Music Theory

[Dr_Dissonance]

I'm curious on how much music theory everyone knows and whether that has an effect on your music at all! Do you think in terms of chords and numbers? Or do you think in terms of what sounds good or not?

For me, well, I'm fairly confident in tonal theory and 20th/21st Century theory (so, impressionist, twelve tone, spectral, etc)!

For writing, it entirely depends on what I'm doing...if I'm writing for experimentation (which is what I like to do best), I think in terms of timbre, so what sound I want, rather than what chord...
For more down to earth things, such as competitions on here that don't warrant experimentation, I think in large blocks of music. So I guess you could say I look at the big picture first and then iron out the creases...

What does everyone else do/know?

[RobotPony]

I know quite a bit about music theory, but I'm more interested in how it sounds. I know the tricks to write a song, but I rarely sit down and just start writing. I usually come up with an idea, whether it's a melody line or just a sound, then I start building around that with what I know.

[DerpyGrooves]

I'm really into quite into jazz theory, although I've recently looked a bit into the Indian system of classical music. I've always striven for developing a "unified theory of music", of which I feel I have a reasonable approximation at this point.

[Whitetail]

I had learned to read music long before I had started writing it from playing the clarinet, but I never really started composing until I took up the bass which is also around the same time I started playing jazz saxophone (which requires me to learn some jazz theory to be able to solo correctly). On top of that I started with guitar pro (it has a hybrid notation tabature interface, so yeah) and basically taught myself a lot of theory. The result? A clusterf@#$ of actual tonal theory and cheesing it based off scale patterns. Thing is, scales never really made all that much sense to me before I started playing the bass and realized that it's actually a simple pattern that makes all those notes work together, that there was a rhyme and reason behind those sharps and flats and which notes should be what, so really it's an odd situation.

I had only last year actually taken a formal music theory class but I had already learned a lot about scales and chord progressions from my studies in the bass. The music theory class was great but the thing is that it was grounded in baroque music, and anyone who writes baroque music knows that it has many rules to what you can and can't do - thing is, by this time I had already sort of figured out the "wrong" techniques that sound good and do very much like to include them in my writing.

So basically I'm caught somewhere between formal music education and what I've taught myself when it comes to music theory, so quite often I find myself thinking in chords and numbers; and tabs, at least when I'm feeling out a melody or rhythm I'm trying to get out.

Basically when I'm writing I don't mind breaking rules if the end product still sounds "good" to me.

I'm really into quite into jazz theory, although I've recently looked a bit into the Indian system of classical music. I've always striven for developing a "unified theory of music", of which I feel I have a reasonable approximation at this point.

I love Indian classical music, though I could never write in their music system, it's just so shaky and indefinite.

[Dr_Dissonance]

I'm really into quite into jazz theory, although I've recently looked a bit into the Indian system of classical music. I've always striven for developing a "unified theory of music", of which I feel I have a reasonable approximation at this point.

Jazz theory makes more sense with more complicated chords than classical theory! It's quite handy!

I love Indian classical music, though I could never write in their music system, it's just so shaky and indefinite.

Pretty much this, tuning is a real pain when it comes to Indian classical...doesn't mean it sounds bad though, I love it! Same goes for Balinese music, sounds awesome, a pain to tune and get right...

The music theory class was great but the thing is that it was grounded in baroque music, and anyone who writes baroque music knows that it has many rules to what you can and can't do

Yeah, I don't like Baroque theory, too restricting, you learn that every school of theory after that pretty much breaks the previous school's rules!

[Senator Myth]

Everything I learned about music theory, I learned from Wikipedia, basically, except for what I learned from experimentation and critical listening. It's really interesting to research new tools (rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, whatever) to use when playing with music. I do like to apply what I've learned, to see how it works and when it works, and when it doesn't. I'm always willing to learn more. I'm even thinking about taking up a minor in music when I go to college. But for the most part, I trust my ears. What looks like a good idea on paper or seems like a good idea in my head may be really awful when I actually listen to it.

