Commonly Used Modal Scales and Chords in Electronic Music

[ghettosynth]

That would have been a better idea, but, not because your "tool" is more suited to their tastes, rather, because their tastes are more suited to your "tool." That is, I'm saying nothing of the quality, or lack thereof, of your tool, I'm saying that their tastes are often indiscriminate and they might be willing to use any tool. Not only that, but they might be willing to use them in ways not approved by the clergy.

This isn't a tool, it is information which is misleading at best. Someone somewhere might be able to get something out of it, but that's not the point.

To you, who are you to say what has value to others?

Even if they do, it is going to lead to confusion (again, at best. At worst it perpetuates ignorance).

The world is full of ignorance and people with talent in one domain perpetuating it in another. If you want an on topic example, look no further than the "techno" demo tracks on any mainstream keyboard in the 90s. They were created by musicians, competent as would be described by the regulars in this forum, but completely ignorant of the style. By labeling their shite as techno, they were guilty of perpetuating ignorance.

Your argument is easily reduced to a simple question, does it do more damage or good if someone uses a an incorrect tool to create? I don't think that the answer is as easy to answer as you assert, but more to the point, the resolution is not in your purview. The best that you can do is to refrain from perpetuating ignorance yourself, even that is not as easy as you might think.

If people want information about scales and/or chords, there are literally thousands of better places they can get that information from. Getting correct information is always better than getting incorrect information.

The typical user of such a midi file isn't looking for "information." You obviously don't understand how people might use such tools. I gave you a great example, circuit bending, think about how these ideas are related. To the circuit bender, getting correct information is NOT always better. Even academics will argue that it is often the inspired ideas of the ignorant that lead to new developments. Once you have the framework intellectually, your biases can constrain you. To the circuit bender what matters is using simple ideas to achieve a goal without understanding. Whether or not this is useful is, again, not in your purview. You can only say that it's not useful to you.

[jancivil]

That would have been a better idea, but, not because your "tool" is more suited to their tastes, rather, because their tastes are more suited to your "tool." That is, I'm saying nothing of the quality, or lack thereof, of your tool, I'm saying that their tastes are often indiscriminate and they might be willing to use any tool. Not only that, but they might be willing to use them in ways not approved by the clergy.

This isn't a tool, it is information which is misleading at best. Someone somewhere might be able to get something out of it, but that's not the point.

To you, who are you to say what has value to others?

You don't understand the issue but you want to get argumentative in this excessive display? JJF and I, and a lot of others that do understand the topic, understand that this whole misleading tack will, uncountered, produce a result of people that if they really want to get going will need to UNLEARN it. There is nothing new here. Did you click on his midi link? OMFG!

But you are driven by reaction to come in and posture via this perverse attempt at sophistry to argue about 'value'. Well, I do believe that what I have done here is of value in the long run, to honest people that want to know something. The OP does what for YOU, since you want to make it to the person, exactly? Do you just want to shore up teh EDM boy in whatever way you can? Your intellectual dishonesty is gobsmacking.

[ghettosynth]

To give less skilled musicians some additional tools. Like converting the Garageband Smart keyboard chords into a VST preset. Take myself: I suck with melodic instruments - used to play drums. So a simple to use logically laid out set of chords was my aim and I really only thought someone reading this forum might find it useful too. Perhaps I should have posted this at the Beginners forum

That would have been a better idea, but, not because your "tool" is more suited to their tastes, rather, because their tastes are more suited to your "tool."
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

The only reason to post here is if you want actual technical feedback about what you're doing. Even then, your perception of an anti-EDM bias is correct, and this will flavor the responses. If you want people to use your "tool", warts and all, then post in the beginners forum or one of the other forums. At least there you will get feedback from both users and critics.

Oh jebus god save us from this drivel, this verbose pile of garbage. I'm not being a critic.

What I have, which will be verified by every person that has this, is the real deal. The color of my response vis a vis EDM is completely the f**k irrelevant. I have a bias towards what is useful, towards reality. You really have little business in here at all, and when you do bust in here, this is what it looks like.

You have little business talking to other human beings, but I notice that it doesn't stop you.

He doesn't have a tool

Sure he does, well, a "tool", you just don't know how it would be used as such.

, he has a bad premise and the same automatic result a hundred people have already posted here.

Yep, that's why I told him to stop doing that. There's no point in posting it here, the regulars lack the creativity to imagine how someone might use such work as a tool. He should take it to other forums where it might be better received.

