Music Theory Help - Trance

[Coxy]

Need help with melody,

I have no musical theory, I am creating a tune that thus far uses F, G A#, G# and C#

This sounds like a crazy thing to ask but what other notes could I use, I know whatever sounds "okay" but it would help if I have some basis otherwise I'm feel like I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying and erroring.



Thanks in advance.

[Gamma-UT]

It looks as though you're in F minor, so those sharps are flats - Bb, Ab and Db, as well as Eb.

The most obvious note left is C - the fifth above F. You may get some joy, particularly if moving up the scale from C towards F with D and E natural, also with A natural (so that the key shifts between minor and major)

[Coxy]

Hey Gamma. Thank you very much.

How do you know such things with ease? How long did it take to learn this?

[Gamma-UT]

Learning basic scales – major, minor - doesn't take very long at all. But it's like everything else, you more you practice at it, the faster and more capable you get.

The trickiest part at the beginning is relating traditional music theory – which is geared up for traditional tonal classical music - to pop styles and idioms, which don't follow the same patterns.

Psytrance, for example, doesn't tend to use either minor or major scales but is more likely to use a mode like Phrygian where you replace the G with a Gb (plus other changes). But it's that semitone step above the root that gives melodies written in it a lot of their characteristic shape. The scale gets used because its reminiscent of one type of Indian raga, and so there isn't much in Western music theory that's going to help a great deal, other than the fact that getting a grasp of some theory can help you analyse these different types of music.

Euphoric trance OTOH sticks much closer to traditional western music, often based on a minor key but with borrowed chords from the major mode.

[Lejurai]

Quick and easy way to scales is that you can download reaper (www.reaper.fm) and use that. At the bottom of the midi screen there's a tab "scale" where you can then choose several scales, and can't choose notes outside the chosen scale.

If you're not willing to go the reaper way, you can always read this page I quickly found by googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)

[jancivil]

Surely the notes of F (natural) minor will work/are at work here (as a supposition. The E and B, if a seven-note scale have not been spelled out; I'm confident C is in it). Interestingly, I note the constant Db with no move to C, so without more I'm uncertain of the 'mode' or 'tonic', albeit the pedal F may be significant and C is expected soon. We see actually a Db major triad throughout. With G as a dissonance to Db and Ab. Sounds interesting. So (if Eb and Bb hold to be true), this passage can be said to be in Db Lydian as well as to say F 'Aeolian', depends on where we go ultimately.

[Coxy]

Surely the notes of F (natural) minor will work/are at work here (as a supposition. The E and B, if a seven-note scale have not been spelled out; I'm confident C is in it). Interestingly, I note the constant Db with no move to C, so without more I'm uncertain of the 'mode' or 'tonic', albeit the pedal F may be significant and C is expected soon. We see actually a Db major triad throughout. With G as a dissonance to Db and Ab. Sounds interesting. So (if Eb and Bb hold to be true), this passage can be said to be in Db Lydian as well as to say F 'Aeolian', depends on where we go ultimately.

Dude, what the hell I wish I understood half of this.

I got the 'C' bit.

[jancivil]

If F is indeed your home, base, or key note (tonic) your set for 'F natural minor' (or 'F Aeolian mode') is F G Ab Bb C Db Eb. (You depicted no Bb or Eb. One supposes they are more likely than B & E (E natural instead of Eb gives you F harmonic minor. That is named that because E belongs to the harmony C major, typical of harmony-oriented "Common Practice Period" or "classical" usage; C = V, 'dominant of' f, or i.) B natural as a scale tone here is somewhat more exotic.). If Db is home base, this 7-tone scale is Db Lydian mode: Db Eb F G Ab Bb C. You're articulating Db major triad Db F Ab (with the third of the harmony, F, in the bass). The G v. Ab in the line with the Db major chord sounding made me think of Db Lydian, G being the characteristic or defining tone of Db Lydian. And a tension in relation to Db and Ab.

[Sendy]

Grab a good book on music theory. What you need to make most styles of dance music can be learned in a week. Just remember not to make the beginner mistake of letting the theory limit your creatitivity. Use it as a scaffold for ideas just beyond your intuition, rather than a box to contain it.

This has been another fortune cookie music advice by Sendy

[Coxy]

Grab a good book on music theory. What you need to make most styles of dance music can be learned in a week. Just remember not to make the beginner mistake of letting the theory limit your creatitivity. Use it as a scaffold for ideas just beyond your intuition, rather than a box to contain it.

This has been another fortune cookie music advice by Sendy

I've got two, I just can't seem to get it.

Closest I got was touring Japan and Australia on low dose nootropics - I was starting to get my head round it but have long since forgotten all that.

I'm more technical/pratical - programming synths and shit, sound design - that I can do with ease, I'm just not much of an academic.

[ATN69]

Image 2.png

Here are the Music notes, just in a piano roll version. They might look different than traditional written notes ..the lenght and pitch of every note is still there. My advice to anyone that want to learn scales is to use any keyboard. Start with a fundamental tone and keep it pressed. Add more tones one by one and see which ones sounds good with the fundamental. Write them down. Your ears will guide you and soon enough you will instinctly know what tones goes together in a scale. Few people learn how to ride a bike in one day

[Lejurai]

I've got two, I just can't seem to get it.