I do know my way around the keys and the modes and various harmonic elements pretty well, I think, though. I don't know how much there is beyond that, but for the most part I'm comfortable with my understanding of theory.

[guitarskills]

I have a year of baroque music theory.. Almost everything I write is based around music theory, except for the chord progression. I just put notes from the scale there.

[NightColt]

Most of what I know of music theory came from tons and tons of piano lessons from way back when I was a kid. I mean, I've also taken a year of Baroque Music Theory, but I break just about every rule I learned in that class by default as a Rock/Metal guitarist.

When I write music, I generally follow the process of
- Mess around with the guitar and come up with a riff/theme/melody
- Pick a good key signature (usually minor) and make more riffs
- Throw in some sexy sexy harmonies
- Smoosh it all together and hope it works
- Edit to taste

[Versilaryan]

The extent of my theory training is AP Music Theory in high school. Learned all that classical/baroque theory, and every time I write something, I throw it all out the window. xD Instead, I like to just listen to what I think is cool, figure out why I think it's cool, and then try to imitate it.

I do think in terms of chords, though. Each chord has its own sound to it (it's how I figure out inner voices in my transcriptions), so the trick is to figure out what chord matches the sound I want. I'll come up with a chunk of music in my mind, write down the parts I know (usually just the melody/soprano voice and the bass), sit down at a piano, bang out some chords, and iron out the inner voices.

[Artemus]

I know music theory a fair amount. At least enough to know what I like. (which isn't hard as a pianist)

Generally, I do the following:

I. Warm up to Journey's Separate Ways
II. Find an easier way to transition straight from the solo to the main melody
III. Realize I'll just have to suck it up and do something else.
IV. Pick Key Signature (D or Db Major being my favorite)
V. Practice closest position chords on Organ and Piano at the same time.
VI. Randomize said chords.
VI. Profit.

Of course, the first few aren't always in that order. But that's essentially my morning every day. However, the recording process is a bit different.

I. Play the song a few times.
II. Record tracks.
III. Listen to a few times.
IV. Find faults.
V. Fix faults.
VI. Fix rest of song to fit the correct version.
VII. Mess up at the worst time.
VIII. Repeat step VII like six times.
IX. Hate life.
X. Delete the whole thing and do something else.

[Interrobang Pie]

I taught myself music, so I often have no idea what the majority of you are talking about.

Let's compose (hah) a list of words I know somewhat: vibrato, tremolo, portamento, duty cycle, pulse width modulation, arpeggio, fine pitch bend, crescendo and its opposite which I forget, major chord, minor chord, octave, beat, bar, time signature, grace notes

I have heard of these things but I have no idea what these things are or how to do them: key signature, harmonies that aren't fifths, slow-paced music, epic vocal mixing, that cliché dubstep sound, acid, a good-sounding real instrument set, >1 minute long compositions, stuff that sounds clean and not crackly, good equalizing, 5/4, 7/4, 9/4, 11/4, whatever else/4

[Dr_Dissonance]

Let's compose (hah) a list of words I know somewhat: vibrato, tremolo, portamento, duty cycle, pulse width modulation, arpeggio, fine pitch bend, crescendo and its opposite (decrescendo), major chord, minor chord, octave, beat, bar, time signature, grace notes

Ha, well, you seem to be doing well, music-wise, with what you know!

Generally, I do the following:

I. Warm up to Journey's Separate Ways
II. Find an easier way to transition straight from the solo to the main melody
III. Realize I'll just have to suck it up and do something else.
IV. Pick Key Signature (D or Db Major being my favorite)
V. Practice closest position chords on Organ and Piano at the same time.
VI. Randomize said chords.
VI. Profit.

That is completely different to how I write! Very interesting!

