I want to advance my music knowledge... help!

[phantamquyen]

Hey guys, I've been a composer and a producer for 1 years and a half now, and I think I have understand most of the basic theory, but recently I discover there are modals, like Phrygian mode, and counter points, and different harmony theory, it's just overwhelming. Is there a way to organize what I need to learn next so that I can expand my music knowledge. Right now I feel like, I'm just surfing the net to and learn whatever thrown at me, there are no structure to my learning.

Does everyone who self-taught have the same problems or is it just because I'm still not learn enough.

btw, this is my latest track. Tell me what you think
https://soundcloud.com/elephantsmakemusic/nohappyending

[DJ Warmonger]

Get a book, it's free.

http://www.oldschooldaw.com/manuals/Mus ... rMusic.pdf

All in all, music harmony is just a more complicated take on Fourier series

[phantamquyen]

Get a book, it's free.

http://www.oldschooldaw.com/manuals/Mus ... rMusic.pdf

All in all, music harmony is just a more complicated take on Fourier series

Thanks man. I will take a look.

[KoolKool]

You should experiment more with major and harmonic minor, sometime break the rule for creativity.... I just have a few years but i compose very freely with less restrictions.

[herodotus]

One thing that can make things difficult is that contemporary popular music is part of a very different culture than the culture that gave birth to counterpoint.

Pop music is really very...well...simple according to the standards of this older culture. While technology allows pop music to explore all kinds of timbral and textural innovation compared to older music (which was largely limited to traditional instruments and vocal techniques) the melodic, harmonic, and even rhythmic aspects of popular music tend toward extreme simplicity when compared to the same older music.

There are forms of modern, mass market music that are more complex than others, but few of them utilize the sort of compositional techniques that traditional theory explores.

One thing that I think can be both fun and useful for electronic musicians, is to explore different tuning systems. Scala files and other innovations allow anyone to explore realms of harmony that were impossible to achieve in the past. The free Proteus VX from Creative is an easy way to explore some of these tuning systems, as there are 16 completely different systems that can be applied to any preset.

But from a practical standpoint, there is very little reason to learn advanced music theory. Even orchestral music tends toward extreme simplicity these days. The complexities of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok are of little interest commercially.

The only reason to learn skills like counterpoint, sophisticated modulation, and traditional voice leading is because you love the musical culture that they derive from. If by some chance you really are interested in this music, you can start here and move on from there.

[xoxos]

take up audio dsp. build bird houses to attract birds, spend time outside listening. get old. the difference in humidity before and after monsoon changes the transmittive properties of the medium. sound travels extremely slowly.

forget about all that western theory. pop songs are in phrygian minor which cannot be achieved with any of the traditional western scales or modes. oops did i let out the big secret that your masters don't really wish you to learn anything while they profit off the ignorance of the populace?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I've been at this for decades, with zero understanding of theory. However, it's something that has been really frustrating of late. So I can't really offer many words of wisdom on that front.

I did enjoy the tune, though. Pretty much anything that isn't some four-to-the-floor, dance music derivative, so that's a start. Buy this was quirky enough to really hold my interest. Listening again

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Really enjoying 'Standing Here'. Love the field-recording ambience, and what you have done with the vocals

The only shame to me is the quality of some of the sounds(Drums, strings) Not sure what libraries you are using, but they seem to be holding back the dynamics of the piece

Anyway, I'm gonna follow ya

[nineofkings]

Pop music is an amalgamation of different influences, so to say there's nothing to learn from traditional music theory is a stretch. Just because you probably won't be writing classical-era four-part harmony doesn't mean there aren't lessons to be learned from it.

That said, not sure about a good resource on the net.

[Harry_HH]

Musical knowledge (Theory) is, of course just one aspect. Paul MacCartney didn't even read notes but used modes, counterpoint, modulation, harmony voicing, different time signatures etc.
On the other hand, someone who knows all of the theory, can't write or produce any music - not to mention beeing succesful.

The Equation for beeing a succesful music creator could look out something like this:

A = f(aT x bW x cM x dS x eC)
where
A= Ability to create great music (by Harry)
T = Musical Talent
W = Amount of the Work, time/efficiency
M = Motivation
S = Social Talent and other non-musical talent
C = Change, luck
a, b, c, d, e = parameter coefficients, which should be estimated by using empiric data.

As you see, learning music theory is not necessity, its not the only argument, you can compensate it e.g. by beeing very good looking (=parameter S above), but it doesn't hurt, either.

[herodotus]

Pop music is an amalgamation of different influences, so to say there's nothing to learn from traditional music theory is a stretch. Just because you probably won't be writing classical-era four-part harmony doesn't mean there aren't lessons to be learned from it.

Perhaps. But the lessons are many, and difficult, and of very little practical value.

I am not against learning traditional theory at all. But it is very remote from contemporary music, whether EDM, or Black Metal, or Hip Hop, or even 'Adult Album Alternative'.

If anyone wants to expand their musical horizons in that direction, listening to the countless hours of the music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and the rest that is all available via Youtube seems a much better way of doing so than attempting to solve figured bass or to master species counterpoint.

That said, not sure about a good resource on the net.

Well I did provide a link.

This book in particular is one of the best starter books I have seen anywhere.

And this book is as good a source for learning counterpoint as one is likely to find for free.

There is all kinds of other information available on that site, and at IMSLP

[rp314]

Maybe an example of why IMHO 'music theory' won't necessarily go away any time soon...


These are always personal matters, of course. But for those who are trying to expand beyond what they're currently doing, or are just plain curious about such things, once you start to discover the possibilities resulting from musical analysis (or whatever you want to call your way of going about it) there are plenty of resources out there and sometimes even some nice folks to help you along the way.

