Basic theory problem that it seems to be overlook

[jc21161]

Hello I'm having such a basic problem that it seems to be overlooked in all the theory topics of all the forums and even theory books I found so far.
My problem is I've decided to produce rock songs, maybe a little on the soft rock side. Using FL studio and M-Audio microphone/instrument interface, which is working good and is not my problem, but the music theory is. My MIDI solos are not sounding good with my chord progressions. And my accompanying bass tracks seem to be running wild doing their own thing independent of the melodies/harmonies. So My Basic Question for Some Help Would Be, Which Chords in Key of C Minor and Which Minor Scales for Soloing for Soft Rock Type Music 70s 80s and 90s for a Example, and Which Notes for the Bass Guitar to Use. I made a song and had a friend listened to it and he thought it was very strange to he did not like it any at all. It had me singing vocals with vocal overlays (my voice was probably in key good enough,) mood provoking synthesizer chords, with synthesizer solos over chords. Like I mentioned above the bass guitar parts did not even sound like they went to the song but maybe some other song. I would expect this with my songs in D Dorian mode because you need to be careful with the chords to get modal sound. But I'm having problems in C major Chords I ii iii IV V V7 vi soloing with the major scale with, I will try to stay close to the C F G7 triad in the future if all else fails. My biggest problem may be which notes of the scale to use for the bass guitar in C Major. And for the key of C minor I've used chords i ii iii iv IV V V7 vi and solod over with C Harmonic minor, and harmonic minor bass guitar one octave down. In the future I plan on sticking with for a few song projects C minor used chords i ii iii iv IV V V7vi and solod over with C pentatonic minor scale, and adding the F# in a few of the songs turning it into the blue scale for the distinctive blues sound. And again which notes should I use for the bass guitar in the C minor pentatonic scale, I understand in the minor scale the notes are not always the root note.
Thanks in advance for any help, I have not been able to find any information on specific soft rock theory relating to chords and accompanying scales and especially to resolve the problem of my horrifying bass guitar tracks. All the sample songs in my FL studio software is hip hopic tranceicish not much for the rock era. All the music theory information I found so far assume so much basic pre-understanding of theory that I don't even know if you are to play C minor chords with minor scale soles over and between them and what notes besides the roots for bass guitar parts, they never said, aparently it's assumed?

[Per Lichtman]

It's understandable that you'd be confused. I don't have the URL on hand but a recent study of music theory regarding triad chords and the way they were taught found great inconsistency between different texts, teachers, schools of thought, etc.

Here's what works for me a lot of the time: for the bass, use the root or third of the chord most often. If that doesn't do it for you, have the notes move toward the root or third of the next chord and then land on that. Or you can arpeggiate the three pitches in the chord, but I still recommend landing on the root or third of the chord on most strong beats.

[ynot]

surely someone will scold me for saying so but you dont HAVE TO use scales for everything.if you dont believe me transcribe some cool bass lines,you'll likely find that thinking in terms starting note & destination will help.by this i mean starting & ending on a chord tone (most comonly root or fifth)& using chromatics (i know chromatic is a scale) as passing tones.also bass lines ussually tie the chords to the drum part especially the kick.the same kind of thinking can be applied to melodies or solos,typically not quite as much though.there are many of great players who dont know alot of theory or scales,yet sound fine.above all, there is no single formula for writing a good song so expirement with as many ideas & suggestions as you can.

[Per Lichtman]

surely someone will scold me for saying so but you dont HAVE TO use scales for everything.if you dont believe me transcribe some cool bass lines,you'll likely find that thinking in terms starting note & destination will help.by this i mean starting & ending on a chord tone (most comonly root or fifth)& using chromatics (i know chromatic is a scale) as passing tones.also bass lines ussually tie the chords to the drum part especially the kick.the same kind of thinking can be applied to melodies or solos,typically not quite as much though.there are many of great players who dont know alot of theory or scales,yet sound fine.above all, there is no single formula for writing a good song so expirement with as many ideas & suggestions as you can.

Yes, there definitely aren't any definite rules but in terms of different possible approaches, I think there is a lot of overlap between what we both suggested. I hope that these responses helped you a bit jc21161.

