those get the songs in their head out to tape/mp3/whatever, I have to say that these do work, yes most of the time, and if you ask Ace Frehley about theory and importance about 7th's etc, he'll probably laugh at you.
Though I won't because I completely understand the motivation for your argument and your comments, which were, indeed, accurate for the ones that were understood.
And while you and I could probably talk for hours on music theory (and agree on it all), this is for someone trying to write songs and trying to get out music "in their head" or at least from my experience teaching this stuff I infered from the wording of things.
And I have to say that from the positive comments so far the guidelines I've given were like water given to some in a desert.
Which theory can be when approached from some kind of intellectual high-browism instead of "what sounds cool to you".
That's all.
Yes - strong statements totally misunderstood.
I AM a rock guitarist from the 80's and the comment on parallel 5ths was about harmony lead lines, NOT the typical "power chord" that rockers use. This should have been plainly obvious.
Now, I always do like reading your other posts as I feel you do frequently contribut equite a bit, so understand that these statements reflect a clarification of your comments rather than you personally.
The whole concept of 7th chords is what jazz is based on (that and syncopation, obviously) but 7th chords in rock? Are you serious? Try to play a 7th chord with the same distortion tone as your love of AC/DC sound and it will, yes indeed, sound like mud.
They are hardly EVER used in rock due to this except for the minor 7th chord built on the 6th scale degree when done.
Again - most of this is based on the trends and not the exceptions, so bringing up ABBA's "Dancing Queen" does not really fit the mold, yet "Take A Chance On Me" sticks to the diatonic world pretty straightforward.
Remember - these answers are to questions for someone looking to understand what generally happens most of the time - not the exceptions. Obviously the Beatles were experts at "breaking" the rules AND STILL HAVING IT SOUND GOOD - which is TOTALLY the point of my comments - and even KISS used both major/minor 3rds or M/m 6ths in the same song - tastefully generally it's used in the same phrase.
These comments are not to defend myself or what I wrote but to clarify for those reading that need this material not to get hung up in special exceptions that obviously have expert writers.
Take Green Day, as a modern note, for example, or any rock band with a standard tuning for their guitars, and you'll find that the guidelines stated in my original post hold true for most of the things that they write - especially the more radio-oriented songs.
Funny, re-reading your last comment about "nothing fresh"...I thought so, too, when in the 80's people made fun of AC/DC as a "three chord" rock band...but then you had bands like Rage Against The Machine which, following that mindset could be considered "one chord" rock bands.
And it's not really breaking the rules that makes things sound good, it's the tasteful use of them.
Look at Avril's latest album. A whole friggin' album of songs written with a 1-6-3-7 minor progression...but that's my favorite progression, so I don't really care.
To end this hopefully on a better "note" there is definitely enough talk about sounding "fresh", etc. My guidelines were meant to, if followed, help someone who is looking to understand practical rock/pop/dance songwriting sound "good".
Save "fresh" for the 'fridge.
That's all.
Any more comments like thesee and it'll be my last post. I am not interested in debating theoretical issues. Follow these guidelines in this genre (and they're not the only guidelines, obviously) and, on the level that the questions were asked, the result should sound "cool".
And Sascha - between you and me - show me ANY rock song with distorted guitar that had ANY sort of "C7 when moving from a Cmaj to an Fmaj chord". The comments you write are entirely true, but with the question as stated, and having a background in teaching theory from a point of view of helping those get the songs in their head out to tape/mp3/whatever, I have to say that these do work, yes most of the time, and if you ask Ace Frehley about theory and importance about 7th's etc, he'll probably laugh at you.
Though I won't because I completely understand the motivation for your argument and your comments, which were, indeed, accurate for the ones that were understood.
And while you and I could probably talk for hours on music theory (and agree on it all), this is for someone trying to write songs and trying to get out music "in their head" or at least from my experience teaching this stuff I infered from the wording of things.
And I have to say that from the positive comments so far the guidelines I've given were like water given to some in a desert.
Which theory can be when approached from some kind of intellectual high-browism instead of "what sounds cool to you".
That's all.
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- KVRAF
- 6519 posts since 13 Mar, 2002 from UK
I don't. You contributed f**k all apart from a bit of cheerleading for Paul.TechNoiZ wrote:On the contrary .... I think my contribution was very useful .....
I just assumed you were pissed.
Do you know any theory at all?
Now with improved MIDI jitter!
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- KVRAF
- 25049 posts since 12 Jul, 2003 from West Caprazumia
PaulG wrote:Try to play a 7th chord with the same distortion tone as your love of AC/DC sound and it will, yes indeed, sound like mud.
you don't do it - you use a different sound - that doesn't disqualify it from being pop or rock though...
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- KVRAF
- 5703 posts since 8 Dec, 2004 from The Twin Cities
Paul I think Sascha was just saying that you are over generalizing.
If the Beatles were always 'breaking the rules' as you say, then perhaps the rules in question are rather too narrowly defined, as the Beatles are just about as central to pop music as any band could be.
And no, Bohemian Rhapsody does not employ parallel third harmonizing. It uses good old fashioned, laboriously hand written voice leading. Just like a Bach chorale.
If the Beatles were always 'breaking the rules' as you say, then perhaps the rules in question are rather too narrowly defined, as the Beatles are just about as central to pop music as any band could be.
And no, Bohemian Rhapsody does not employ parallel third harmonizing. It uses good old fashioned, laboriously hand written voice leading. Just like a Bach chorale.