Help with understanding scales/chords :) + tuning kick/bass

[Caine123]

so far i didnt care about chords etc. mostly and mostly played only the white keys and added more notes and just went with the harmony my ears said "sounds good!" but i wanna learn more and understand. i see that i seem to use mostly sad/darker stuff. here is an example:

1. how can i know/recognize what scale for example this song is? it definitely doesnt sound happy" so i guess it'S no MAJOR scale.



2. e.g. i use the following scale A Minor (seems to sound dark):



SHALL i use ONLY notes in this scale so it wont sound out of keys?

3. if yes, where shall be the kicks/hihats/snares? i guess with the ROOT key? here Ab? or may i transpose them? if so how much? +6 -6?

4. what about the bass? i read that power chords play is the best e.g. 1 then 4th key and then 7th key? or is there no rule and i can play the bass the same as the rest keys?

5. is scale and a chord the same?

thanks

[BertKoor]

Each of these individual questions either is worth several books of material, or opens a can of worms.

[slipstick]

Oh I don't know, I can answer #5. No, scales and chords aren't the same thing.

And as for the picture, it's a sort of chord not a scale and it isn't A minor. One way to tell is that it doesn't have the note "A" in it.

Unfortunately I can't really understand the rest of the questions.

Steve

[DJ Warmonger]

SHALL i use ONLY notes in this scale so it wont sound out of keys?

Yes, tat's the whole point of a scale.

if yes, where shall be the kicks/hihats/snares? i guess with the ROOT key

Best play kick in root or, if you can't, 5 semitones below (frequency ratio 2:3).

4. No idea what you mean.

[Googly Smythe]

1) Simple listening practice. Also, major/minor doesn't dictate the emotion.

2) Thay That looks like a cross between G# major (upper notes) and minor (lower notes) scale. Scales are a framework, not a straitjacket. Plenty of tunes, especially jazz and blues, use the notes in-between the notes of the scale.

3) Kicks/snares/hats are not pitched instruments (unless you're using an 808), so the question isn't logical. Like asking how many pages are in a wardrobe - grammatically correct, but nonsense.

4) Power chords are for riffing in metal, and in that case the bass will follow the root of the chord. Otherwise the bass can be any note. Some otherwise plain chords can become interesting with a creative bass line.

5) Chords, generally are made up of notes from a scale, so no, not the same.

Don't forget that there are other scales than simple major/minor. And not all scales have 7 notes (not including the octave).
And then there's the whole modal thing...

Edits:
Can't spell for sh*t these days.

[jancivil]

- scale in piano roll pic is G# harmonic minor.
Except the 7th degree is spelled Fx. F double sharp.
7 note-scales use 7 letter names, alphabetically up thru G. There won't be 2 Gs.

Or it's Ab Bb Cb Db Eb Fb G.

if you play all of them at once, you can call that a chord.

<What bass to use> is a question of a musical idea. It isn't really paint-by-numbers or something like that.

[jancivil]

SHALL i use ONLY notes in this scale so it wont sound out of keys?

Yes, tat's the whole point of a scale.

We can be much freer than that. There is no single 'whole point of a scale'.

For instance, there is a minor scale given there.
Minor scales in western music may have 2 versions of the 6th and 7th degrees. There the 6th is the lower pitched one, the 7th is the higher pitched one. Harmonic minor it's called. It's called that because the V chord, that harmony contains the higher 7th than so-called natural minor.

In western music for centuries there may be movement outside the 7-notes in a given key. There are reasons for choices, we're in the realm of having a musical idea now.

Modally, such as Indian Classical Music, there may be just the 7, or 6, or just 5 notes, but here there is no harmony. You could have the same scalar basis as that in the pic but no harmony.

[Keith99]

although worth adding that people do often tune the kick to the key

[jancivil]

well, it was acknowledged 'unless it's an 808', synthesizer patch.

which isn't really a kick, but it's called that by the adherents to those ways

[Bojmir Raj Raj]

Yeah, you've got Ab harmonic minor there, not A minor, as others have said above! You don't have to stay in the same scale the whole piece- a standard thing to do would be to modulate to Cb major, the "relative" major, at some point (Cb major is the same as B natural major, in 12-tone equal temperament). This will sound very nice, which is why it's such a common thing.

As far as tuning an 808 under it, either Ab (or you can call it G#), the tonic, or Eb, the fifth or "dominant" would be normal, and sound good, as mentioned above, but really you should do it by ear- maybe it will be darker with some out-of-tune 808, or on some other note, give it a try.

As far as not playing outside the scale, that's a compositional question, as mentioned above, but this is the music theory forum after all, so that's cool! You might find that your ear wants to make the G into a Gb (same key as F#) sometimes, that's very usual and sounds very "natural". That turns the scale into the natural minor, or "aeolian mode", which is "darker" than the harmonic minor. If you are going to go into Cb (which will be shown as B natural in your sequencer view there) major at some point, you're definitely going to want to drop the G down to Gb (which will show up as F# in your DAW) before doing that, because Gb ("F#") is the fifth, and therefore the "dominant" of Cb (b natural), and western music is pretty much entirely based on the dominant-to-tonic relationship.

Dang this stuff is way easier to explain sitting at the piano and playing it singing along, especially if you do "now sing the next note!", which completely and instantly explains the dominant-to-tonic relationship and the leading tone as well!

[zethus909]

this is the first scale you should learn

C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C

it's C major

Google what chords belong to C major and why

[jancivil]

Chords are usually built by the interval of the third, starting with a scale which tends to be congruent with a key.
That's a cultural development and a certain notion of consonance. This common practice stems historically from music where the third as a consonance came later. We take that for granted in the west today, that since a fundamental tone working in air molecules produces the 'Perfect fifth' and the 'Major third' early in the series of harmonics that's your basic harmony.

The keyboard enjoys prominence as a basis which will be hard to separate from the rest of cultural developments.
So it's not unusual to see 'the best start is C major' because that coincides with the 7 white keys, which on paper is the plainest visual, there are no alterations, sharp or flat here.

Is it the simplest, apart from the whole <on paper> aspect? Here's seven different tones. The black keys give five different tones, seems simpler. Where does C become central among 7 tones? That is very selective, definitely cultural and we'll locate that development in historical terms.

Is C major fundamental to your ear, outside of being conditioned to it (in more than one way)?
The OP found something else which starts on a black key. All five of those, plus two whiteys.
The original post called it 'dark', rather than the expected 'happy'. Now JarJar has called 'natural' minor 'darker'. Me, I find natural minor 'blander' or 'greyer' than harmonic minor.

It may be that C major is the blandest of all beginnings. It may be that one finds using those seven, starting with all white keys but with other centers more compelling.

I have no memory of starting out with a scale, I had a trumpet and I remember playing songs. On the guitar I don't think I was into major scales, I wanted to do blues electric guitar. What I did was watch everybody and pick things off of records. Minor and major pentatonic seem to be basic here.

Now if what you really want is to pursue Western European Concert Music ("classical music"), do start with the piano and the white keys, and now triads; and you learn the procedures for that, for these types of harmonies. (As this wound up being a harmonic type of music where the vertical structures, triads idea seems to dominate the thought for a good while. The tunes more or less intertwine with and work w. the harmonies.)

That's a minority position vis a vis the wider world. So I say your 'best' first vocabulary depends on what you actually find out for yourself to enjoy and explore first, rather than passive obeisance to 'You must start with C major and triads'. Some cultures never do this.