[jancivil]

The typical user of such a midi file isn't looking for "information." You obviously don't understand how people might use such tools. I gave you a great example, circuit bending, think about how these ideas are related. To the circuit bender, getting correct information is NOT always better. Even academics will argue that it is often the inspired ideas of the ignorant that lead to new developments. Once you have the framework intellectually, your biases can constrain you. To the circuit bender what matters is using simple ideas to achieve a goal without understanding. Whether or not this is useful is, again, not in your purview. You can only say that it's not useful to you.

Please go find a dictionary for the word SOPHISTRY.

This is bloody well in JJF's purview.

What a preposterous story you're creating here. How DO people us 'such tools'? What tools do you mean? By way of passing the OP mentioned some finder thing for total cripples. I'll tell you what people do with that shit, they remiain cripples using a crutch before they even stood up to walk. The OP is not about those things, it is 'here is my blog', which has a link taking us to a midi through some synth piano and it's a nightmare. The first group is the most obvious C major thing possible but 'here is your Aeolian chords'. It is, objectively incompetent.

BUT NOOOOO, you're going to cherry pick what you want for this obnoxious argumentation out of what I can only see as a reaction to the one statement. EDM does not through itself need to suck. But most of it does because of this mindlessness and arrogance you only serve to underline with a bright marker.

[jancivil]

You have little business talking to other human beings, but I notice that it doesn't stop you.

He doesn't have a tool

Sure he does, well, a "tool", you just don't know how it would be used as such.

he has a bad premise and the same automatic result a hundred people have already posted here.

Yep, that's why I told him to stop doing that. There's no point in posting it here, the regulars lack the creativity to imagine how someone might use such work as a tool. He should take it to other forums where it might be better received.

How absolutely idiotic. How DESPERATE is that? You made the error of agreeing with me he has a bad premise in your great rush to react, note well. Keep flailing about, it's a great look for you.

We don't have the creativity. I wouldn't know how to use chords out of an arbitrarily constructed, yet somehow badly formed midi file.
You can't have taken the time to even get what the thing is. It is a fundamental mistake out of which there is a result you can have from an algorithm. It is not 'Aeolian mode' and that's real.

If you're arguing for it, please tell me what about it should be 'better received'. Sure there are other clueless people that I guess mirror you better than people that know the things, will receive it and proceed fucktardedly into oblivion. There is some EDM theory forum even, I bet. Maybe a thousand. You would like this to be that thing but for some masochistic reason a couple of us still function here.

What makes a person this obtuse, this ignorant yet this arrogant? This wholly, basically dishonest?

[JumpingJackFlash]

To you, who are you to say what has value to others?

"Value" and "usefulness" are subjective and therefore irrelevant.

What is relevant is the objective accuracy of the information in question. And as a matter of fact, it is wrong.

Yes, that doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that someone might find some use for it, but perpetuating incorrect information is extremely irresponsible and, more relevantly, unnecessary.

If someone finds some use for these misleading inaccuracies, imagine how much use they will get from information that is actually correct! - A lot more, that's for sure, and crucially, it will not lead to future misunderstandings that inevitably occur when building upon a weak foundation.

[jancivil]

The very title of this turd '... in Electronic Music'. It's really comedic, isn't it? Like somehow the things will work in a special way 'in Electronic Music'. Yet nothing makes that distinction. It's just everyday make some triads (and then something else I would have to sort, but arbitrarily piling on intervals on the seven notes) on the scale.

Modal Chords, as I said, was a sign. There are a number of threads where people have thoughts already. There is no novelty here. This was not a creative act, there are programs with a relatively simple algo you can plug in and obtain the result. Noticing mistakes is for you, out of your perverse, twisted, reactionary modus operandi, equals a lack of imagination. Amazing and bizarre damage here.

[ghettosynth]

That would have been a better idea, but, not because your "tool" is more suited to their tastes, rather, because their tastes are more suited to your "tool." That is, I'm saying nothing of the quality, or lack thereof, of your tool, I'm saying that their tastes are often indiscriminate and they might be willing to use any tool. Not only that, but they might be willing to use them in ways not approved by the clergy.

This isn't a tool, it is information which is misleading at best. Someone somewhere might be able to get something out of it, but that's not the point.

To you, who are you to say what has value to others?

You don't understand the issue but you want to get argumentative in this excessive display? JJF and I, and a lot of others that do understand the topic, understand that this whole misleading tack will, uncountered, produce a result of people that if they really want to get going will need to UNLEARN it. There is nothing new here. Did you click on his midi link? OMFG!

Of course I clicked the mid link, I have no use for it. It doesn't have to be "new" to be useful. Your arrogance blinds you to your ignorance. You are assuming that something will ever need to be unlearned or would be learned in the first place, you clearly don't understand the variety of methods that people use to achieve goals. There is little value to learning or unlearning these topics "correctly" for EDM in the first place. So if someone drags and drops a few chords into their mix, or noodles over the notes using a particular scale to impart a particular flavor, what is there to unlearn?