And for everyone who's taken Baroque theory:
Romantic and 20th Century theory is waaaaaay better!
Have a look at it if you're bored!

[guitarskills]

And for everyone who's taken Baroque theory:
Romantic and 20th Century theory is waaaaaay better!
Have a look at it if you're bored!

Must of us don't follow it after we've taken it.

[Mosche Swaggenberger]

that cliché dubstep sound

Do you know what an LFO is? If you set up a sine-wave LFO to control a low-pass filter on a synth you pretty much get the "dubstep sound." Tell me how many of those terms you understood :V

a good-sounding real instrument set

The best I know of is Native Instruments Kontakt. But with a lot of instruments like guitars and solo string instruments you're going to have a hard time getting them to sound real regardless of how good your sound library is.

>1 minute long compositions

One thing that should help you with this, if you're not making use of it already, is using traditional song structures--I mostly produce rap music and the standard is to have a 16-bar "verse" followed by an 8-bar "chorus," then repeat that as necessary. Then you can extend that by adding intros and outros, plus maybe a bridge somewhere in the middle. If you're doing instrumental music it can get a little tough, but you can fill out the "verse" sections with instrumental solos and stuff.

I used to make primarily electronic instrumental music and I had a hard time knowing where to take a song for more than a minute or two, before I started building them out structurally like that.

stuff that sounds clean and not crackly

I'm not sure what you're referring to with this. If you're getting pops and clicks for no apparent reason that probably means you need to increase the buffer size in your music program. If the music sounds rough and blown-out that probably means it's clipping and you need to turn it down. OR MAYBE ITS SOMETHING ELSE IDK LOL

good equalizing

Well, equalizing (EQing) is what you do with an equalizer--you can use an equalizer to raise and lower the volume of specific frequencies of a sound.

To begin with you want to divide your song into 3 frequency ranges--high, mid, and low. As you get more practice with EQing you'll probably end up being more precise than that, but for most purposes it works.

The frequencies are pretty self-explanatory. High frequencies are stuff like violins, high keys on the piano, hihats and cymbals, all the instruments that sort of shimmer over the top of your song. Mid frequencies are your guitars, cellos, saxophones, most vocals, etc--these are what your average listener is going to pay most of their attention to. Then in the low frequencies you have stuff like bass synthesizers, bass guitars, kick drums, etc.

Now, you have a limited amount of what I would call "vertical space" in your song--if you cram in too much loud noise it's going to reach the limit and start clipping and sounding like ass. EQing helps you be economical with your sounds so that you can fit in everything you want and still keep it as loud and clear as possible.

So here's an example of EQing that I do frequently with the vocals I record:
1. I have a kind of deep voice, and the bass frequencies in my voice crowd out the actual bassline and kickdrum somewhat. So I reduce the bass in my voice--not all the way, because that would make it sound tinny and filtered, but enough to give the bass instruments some breathing space.

2. It's often hard to hear vocals on a song that already has the midrange occupied by guitars or other instruments. A trick I've learned is to give a little boost to the very VERY highest frequencies in the vocal track--this has the effect of making the consonants much louder and crisper, which increases the understandability of the vocals hugely.

3. This isn't EQing, but it's mixing, which is pretty closely related--like I said, the midrange of a vocal track will compete with the midrange instruments that are also part of the song. One thing I spend a lot of time doing is tweaking those two volume levels. If the midrange instruments are too loud, the vocals will be inaudible. If the midrange instruments are too quiet, the track will sound boring and colorless.

That's just one example though. If you have instruments that sound muted and dull, boost the high frequencies. Conversely if you have instruments that sound shrill and harsh, reduce the high frequencies. If you have instruments that are spitting out more bass than they should be, get rid of it so that you have room for the REAL bass instruments.

Mixing your track is like putting together a puzzle. EQing lets you sand and cut the pieces into the right shapes.