Just read it once every month or two.. Eventually you'll get it

[Lejurai]

Just remember not to make the beginner mistake of letting the theory limit your creatitivity.

That's what I did. Books ruined my creativity for a year and I didn't finish anything.. And everything I made, sounded like shit Also lost my motivation.. Fun..

Yea.. Read a book but NEVER let the fact rule over fun. More like "learn the rules that you know what you break"

[Gamma-UT]

I've got two, I just can't seem to get it.
...
I'm more technical/pratical - programming synths and shit, sound design - that I can do with ease, I'm just not much of an academic.

There's no real easy answer to this. If you were learning blues guitar, you'd find some old blues guitarist who'd show you the ropes and, through a sh*t-ton of practice, you'd gradually absorb everything you need to know about blues.

Dance styles don't really lend themselves to theory unless you've done a fair amount of it and can spot where practice and theory overlap. But, there are things you can do that will reduce the amount of book learning and give you useful insight into how notes, scales, keys and modes interact.

At the end of the day, what you want is to be able hear an idea in your head and then express it musically. Or, if you have the start of an idea, know ways to explore how you can finish it.

Scales can be pretty boring to do, but they do help embed what you need to know in your head. So, practising scales on a keyboard or singing them (which can actually be more useful for internalising what you need to know) is perhaps your best way forward. But don't play them up and down slavishly. Make simple melodies with them, understand which chords fit into those scales. And don't just colour inside the lines. A good starting point is to see how the major and natural minor (aeolian) scales compare. You'll find you can often replace the A, D and E in F major with Ab, Db and Eb. If you play in another scale, you'll find the third, sixth and seventh degree of that scale will be just as flexible.

Then you can try playing some of the other modes, such as Lydian (which as Jan said, is an option for your current tune) and Phrygian to see how those suggest different kinds of melody.

[jancivil]

"You'll find you can often replace..." I was thinking about a way to say this. You can simply do this willfully in music if you want a new direction or mood or what-not.

What scales do is just provide a map for interval relationships. (Actually I don't like a lot of reading books myself for this kind of thing. I used books for other things in music, intonation 'theory' but again it's more like looking at a map, a reference for me.) So essentially seven tones means seven modes. It's one set that's permutated simply.

So we can take the first notion presented to you, F G Ab Bb C Db Eb as a basis (typically people take the major scale as the basis*). I'm going to just go with what you have chosen for your tune and we've already started in on. It's as apt as any start.

In most musics, the relationship of the fifth, the 'perfect fifth' (and note well the inverse, the 'perfect fourth') has a certain import. F & C here. C to F (later C to G! G to C.). Then the 'minor' aspect to this means we have the minor third: Ab vis F.
So, let's note the feel of your G - Ab. Where the 'tonic', home base is F, the G sounding against the Ab has a certain twinge (based in F, I mean the minor feel of F Ab).

One way to think of scales is to consider this 5ths (or 4ths) dynamic. Note that I wondered about the expectation of C from your Db (from the standpoint of F as your base). Db to C: minor 6 to 5; reflect that semitone 'half-step' at the fifth & there's your Ab to G (minor 3 to 2 or 10 to 9). The rules to define a raga are concerned with this. The fundaments of intonation were derived in consideration of this fifth; get a cycle of fifths chart and that reveals this fifths as the key (pun acknowledged).

Another *minor* feel is Eb to F. Minor 7 to 8 (to 1). There's a thing done for ages where this 6 and 7, here *minor*, are raised a semitone to get a drive to 1 (D and E natural; major 6 & 7.). So minor has this little extra aspect. Gamma said you aren't really restricted to color inside the lines, exactly right, & as an alternative to the way some people take 'theory'. One approach up to your F home is C Db Eb F; another is C D E F. You can ascend via the major 6 & 7 and descend via the minor. An aspiring rise and a relaxing fall. They called this "Melodic Minor". With just a basic grasp of intervals (and some experimentation, sure) you can obtain a command of materials, and become decisive.

So this other term was introduced, "Lydian" mode. The G - Ab here feels differently founded in Db. Here, the Ab is that 'perfect fifth' from Db. G has a different tinge according to Db as home or 'tonic'. Ab 'tonic' (Ab Ionian now) and G has a different tinge still. Bb tonic (Bb Dorian), and G becomes yet another color...

To sum up, your set F G Ab Bb C Db Eb (F) amounts to some intervals. From F as 1 the basic row goes: tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone (tone). These, and the other relationships based here, give a new feel when a new 'tonic' is established. Because of the tonic, which is where the relationships are now founded. That's 'modal' thought.
(*: but let's be careful, because taking major as *the* basis fosters the belief that the other six are founded in it and the tendency is to conflate them and confuse the meaning. There's been this tendency to consider 'Aeolian' the sixth mode of 'major', but 'major' is something else than a mode in this sense (it's 'Ionian' in this 'theory'). NB: none of these are primary; Ionian may as well be seen as the third mode of Aeolian.)

So get the map of modes. Compare notes with what you have made here, for instance. Develop your own "theory". "Theory" is really an observation and a description of what is seen to work for a certain effect.