[mhemnarch]

I actually have a few notes.
- Don't try to do too much too fast. From the thread it sounds like you're just starting to become familiar with music theory. Don't try to create a bunch of songs that fit exactly with the small amount of theory you've learned or try to fit everything into this or that mold. Play what sounds good, and along the way maybe try to familiarize yourself with the scales and progressions. The most liberating thing about music theory is that you can choose when to follow it and when to ignore it.
- It sounds like you're trying to explain rock songs to yourself in terms of major and minor scales. This really doesn't work. Many if not most rock songs contain chords that don't fit neatly into one scale. Have you learned about the minor pentatonic and blues scales? If not, look them up. They're simple, versatile, and used constantly in rock of all subgenres.
- You come back to what to play on the bassline a few times. First, there's nothing wrong with using mostly root notes - lots of great songs primarily use the roots. Another thing to try is using other notes in the chord - for example, if you have a G major chord, you could use G as the bass note, or B, or D. You can even use notes in the scale that aren't strictly part of the chords - for example, going from a C major to a G major, you could start with a C as the bass under the C major chord, then play an A on the bass, and finally switch to G when you got to the G chord. Or finally play a B, or a D. There are no hard and fast rules - do what sounds right.

[jc21161]

Thanks for the instant response. Looks like I will have to stay bound to the scales. Because my music sounds pretty good at first, then when I listened to them a few days later it's hard to believe it's the same song. The bass part that sound fine when I first made it, sounds disattached when I listened to them days later, the instrumental solos only sometimes become strange upon reviewing later. I guess I'm not too worried about it because I'm planning on making what I call many quickie songs. Quickly making interesting chord combinations quickly putting a basic kick drum snare kick drum track, root note bass track with in placed interesting notes and 5th now thanks to you), Harmonizing vocals are instrumental. Then moving on and make another and another song, then after 50 or so songs in a few months of listening to them on my car stereo I will pick five of the best and build upon just them. With this ongoing process I will be hopefully spending my time on one hit wonders and not wasting many hours on songs that don't grow on you or don't sound good from the get-go. I have to force myself not to spend too much time on a song until it's apparent that it's a special song. Does anybody else think this might be a good strategy? It plays with the idea that most recording artists albums only have two or three good songs. So you would be put in effort only into these two or 3 songs not the whole rest of the album that sucks. Then after reviewing the songs over months and years you can pick out the songs that grow on you in time to put many hours in refining those songs as well. Being a good song seems to be a hit or miss, for me anyway.
Thanks for the advice on the bass guitar, I don't seem to be able to remember too much in my head on music theory but my walls have many charts that I can look at as I contemplate the music making process so any websites with graphically illustrated strategies would be much appreciated.
I do have a program that works in the major scale that graphically illustrates which chord would sound good in a song and has arrows for the next suggested cords of the song, so basically your just clicking on a chord map to make music, and by which automatically following the rules of music theory. I wish I had such a program for the minor chords, but you can start the process on ii instead of I or iii/vi instead of I for minor chord progressions that I believe it would work good enough.

[Per Lichtman]

During my freshman year of college I started roughly 110 pieces (or exercises) and created 10 hours of recordings. I learned a lot along the way, but there are only a handful that I still would want to listen to.

Doing a lot of short exercises (or quickie pieces) can be a great way to learn new things, and it also important to work on "finishing" songs at some point as well. Finishing a song is as different from sketching a song as editing is from writing a rough draft. I don't think you mean "one hit wonders" though because that would mean that out of all your tracks, only one of them was ever a success.

[llatham]

My Basic Question for Some Help Would Be, Which Chords in Key of C Minor and Which Minor Scales for Soloing for Soft Rock Type Music 70s 80s and 90s for a Example, and Which Notes for the Bass Guitar to Use.

You're making this far more complicated than it needs to be. Forget that you're writing "soft rock" and forget about "what notes for the bass guitar". etc.

Here's the simple answer - and this goes for virtually all styles of pop music:

If the songs is in C minor, then each part uses notes from the key of C minor.

Done.

Your melody should be using notes from C minor.

Your chords should come from C minor.

You bass part (which could be played by bass guitar) should have notes from C minor.

It's really that simple (how do you think all of these talentless people out there write convincing pop music?).

If you have a C minor harmony for 1 meausure, then your melody can play:
C, Eb, or G (the notes of a C minor chord).

Your bass can play C, Eb G (the notes of a C minor chord).

If you want to "fill in" in between those notes, then the notes you use will be from the key of C minor (i.e. a C minor scale).

If your chords go:
Cm - | Fm

then your melody could go:

C - |F
or
C-Eb- |F
or (filling in notes from the scale)
C-D-Eb | F

Your bass line could do any of those as well.

Now, this is a very simplified overview - there are all kinds of factors that might come into play. That said though, there are plenty of songs that do very simple things just like I described above.