[herodotus]

Maybe an example of why IMHO 'music theory' won't necessarily go away any time soon...

I don't think that music theory is ever going to disappear (or at least I hope not).

But the way things are going, much of it is in danger of becoming something of purely historical interest.

Let me describe some of what I am talking about in detail, because I have the day off and I don't want to start practicing quite yet.

There are various examples that can be used, but the easiest I can think of off hand are the symmetrical modes. These are modes that are symmetrical within the octave. There are many of them, and some of the are rare in practice; but a few are quite common in all kinds of music.

These scales haven't been given names that are universally accepted, but their nature is easy enough to describe.

The most common of these symmetrical modes is the whole tone scale (e.g. c, d, e, f#, g#, a#, {c}), which is well-known to the point of being a cliche, and which is kind of boring to work with, because it has no natural fifths or fourths.

Another common scale is the 'octatonic' or 'diminished' scale (e.g. c, c#, d#, e, f#, g, a, b flat, {c}). This scale is made up simply by alternating whole steps and half steps as you ascend or descend. It is quite commonly used in many varieties of metal and 'progressive' rock. As you can see, it is not 'friendly' with our system of notation, and is hard to write without using tons of accidentals, or mixing up sharps and flats.

Yet another such scale has no common name that I have seen, but it alternates half-steps and minor thirds: (c, d flat, e, f, g#, a, {c}). This scale is less popular than the other two, but it will probably sound familiar to you if you play with it for a bit. Bartok was fond of it, and it is often used in horror movie soundtracks.

Now the thing about these scales is that, being symmetrical within the octave, they don't transpose the way diatonic scales like the major and minor scales do. There are, for example, only two collections of notes that are called whole tone scales (c, d, e, f#, g#, a#) and (c#, d#, f, g, a, b). If you transpose either of these you will simply get one of these collections of notes in a different order, for instance: (e, f#, g#, a#, c, d). There are only three collections of notes that can be got by transposing the octatonic scale, only four that can be got by transposing (c, d flat, e, f, g#, a) and so on.

Because of this quality, the French composer Olivier Messiaen called these scales (and numerous others) 'Modes of Limited Transposition', and gave each of them a number, but his nomenclature never really caught on.

In any case, each of these scales has its own internal logic, which you have to discover for yourself, as there is no remotely common or standardized theoretical explanation of them.

For instance, each octatonic scale contains 4 different triads, a minor third apart, that can be either major or minor. This can result in some interesting effects, such as playing an open fourth, and leading the lower note down a half step, and the higher note up a half step, to create an open fifth. This creates a sort of atonal cadence between harmonies a tritone apart.

Another interesting thing about the octatonic scale is that each of the three different transpositions contains four notes in common with each of the other transpositions, making it extremely easy to move between them.

But again, all of this is stuff you won't find in any standard theory book. The only ones that I know that get involved in these scales at length are John Rahn's Basic Atonal Theory, which was last printed in 1980 and costs over $100 new, and George Perle's Serial Composition and Atonality, which is also out of print and expensive.

There are other books that touch on these scales, especially books about individual composers who use them. But none of them employ a common terminology, or discuss the subjects in anything but an ad hoc fashion.

Now if compositional tools used by respected composers like Stravinsky and Bartok still don't even have standardized names, while in the mean time their use has spread from jazz to death metal, this tells me that music theory has slipped behind the times a bit.

And this is just an example. It isn't even getting into the many advances in rhythmic practice that are mentioned parenthetically on those rare occasions that they are mentioned at all.

The only area of theory that is keeping up with the times are jazz improvisation studies and their many offshoots. These types of theory are certainly useful from a practical point of view, although their terminology is often completely different than the terms encountered in traditional theory books.

The only problem is that these books are the musical equivalent of Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style'. They tell people how to make music, not how music works.

Or perhaps a better example is a drivers manual, which tells the user how to operate a car, but not how the car itself works. There is nothing wrong with how-to-drive books. But it is pretty well established that we also need how-the-car-works books, too.

Music theory has plenty of useful how-to books. But it is way behind on the how-it-works books.

[Frantz]

For instance, each octatonic scale contains 4 different triads, a minor third apart, that can be either major or minor. This can result in some interesting effects, such as playing an open fourth, and leading the lower note down a half step, and the higher note up a half step, to create an open fifth. This creates a sort of atonal cadence between harmonies a tritone apart.

That's a lot of fancy book learnin' for a guy who makes punk rock drum loops.

[rp314]

I don't think that music theory is ever going to disappear (or at least I hope not).

Well, despite the fact that my post came right after yours, I wasn't seriously suggesting that you did, but just in case...

In my humble opinion, the question facing each individual is not what has worked, and continues to do so for most, but what's gonna work for her or him. That's the reason why a good number of musicians and composers, even successful ones, often make profound changes during their careers.

In fact from the "you can teach some old dogs new tricks" file: didn't the aforementioned great Stravinsky himself eventually come around to the theories of the Second Austrian school, (regardless of how successful some of us might view his later works)?

And going even further back to the early days of rock'n roll, didn't Verdi, perhaps the most famous composer of the last half of the 19th century, change his basic formula, abandon the long arias, and take up certain Wagnerian techniques when he wrote Falstaff in his late 70s (and, incidentally, subsequently attended the premiere in Germany conducted by none other than a young Gustav Mahler whose blending of the two greats can be found all over his music)?

No, checking stuff out, being insecure or just plain curious, whether it's regarding music theory, some new gadgets for one's guitar, or some new software is the domain of most musicians and thank you for continuing to keep this little forum going. There will always be some who'll find useful bits here, whether they profess a love for analysis or not.