You seem to be afraid that someone might get some use out of it?

Like the blues, EDM is a cliche driven style, there is virtually no evidence that music (theory) skill is the key to succeeding within the genre. Some successful producers are trained, many more are not. The general paranoia displayed in this forum that someone might have to unlearn the few nuggets of incorrect theory that they used to finally finish that first track is self serving intellectual dishonesty.

When people come in here asking questions, it's usually in misguided belief that theory is going to help them. They might have heard about modes and think that now they have to really learn the subject in order to make use of it, nonsense. It's yak shaving.

I told the OP to post elsewhere because this forum won't appreciate what he's offering. I think that's pretty clear, no? Granted, it's not impressive, it doesn't interest me, but that doesn't mean that he won't be able to provide value to others.

Your intellectual dishonesty is gobsmacking.

You owe me an irony meter.

[ghettosynth]

You have little business talking to other human beings, but I notice that it doesn't stop you.

He doesn't have a tool

Sure he does, well, a "tool", you just don't know how it would be used as such.

he has a bad premise and the same automatic result a hundred people have already posted here.

Yep, that's why I told him to stop doing that. There's no point in posting it here, the regulars lack the creativity to imagine how someone might use such work as a tool. He should take it to other forums where it might be better received.

How absolutely idiotic. How DESPERATE is that? You made the error of agreeing with me he has a bad premise in your great rush to react, note well. Keep flailing about, it's a great look for you.

I've bolded the part that that I was referring to. If you were smarter, you would realize that I'm not addressing the correctness of the content of his post.

Sure there are other clueless people that I guess mirror you better than people that know the things, will receive it and proceed fucktardedly into oblivion.

Why do you care so much that other people, many who are vastly more successful than you, are so clueless, or how they proceed with their music?

What makes a person this obtuse, this ignorant yet this arrogant? This wholly, basically dishonest?

Two irony meters in one day, that might be a record.

[Sendy]

To me, there's an important distinction here.

If you want to use the frameworks of music theory, fine, but on the other hand, if you don't want to use them, don't instead create an erroneous theory for your own purpose of consistency and then spread that on the Internet, because if many people do that, it's obfuscating the way for those who need to learn the actual material that's out there, so they can combine and expand on it in future. It's not so much that music theories are "truth" as it is that they are the best generalised models we have (much like science) - and while they are interchangable (i,e, jazz is different from classical theory) - it's important that they retain their integrity, so the learner has autonomy as to where she chooses to deviate from the norm and experiment.

And to be honest, all of the most popular music nowadays requires little actual music theory beyond "avoid notes that clash" and "take a familiar chord sequence and alter it slightly". It's understandable that some see it as a sort of anti-intellectualism in music - which is perfectly fine (punk mentality), but not if it's passed up as actual music theory.

[ghettosynth]

To you, who are you to say what has value to others?

"Value" and "usefulness" are subjective and therefore irrelevant.

No, they are entirely relevant. That is exactly my point and why I advised the OP to post in other forums.

What is relevant is the objective accuracy of the information in question. And as a matter of fact, it is wrong.

It's a midi file with chords in it. What's wrong about it? Careful now, don't start assuming that I'm making some statement about "music theory", I'm not.

Yes, that doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that someone might find some use for it, but perpetuating incorrect information is extremely irresponsible and, more relevantly, unnecessary.

It is hardly "extremely irresponsible" to share something with others to the best of your ability; your assertion is self-serving arrogance. Further, you are making the mistake of confusing information for product. Simply, the OP is creating something for other people, good for him. If you want to compete, do so. The advice that I gave was solid, he should go elsewhere to reach his audience, it isn't here.

[jancivil]

It looks like you went with this 'in Electronic Music' qualifier and my 'fucken EDM people' and concluded (with no need to check it out or read anything but to cherry pick something to sound off on), that here was some special shit that only the geniuses of EDM can use.

The whole business is now so ludicrous I can only laugh. Knock yourself out, though.

[jof]

Modes are MELODIC material, not harmonic material. The person interested really in modes is looking for the character and feel they avail us of. The interest is in melody, chords isn't it.

The thing is, triadic harmony is a feature of tonality, but it doesn't work the same way (if at all) with modality. Typically, modal music uses very few chords.

Actually, you couldn't be more wrong. You need to get off your high horses and start doing your homework. I suggest reading Jeppesen, especially page 80.

