music

[Guest môak]

ok i'm getting pretty pissed off now, cause i cant ever get a track to sound, full enough! and i believe it has to do with either my fucked up ears, or my shity programming.

 

it seems as though the bass is the only piece of melody that is laid down proper, whilst i try to scrable the other melodies from say, 3 different instruments over each other, but it never ends up sounding good, as in the notes used perhaps are not laid out so that full harmony along side melody is achieved to create a beautiful balance.

 

i thought the problem might lye in the basis that what ever note the bass is, say for example A, one melody wouyld have to be 2 keys(of the key range) below that base-bass, then perhaps the second melody which would overlay the exsisting melody would then be another 2 or more registers higher or lower, to fulfill the balace, but it doesnt seem to work.

 

suggestions?

[ten fingers ten toes]

Not trying to be mean here but are you high right now? That doesn't seem to make alot of sense outside of some internal brain context

[Guest môak]

examples:

[Guest môak]

perhpas these examples can help you understand my dilema, to me at least they sound amatuer(obviously) but they just dont have that sense of bonding of each sound, rather every instrument sounds like its trying to do its own thing

[kakapo]

There's two approaches.

 

Learn musical theory, counterpoint and all, which will take years of dedication. You can learn basic harmony and chord structure very quickly, but to be honest this is often as much a hindrance as a help, as you tend to drift towards the musical cliches (basic triads etc.)

 

Use your ears and serendipity. I know this is obvious as well, but I'll try and give a practical example. You've got your major scale C and its relative minor A along the white keys. Play random chords on them. Use big intervals and small intervals between the notes, mix it up, you'll be coming up with random inversions of various chords. Throw in the odd sharp or flat (black key). Record them and then stick them in a sampler, then start playing them to come up with sequences. Repeat, except this time use your transpose function of your keyboard or sequencer to use a different key. Do the same with the black keys. This is a minor pentatonic scale, and will give slightly different and often more useful results.

[ten fingers ten toes]

Not really in a position where I can listen to anything right now (at work), but I'll also offer, that choice of instrumentation can lead to a very cluttered sounding arrangement. If everything is competing for the same range of frequencies, even a well done composition will sound cluttered and muddy because you can't discern anything else aurally. Like I say, I can't listen to the examples right now so that could be totally out of left field here.

[cruising for burgers]

YEAH, EQUALIZE EVERY SINGLE INSTRUMENT INDEPENDENTLY!!!!!

[cruising for burgers]

I thought the problem might lye in the basis that what ever note the bass is, say for example A, one melody wouyld have to be 2 keys(of the key range) below that base-bass, then perhaps the second melody which would overlay the exsisting melody would then be another 2 or more registers higher or lower, to fulfill the balace, but it doesnt seem to work.

 

who tol u that, why did u do it like that, if the bass is is A then the rest have to be in some especific places, but not exactly 2 keys up or down, you are all scrambled, if u don´t know any music theory, do it by ears, make them sound good as you want!!! =)

 

 

 

peace

[cruising for burgers]

it doesn´t sound bad to me, neither in equalizations aspects, neither in harmony/melodie...

 

maybe u´re just using keys that doesn´t sound good to u, not really sure what is your problem...

[Chris Moss Acid]

never use the key F#minor

[Guest Wall Bird]

Be sure to use the key F# minor.

[Siegecow]

I had the exact same problem when i started making music 2 years ago.

 

Just keep fucking around. Everything will sort itself out eventually as you progress.

[Braintree]

I use the key of GX minor.

 

But honestly, if you want to get a general clean sound out of your harmonies, use intervals of 3rds or 5ths. Personally, I hate 7 chords as they tend to make my songs sound more cluttered [or unstable], so I just use basic intervals and triads. But really the only intervals you want to avoid are 2nds and 7ths. In other words, if you're playing keyboard and hit two keys right next to each other, it's probably going to sound bad. Of course they have their place in music, but for basics you want to avoid them [until you learn about b9's and such].

 

As for melody, step-wise motion is always a good idea. Jumping around from note to note generally isn't going to give you a good melody. Keeping it simple usually gives a nice melody. Things that are easy to sing are usually good melodies.