5/4, 7/4, 9/4, 11/4, whatever else/4

4/4 is where you count measures like "1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4." That's probably what you're going to use the vast majority of the time. 5/4 is when you count measures "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5." It's weird-sounding and hard to make it work. "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck is a pretty famous song that uses 5/4. Try counting off the beats:

You can probably figure out 7/4, 9/4, etc. based on that. I wouldn't worry too much about them, though--the only time signatures that most people ever use are 4/4, 3/4 (waltz), and 6/8 (which is kinda like playing 4/4 with nothing but triplets).

hth!

[Bagpipe Brony]

I had music theory in my last year of high school and I sucked at it. Then I took it again in freshman year of college and I dropped out because it was too early in the morning and too far to get to from my house. I had been learning from Guitar Pro so I had already taught myself to read and write music, it was just the rules that were getting me.
I actually wanna take Baroque theory! I'm a huge fan of that period in music and so are most of my early favorite bands.
My process of music writing:
-get inspired
-start writing whatever and shape into something awesome
-work around that melody/riff/progression
-bang my head on the keyboard when it doesn't sound right
-leave and come back to finish
-bask in the awesomeness

[Stars In Autumn]

I have 7 years of school band, so I know most of my major scales and some minor. I'm having to relearn a lot due to it being a few years since I even looked at a sheet of music. I still know pretty much nothing about chord progression, even though that's incredibly important. V VI I means nothing to me. I get confused when I look on wikipedia, heh.

I'm also picking up a lot on the terms used when referring to electronic music. LFO, LP, HP, BP, Notch, Peak filters all make sense. EQ, envelope, mod, cutoff, resonance, etc make sense. I'm still learning what some things do. I know reverb is just a type of delay, but I'm not sure what a flanger does exactly, even though I know what it sounds like. Same thing with a format morph, bit crush, etc. And I have no experience with working with vocals (vocoders, autotune, etc).

But I typically spend a bit of time each day just looking something up.

[RobotPony]

Chord progression is simple, once you get the hang of it. Simply, you have different keys (Key of C Major, Key of A minor, ect) and all of these keys have those notes (and by extension chords) arranged around the root note/tonic (the note the key is named after). There are 7 notes in each key, eight if you count the octave. So, in the example with C, you have. (Note: lower case numbers is minor, uppercase is major)

I. C ii. D iii. E IV. F V. G vi. A vii. B

I was going to write that as I normally see it (with the numbers above the notes), but it didn't format correctly. So, in the example you listed, V VI I would be G - Am - C, in the key of C. There's more to it than that, obviously, but this will hopefully get you started.

[StarfireMoon]

i know the basic notation and keys but all i do is make random notes and stick with what sounds good, as for chords, i cant answer that lol, i go only by sound

[Stars In Autumn]

Chord progression is simple, once you get the hang of it. Simply, you have different keys (Key of C Major, Key of A minor, ect) and all of these keys have those notes (and by extension chords) arranged around the root note/tonic (the note the key is named after). There are 7 notes in each key, eight if you count the octave. So, in the example with C, you have. (Note: lower case numbers is minor, uppercase is major)

I. C ii. D iii. E IV. F V. G vi. A vii. B

I was going to write that as I normally see it (with the numbers above the notes), but it didn't format correctly. So, in the example you listed, V VI I would be G - Am - C, in the key of C. There's more to it than that, obviously, but this will hopefully get you started.

Yeah, I think I've gotten that far in understanding, but it seems to get super complicated after that. But if you play a different chord in that progression, aren't you changing the key? IV has a flat (not in the chord, but in the key), so if you're doing an arp while your bass (or pad or whatever) is on that chord, won't you play off-key when you hit that note? Or do any arps being played during that chord stay on the root key?

Anyways, thanks for helping me understand!

[Dr_Dissonance]

Yeah, I think I've gotten that far in understanding, but it seems to get super complicated after that. But if you play a different chord in that progression, aren't you changing the key? IV has a flat (not in the chord, but in the key), so if you're doing an arp while your bass (or pad or whatever) is on that chord, won't you play off-key when you hit that note? Or do any arps being played during that chord stay on the root key?