Here is a short quote for you:

Every ecclesiastical mode actually has at its disposal many more
chordal possibilities than the major and minor scales. If we compare,
for example, the Dorian with D minor (the two having almost the same
scale) we see that the Dorian has two triads (D major and D minor)
on the first degree, whereas the D minor scale has only one. On the
second degree there are two possibilities available for the ecclesiastical
mode, but only one for the D minor scale.
...
As may be seen, we have in the Dorian no less than six pure triads — the
most valuable tonal combinations — which deviate from D minor: D
major, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, and C major.

Your complete lack of understanding of modal music is immediately apparent to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Palestrina style and you are totally out of line lecturing the OP the way you have been doing. The only thing you have achieved in this thread is making yourselves look like arrogant idiots. YOU are the ones spreading misunderstandings and you need to just STFU and stop pretending you are music theory experts.

[ghettosynth]

To me, there's an important distinction here.

If you want to use the frameworks of music theory, fine, but on the other hand, if you don't want to use them, don't instead create an erroneous theory for your own purpose of consistency and then spread that on the Internet, because if many people do that, it's obfuscating the way for those who need to learn the actual material that's out there, so they can combine and expand on it in future.

But now you're really talking about the freedom of "the press." When you say "don't", I'm forced to ask by who's authority? Everyone here is free to compete equally, last I checked, there are dozens of free blogs on the net, you can post your own midi files and your own discussion of a subject. For any subject you can name there are thousands of blogs that range from nonsense to expert and not everyone agrees which ones are nonsense, and which ones are expert.

In other words, caveat emptor! It is the buyer's responsibility to do due diligence on his consumption of choice. I don't take the circuit benders seriously but I don't think that there's any insecurity among electronics experts that leads them to think that Reed Ghazala is a serious threat to "electronics education." Are the music clergy so insecure about their craft? Is there so little substance, or perhaps so little substance that actually matters, that it's in danger of being obscured by a few DJs?

How much do you want to bet that if I dig through my ancient pre-internet music books for guitarists that I'll find similar misinformation? Today at least there is a general understanding that we should verify things posted on the internet.

It's not so much that music theories are "truth" as it is that they are the best generalised models we have (much like science)

You see, this happens all the time in science. People reinvent theory all the time from a different point of view, sometimes it's irresponsible.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.short

But this is not always the case. Moreover, it is extremely common to use weak understanding of another field to make progress in a different field. Many fields, for example make use of statistics in a very weak manner in order to make progress. Yes, it can call into question their results, but often, it doesn't really. The reason is that rules of thumb, even ones based on an incorrect understanding of theory, are often sufficiently robust that they hold up even under tighter scrutiny.

In fact, if we consider the bad example above, it's been cited many times, why? Because even though the contribution isn't new, and has incorrect components, it doesn't really matter in context. Virtually any adhoc attempt at obtaining the area under a (particular kind of) curve will give you a reasonable estimate if your results are robust enough. In other words, it will only fail to be a sharp instrument and the worst case is that some positive results don't get published.

Please don't misunderstand to think that I'm defending any "reinvention" presented here, I'm just saying that I think that you're on weak ground to say that the concept in general is a significant problem. It isn't as long as we stay within error bounds and there is plenty of precedent for this.

And to be honest, all of the most popular music nowadays requires little actual music theory beyond "avoid notes that clash" and "take a familiar chord sequence and alter it slightly". It's understandable that some see it as a sort of anti-intellectualism in music - which is perfectly fine (punk mentality), but not if it's passed up as actual music theory.

Exactly, which, general rudeness not withstanding, is the best reason to post quasi-theory elsewhere.

[ghettosynth]

It looks like you went with this 'in Electronic Music' qualifier and my 'fucken EDM people' and concluded (with no need to check it out or read anything but to cherry pick something to sound off on), that here was some special shit that only the geniuses of EDM can use.

I gave the OP advice to post his blog articles elsewhere because this forum is not his audience and is, in general, anti-EDM; that's solid advice. The general anti-EDM bias in this forum is well known and we need look no further than your post above to see it clearly.

I checked out his files. His blog post is simply a collection of chords in different keys that, as named, are "commonly used in electronic music." Of course he means EDM. I'm not sure what else one needs to "check out?" What claims was he making that should be properly fact checked by the clergy before some unsuspecting fourteen year old forever damages his brain by copying and pasting a few chords from one window to another? My god, should we alert the media?

Your overreaction and general rudeness weren't called for. You were just upset because the OP assumed that you might have been looking for something like a collection of chords. I tell you, that shit was funny, I was going to say something but I thought better of it and took the high road. Of course, as I suspected, my help wasn't necessary because the expected "blown gasket" materialized in short order.

The whole business is now so ludicrous I can only laugh. Knock yourself out, though.

Sure, the discussion can go on with or without you, truth be told, I doubt that very many people here care one way or the other.