 

But like Kakapo said, just fiddle about with a keyboard. Everything you need to know about theory is on a keyboard. Trust me, I learned about this shit the hard way. I play bass and don't own any keyboards. I learned how to do all of this on a sequencer and it's taken years.

[kcinsu]

Trust me, I learned about this shit the hard way. I play bass and don't own any keyboards. I learned how to do all of this on a sequencer and it's taken years.

 

same.

 

 

I don't know, I'm bad at these types of questions. It's such a broad thing, and there could be so many different solutions. Personally, I am the opposite of most people here, who say you should just keep fiddling on a keyboard. I only recently began fiddling on the keyboard, and its mostly to quickly lay out harmonic progressions. when I do fiddle, I always have record on, so I can grab anything that I liked, but I always break it down and analyze it. I analyze the rhythm and how it relates to other rhythms, I analyze the harmonic progression, the voice leading, the intervals etc. The more ways you can look at stuff, the more paths it opens up.

 

I analyze EVERYYYYTHING. I look at it like this... music theory is a tool. Of course you need inspiration, but if you don't know how to work your tools, it will make it harder to create what it is you want. Know your tools, know what effect they achieve, when they are useful etc. If you analyze everything you do, you can see the context it is used in... what you have, and more importantly what you dont have, which will allow you to figure out what you need.

 

Ive often found that Ive had certain ideas that I never knew how to fully express. Id always be off of the mark. Then at some point, Id learn some technique that turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. I then practice that technique (write lots of little passages to learn how to control it etc) and then apply it. Never stop learning... there is always new stuff to learn. Go read theory books. Go read synth books. Analyze pieces. Even if this means doing it by ear. Find a piece you love, or achieves the effect you are looking for, and sit down and try to figure it out. Then answer is in there somewhere, because if you are hearing it, its there... it just takes concentration and dedication to figure it out.

 

Regarding your track, I can't say for certain. From what it sounds like to me, it seems more of an orchestration problem, then a compositional problem, meaning, you have your main ideas and harmonies, and they work... but you need to figure out how to fill out the sound. Personally I think it lacked a sustained type pad sound, in a lower register. Alot of the stuff in this piece was percussive and short decays. Give that a shot, and see what results you come up with.

[acid1]

Use your ears and serendipity. I know this is obvious as well, but I'll try and give a practical example. You've got your major scale C and its relative minor A along the white keys. Play random chords on them. Use big intervals and small intervals between the notes, mix it up, you'll be coming up with random inversions of various chords. Throw in the odd sharp or flat (black key). Record them and then stick them in a sampler, then start playing them to come up with sequences. Repeat, except this time use your transpose function of your keyboard or sequencer to use a different key. Do the same with the black keys. This is a minor pentatonic scale, and will give slightly different and often more useful results.

 

lol!!!!!

[kakapo]

lol!!!!!

 

lol?

 

lol?

 

lol?

 

lol?

 

Don't lol me you maggot-cocked shit-breathed little prick.

 

Edit: Also incorrect use of the exclamation mark, you might want to correct that, makes you look like a teenage girl.

[Guest Arthur Jigzmo]

do not use "notes" such as "A" or "B#" do not try to create a "melody" they are corny and lame and for the weak. also never make beats god do they suck. music like that was invented by tyrants.

[Guest arsenlives]

"do not use "notes" such as "A" or "B#" do not try to create a "melody" they are corny and lame and for the weak. also never make beats god do they suck. music like that was invented by tyrants."

 

what the hell does this mean? there is no b#. C?

 

"but honestly, if you want to get a general clean sound out of your harmonies, use intervals of 3rds or 5ths. Personally, I hate 7 chords as they tend to make my songs sound more cluttered [or unstable], so I just use basic intervals and triads. But really the only intervals you want to avoid are 2nds and 7ths. In other words, if you're playing keyboard and hit two keys right next to each other, it's probably going to sound bad. Of course they have their place in music, but for basics you want to avoid them [until you learn about b9's and such]."

 

no, dont use trite intervals at all times. this will cause boring music. dont avoid any intervals they are all there for a reason.

[Braintree]

"do not use "notes" such as "A" or "B#" do not try to create a "melody" they are corny and lame and for the weak. also never make beats god do they suck. music like that was invented by tyrants."

 

what the hell does this mean? there is no b#. C?