Anyways, thanks for helping me understand!

If you play the IV chord (F A C), then it's still in the key of C as it hasn't gone anywhere outside it! If you wanted to go to the key of F effectively, you'd have to use a chord progression to get there...or go there randomly, or whatever!
An example of an effective chord progression from C to F:
C Major (C E G)
G Major (G B D)
C Major m7 (C E G Bb)
F Major (F A C)

This would mean the tonal centre (the sound of the key) has shifted to F, because of that Bb!

The arpeggio thing entirely depends on what kind of arpeggio. If you just mean a chord-based one, then going F A C F C A F, or whatever pattern you're using, won't take you out of key! If you mean a scale, as in F G A B C D E F, then if the B is a Bb, that WOULD make it shift key. But if you don't want to, you just remain in the key of C and just play a B normally when the time comes! Same with all other chords!

It does get really REALLY complicated later on, what with using the notes out of the key effectively, but it's worth it I reckon!

*edit* I hope that makes sense!

[Stars In Autumn]

Yeah, I think I've gotten that far in understanding, but it seems to get super complicated after that. But if you play a different chord in that progression, aren't you changing the key? IV has a flat (not in the chord, but in the key), so if you're doing an arp while your bass (or pad or whatever) is on that chord, won't you play off-key when you hit that note? Or do any arps being played during that chord stay on the root key?

Anyways, thanks for helping me understand!

If you play the IV chord (F A C), then it's still in the key of C as it hasn't gone anywhere outside it! If you wanted to go to the key of F effectively, you'd have to use a chord progression to get there...or go there randomly, or whatever!
An example of an effective chord progression from C to F:
C Major (C E G)
G Major (G B D)
C Major m7 (C E G Bb)
F Major (F A C)

This would mean the tonal centre (the sound of the key) has shifted to F, because of that Bb!

The arpeggio thing entirely depends on what kind of arpeggio. If you just mean a chord-based one, then going F A C F C A F, or whatever pattern you're using, won't take you out of key! If you mean a scale, as in F G A B C D E F, then if the B is a Bb, that WOULD make it shift key. But if you don't want to, you just remain in the key of C and just play a B normally when the time comes! Same with all other chords!

It does get really REALLY complicated later on, what with using the notes out of the key effectively, but it's worth it I reckon!

*edit* I hope that makes sense!

Yeah, it does. Thanks. I'll probably going to buy a book on music theory here in a bit so I can do more interesting things with my music.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Yeah, it does. Thanks. I'll probably going to buy a book on music theory here in a bit so I can do more interesting things with my music.

Cool, good luck with that! I have an extensive knowledge of theory, so if you have any questions about it, I'll be happy to answer!

[RobotPony]

Haha, I had typed out a big message explaining it all and I see Dr. Dissonance beat me too the punch. Oh well, he probably explained it wayyyy better than I ever could.

This makes me want to talk more complicated theory just to see how much I do know, but I'm afraid I'll confuse people that need to just understand basics.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Haha, I had typed out a big message explaining it all and I see Dr. Dissonance beat me too the punch. Oh well, he probably explained it wayyyy better than I ever could.

This makes me want to talk more complicated theory just to see how much I do know, but I'm afraid I'll confuse people that need to just understand basics.

Well, this is the music theory thread! GO for it if you want! As long as it's explained...
What is the most complicated thing you know?

[RobotPony]

Ah! We're talking to each other in two threads at once! It's going to get nuts!

I don't know. I don't take college classes or anything, my guitar teacher just teaches me. As I said in the other thread, he has some degree from Berkeley School of Music, so he knows his stuff.

I've personally always been fascinated with odd time-signatures and key-signature changes. I used to do that alot, when I wasn't any good, haha.