Just realised I know nothing. What's going on in my track?

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Just realised I know nothing. What's going on in my track? 2012-09-25T01:42:28+00:00 I know nothing about theory. I thought that I did for many years, but I realised the other night that I barely have a single clue. When I was younger, about 15 years ago when all I did was sit and play, I used to be able to feel out your average pop/rock track fairly quickly on my guitar/keyboard, but I can't even do that anymore. I was trying to play along with an old music hall tune last night and it was like banging my head against a brick wall. I mean, I can derive your basic major and minor scales for any key (not without having a little think first, mind) and pick out a load of chords based on the notes within that scale, but that's about as far as I go. It's seriously limiting and most importantly there's very little understanding of what's actually going on there. Which brings me to the track below. I really like the chord progression, but it's shocking how little I understand it and that's stopped me taking it forward. What is it? What am I doing? The snippet below was uploaded to Soundcloud a year ago - haven't touched it since. It's probably the track I feel the saddest about abandonding, because something there really works for me. Please try to ignore the dire mix; the headphones times were bad times. Here's the track: http://soundcloud.com/charityqueen/charity-queen-switchbank Here's what I sorta kinda maybe think is going on. Apologies for the ludicrous notation but this really is pretty much the limit of my understanding, which I'm sure reveals a lot. Knowing the chord names of course means nothing when my understanding of how they relate to each other comes from little more than skewed intuition. I appreciate this will likely be difficult to read, but not as difficult as writing it out twice has been. I yanked the power cable just as I was about to post the first time :dog: There's no rhythm in the first 32 bars, but the track is running at 140bpm (I think) for reference... Bars 1-8: I form a D minor triad over the course of the first 6 bars. Start with the D, add the third, then the fifth. At bar 7 I shift the D down to a C so we've got an inverted F major triad. Bars 9-16: I start with the D minor sans the fifth, add the fifth completing the triad, raise it to the 6th so we've an inverted Bb minor triad, then up to the C... I don't really know what that C is doing in terms of harmony, but it leads up to the D minor beginning bar 17 quite nicely. Bars 17-32: D minor, inverted F Major, inverted Bb minor, then the bit I find hardest to understand. At bar 23 I hold what I think is a Edim chord, or an E minor with a flattened fifth or something(E-G-Bb), but while playing around on my childhood Casio since recording this I've found that this E-G-Bb chord really wants to have a C# bass dropped under it (unfortunately you can't hear this C# discovery in the snippet below - my main computer is in a friend's loft in London, but I have the FLAC so maybe I'll mock something up tomorrow when it isn't 2 in the morning). It sounds great if you play a D bass note on Bar 25 then drop to a C# bass on bar 26 (all over this E-G-Bb chord), then drop to the C on bar 27 which is the bottom note of the inverted F minor triad. I really like that, but yeah, why I like it I don't know. I don't quite understand how I can get away with playing both the C# and the C one after the other. I know that you can raise the 7th a semitone in minor scales, but I'm playing both the sharpened 7th and the 'natural' 7th one after the other here. Anyway, then the resolution to the D minor. Then, err, comedy arrythmic sidechain dance party whoop-whoop! I appreciate this is essentially a big ramble from somebody who doesn't have a bloody clue. My intention is to take music theory lessons from a real flesh and blood teacher as soon as I'm employed in a decently paying job and can afford it again (I was laid off a year back - it's been hell) but I thought laying myself bare in here might be a good way to get over the initial hurdle of acknowledging that I need to learn this stuff properly and stop fumbling by! Any words regarding what I'm doing, why certain things work or don't, or interesting musical directions in which this could be taken would be hugely appreciated. As an aside to where this sudden musical theory hurt has come from... On the day I went to enrol at my further education college aged 16, I was told that the music theory A-level I had applied for had been cancelled due to lack of interest. I was told I should apply to the practical music course. Didn't fancy my chances of getting to grade 8 in one instrument and grade 6 in another within 2 years (my guitar and keyboard skills were average at best) and it was the theory aspect I was most interested in anyway due to my burgeoning electronic music hobby. As such, I changed my subjects, under pressure and on the spot, from music/maths/physics (which the university course I had my eye on demanded) to psychology/law/physics. Here I am one month away from turning 30 having been laid off and all I want to do is learn music theory, go back to school to study maths and brush up on my physics while I'm at it. Office and project management be damned! cron https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5154

jancivil jancivil https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=163537: KVRAF; 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville

Post by jancivil » Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:27 pm

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cron wrote:
HordePrime wrote:
cron wrote:I'm perfectly capable of transcribing pretty much any musical idea that I want to, I'd just like to be able to do it quicker
No amount of music theory will help you with this. What you need is practice, practice and more practice.
Now you're just being silly. Theory and practice are unrelated? Come on!

Yeah, That is an absurd assertion.
if one is transcribing music of a certain complexity, ignorance of the practice technically is going to mean you could go on forever with trial and error. Knowing the vocabulary is essential; some vocabulary is rudimentary, some vocabulary is technically involved and advanced. You could choose to be efficient or not. Who is going to want to spend their time unwisely?

I transcribed quite a lot of things before I had formal theory. But when I wanted to understand what JS Bach was doing, I was going to have to know something about the technique. Practical musicianship has no use for these dichotomies.

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