 

"but honestly, if you want to get a general clean sound out of your harmonies, use intervals of 3rds or 5ths. Personally, I hate 7 chords as they tend to make my songs sound more cluttered [or unstable], so I just use basic intervals and triads. But really the only intervals you want to avoid are 2nds and 7ths. In other words, if you're playing keyboard and hit two keys right next to each other, it's probably going to sound bad. Of course they have their place in music, but for basics you want to avoid them [until you learn about b9's and such]."

 

no, dont use trite intervals at all times. this will cause boring music. dont avoid any intervals they are all there for a reason.

 

You're an idiot.

[Fred McGriff]

arsenlives sucks, leave watmm forever plz

[Guest mushroom]

aw, man. I liked his bike-sampling track.

[pcock]

write some music in wholetone becuase it always sounds faintly haunting and its impossible to do it wrong.

[chim]

write some music in wholetone becuase it always sounds faintly haunting and its impossible to do it wrong.

 

truth

 

anyway, i'll try and put my own half arsed opinion in this

 

basically, music theory will be your most important tool. all that bullshit about "oh no music theory destroys your feel for music" is false, because what it does is teach you why certain stuff soudns good, how to replicate that, how to evolve with your music and make stuff you only wished you could. this doesn't mean you'll be immune to simple stuff, because essentially the simpler music is the more powerful it can be, it's important to keep balance however, if you have a simple melody, try and counterpoint it and make it intersting, if you have some dissonant odd shit going on, well, just dont add any more because it'll just mud it up.

 

you'll find new depths to music and melodies, and find out what cool shit you can do with these 12 notes we have to our disposal. (unless you get into microtonalism, then you have 43 notes, but let's be serious, that stuff sounds ball)

 

as i've learnt more, i've developed a taste for jazzy sounding stuff and bitonal shit etc, but i still like mellow aeolian melodies just as much as when i didn't know jack about music.

 

the best approach to melody is keeping it simple. a simple cadence, call and response, start with one chord, progress to another chord (and have an additional progressing chord if you want to be pop and make 4 chord melodies), then finish with another chord.

 

as a side note, you can have lots of fun little effects if you make the progressing chord(s, works better in a longer sequence) abit dissonant but then make sure you finish it up with a very consonant chord. then you will have what we call fucking pleasing music, and few besides the classical masters and jazz people have delved into this much. it's abit different than just noodling around a scale.

 

if you have an instrument doing a single line of notes, then you can chuck in a bunch of other instruments doing the same thing. if however you have one instrument doing extended 13th chords and shit like that, then throwing in lots of stuff next to it will clutter up your track.

 

one thing you can learn from all the pop ultra compressed tracks is that they sound so clean and well produced because they are, essentially, simple. homophony, basically, not lots of different melodies coutnerpointing eachother, no instrument does what another is already doing, the headspace is filled up, but not overfilled.

 

you gotta EQ shit if you dont want to end up with mud, but that's going into production and i cant possibly muster the mental energy to write about two deep subjects in one single thread

[pcock]

my serious input to this is that you would benefit greatly from learning how to read music, then listening and looking at large amounts of music written between 1800 and 1950 odd, absorbing as much as you can , listen to stravinsky, bartok, ives,schoenburg, ravel, debussy, scriabin, liszt, schubert, beethoven, mozart, hadyn, all the great composers

 

absorb their use of melody, and chords, slowly work out how they they make their music sounds so incredible, take in the insanely skilled musical writing, especialy with the likes of mozart and ravel

 

copy certain chords off them, little snippets of progressions and melodies they use, and keep listening and reading the music to as much as you can, stealing the bits you like and changing or leaving the same and inserting them in your music,.

 

i reckon if you do this for a year or so, you will be left with a much better understanding of how to write a decent melody than if you were to sit down with a theory book and immerse yourself in complicated descriptuions of the propertioes of cadences and chord progressions, because it will probably go over your head without a proper teacher to correct your mistakes and explain certain things.

[kcinsu]

Ill go ever further, and say go take music theory lessons. on the one hand, self teaching goes a long way, but its also possible to misinterpret things, and come to wrong conclusions.

 

im not saying everyone should study music theory, but for those of you interested, I highly recommend it.

 

to me, music will always be a learning experience... I am always reading stuff, experimenting etc. My best advice to people would be to encourage them to love learning.