What you really need to do is LEARN TO PLAY some songs you want to try and emulate - tear them apart and see what makes them tick. Learn some actual bass lines and see how they interact with the other parts. Until you do that, you'll never really understand how things go together.

HTH,
Steve

[jc21161]

Llatham. Thank you very much I think you broken it down to its simplest elements and presented it in a way that even I can understand. I wish I asked you this question two years ago, or even much earlier in my high school days. I had much more time for composing thin.
Thank you all for your input, I did a typo above in my last entry, the bass guitar plays root notes & thirds not root notes & fifths as I mistakenly put.

[sockofgold]

Also, quite frankly, if you're doing pop/rock stuff and you want to do guitar solos, learn the pentatonic scale. Some say it's a lazy way to sound awesome on the guitar, but sooooooo many guitarists have built huge careers out of soloing on nothing but the pentatonic scale.

Who needs those 3rd and 6th intervals anyway??? That's what I say.

[Sixofour]

What percentage of listeners give a shit about what scale you used? Just curious...i figure it was in the low .30's of 2% Ive seen people make the type of scale you use a big deal often in this forum.

[Tony Ostinato]

whether by accident or by design youll be always using chords and scales.

everything you could want to do has been done before somewhere.

you have to get into really completely abstract stuff to do anything new and thats probably gonna be pretty unlistenable.

[me109]

As you may have noticed, in the lower octaves, close harmonies sound very muddy. For example C&E sound fine in the middle and upper registers, but as you go down, the only thing that sounds clear is a fifth (C&G). Much further down, and only octaves avoid the low end clutter. If you listen to most music, you'll find that far and away, most of the time, the bass player will be staying on the 1 and 5 of whatever chord is being played.

Other tones can be used with great effect in certain circumstances. If your changing to the IV chord, right before the change, you might go from C to E, then you're only 1/2 step away from F, making a smooth transition.

You should also look for tones that two chords have in common and use them when going from one to the next. This can also help you find good chord choices in your song.
Example: The song's in Cma. for simplicity. In Cma., the C is the root. If your next chord is an Ab, the C is a major 3rd in that chord, the Ab is the root. The next chord could be Db, pivoting on the Ab which changes from the root to the 5th.

Naturally all chord changes don't have to have common tones, but when they are used more often than not, it makes for changes that sound like they belong together. Bass players should be able to recognize the common tones and capitalize on them when playing their lines.

[Nystul]

Here's the simple answer - and this goes for virtually all styles of pop music:

If the songs is in C minor, then each part uses notes from the key of C minor.

Done.

Your melody should be using notes from C minor.

Your chords should come from C minor.

You bass part (which could be played by bass guitar) should have notes from C minor.

It's really that simple (how do you think all of these talentless people out there write convincing pop music?).

It certainly can be that simple, but it rarely is. Convincing someone that 7 tones is all he needs may turn quickly from a nice simplification into a harsh restriction if he tries to avoid every chord with a "wrong" note in it. 7 tones is plenty for writing church hymns, and a very limited pallet of pop songs.

[Astralp]

Thanks for the instant response. Looks like I will have to stay bound to the scales. Because my music sounds pretty good at first, then when I listened to them a few days later it's hard to believe it's the same song. The bass part that sound fine when I first made it, sounds disattached when I listened to them days later, the instrumental solos only sometimes become strange upon reviewing later....

This is possibly down to left/right brain activity. When you are being creative your right brain kicks in which is much more open minded than the left, which primarily deals more with logic. So that is why the morning after a creative session can sound wrong or disappointing if your left brain is more dominant. I have a lot more faith in my right brain in these situations, so you shouldn't be so quick to judge when you are left brain listening Usually after a few listens evens things even out.

Another aspect is that if you are new to making music you may not be listening to music in the same way you would listen to other music CDs etc... When listening to a mix you can become much more aware of the individual components (such as Bass) instead of hearing the whole. This is something that you will get better at with practice in my experience.

Final Tip about left/right brain activity, which I picked up from one of Paul Whites books a few years ago which was a revelation to me, is to make as much effort as possible to keep left/right brain activities separate. For example get all the technical tasks out of the way before being creative, so that you have minimal technical stuff to deal with whilst composing/recording. This leads to your right brain being fully active whilst making music, then have a 30 min break away from the studio, and return to do stuff like mixing etc... which uses the left brain. Otherwise you can end up with a left/right battle that means you can lose concentration and enthusiasm, and end up getting nowhere.

anyhow hope that helps, not exactly on topic, but very important imo

I just googled this to see which side of the brain is active, totally freaky:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 95,00.html

take care
Andy