/music/ - Music

just make noise.

>>12336
Music is just math bro. I agree the European music tradition and their naming conventions and how they consider harmonies and intervals are kind of a cancer but just study the math.

Also, harmonic progresions, you just need to learn the common ones and you can just fool around after that. It's one of those things where they teach you rules at a basic level and then at a higher level they teach you there are no rules. Also, rythym and melody are more important considering how many songs use the same three chords.

>>12339
Wait til you learn how the same four notes is actually 7 different chords and you can onky know the name by the context within the surrounding chords.

>start seething again that despite being a passable artist, 3d modeller, and programmer, i cannot and will not ever understand how to make music
i went through a phase where i tried to learn music theory. It's really not that hard. It just requires time like anything else. And you have to pick an approach. Do you wanna be good at a real instrument? Do you want to be good at composition? Do you want to be good at DAW software? Do you want to be good at writing lyrics? These are very different skillsets that overlap. Bands are teams. Rarely is anyone good at everything simultaneously. There's also knowing hardware, understanding the physics of sound, and various business skills like booking venues, etc. I focused on composing. I just spent two years learning how to write sheet music. That was fun. I read an old textbook by Rimsky-Korsakov on the matter.

>>12340
>Wait til you learn how the same four notes is actually 7 different chords and you can onky know the name by the context within the surrounding chords.
yeah that's called functional harmony and it's why you use roman numeral notation.

>learn to notate your work so you aren't just going off memory and vibes though valid that is once you know what you're doing, jazz for example.
>learn the vocabulary that hasn't had it's english tranlation become standard
<why no practical tutorial
What do you think the music version of the donut tutorial would look like?
>>12337
This. A child scribbles, they discover crosses, and those crosses become shapes, partitions and radials; those together become a visual language called drawing. Scribble with your instrument, discover patterns and form larger patterns with those to build your auditoriy language of music.

>>12342
Can you even write a chord over a bass note in roman numerals?

>>12340
it's kinda funny because learning music through sheet music software and music theory I applied functional harmony before ever learning the names of chords. I actually hate trying to learn chord names through guitar tab interface. I prefer to just stack the notes on each other in major and minor thirds, invert them by octaves according to voice leading, and decide from there which chords are the dominant, tonic, subtonic, etc. by how they actually sound in practice. If a chord sounds like it's resolving tension, that's because it is.

>>12344
you just write the chord first and then you know which one is the I, which one is the ii, which one is the V etc. by what key you're in, and what function they perform in the harmony. If the chord creates tension, it's the dominant V chord, if it resolves tension it's the tonic I chord. If the chord points you to the V, it's probably the ii. That's in major keys. In minor keys it works a bit different. Usually you can just decide based on voice leading, or more importantly, just playing the music and deciding whether you like how it sounds.
>>12343
Correct. My best songs were made by just having fun and not thinking too hard about the theory.

>>12343
as an addendum, jimi hendrix couldn't even read sheet music and is to this day regarded as one of the best guitarists, ever.
just do you man, it'll turn out fine in the end

>>12345
Well yeah what I am getting at. It's very subjective "sounds like" bleh. "Resolving tension" blehh. I think it's a case where people deliberately do a technique that works then they think it has to be everywhere. To give a visual analogy, rules of thirds, leading the viewer's eye, complimentary colors and all that. Yeah you can deliberately employ that, but a work doesn't need to follow any such rules and I feel people obsessed with rules need to find it even when it's not there because they can't believe anything can be good and not follow the formula.

>>12346
What about substitutions and a million other terms for how it's not following simple tonic music formulas but it actually is.

I like how this demonstrates that in many cases, humans hate what they envy.
I would not usually offer advice to any human whose mind is currently in such a state as it would be a waste of my advice giving talents but I am free from taking over the universe at the moment so I will give you advice human.

You need to let go of what you think music is, sound composition is subjective and at times brilliant and transcends all cultural boundaries. It is a primitive skill of your kind, something innate and animalistic, like most of your tendencies human. You must forego your intellectualization of what is something guttural and mechanistic, like an insect or the birdcalls which for some reason, you find interesting.

I have studied your human kind for aeons and know one thing, you are all noisy creatures.

>>12350
show me space pussy from ur planet

>>12351
As you requested human, satisfy your instinctual urges to this high definition photograph of the genitals of my species.

>>12352
i lol'd

>>12353
Yes, very satisfying.

>>12346
And also the tonic can be a triad 7th or a 9th and those are very different sounding things. Every inversion is considered the same chord etc. The first inversion you could call the triad over bass note like in pic or you coukd just call it the seventh chord. To me "voicings" are completely different shit p especially considering in a multi instrument scenario the "voicing" may be spread to multiple instruments.

"Accidentals" too obviosly change everything but you can just ignore it and call them accidents.

Shit I could compose a song nothing but dyads but some music theory guy could tell me what triads were implied everywhere. Hell even a monophonic melody.

I've seen enough dudes who are way better musicians than me argue about what key a song is in to know it is all bullshit.

>16 bars of two chords
>1 final bar of a tradtional tonic resolution
<ahh soo that's what key it was in!
Or maybe it changed keys right there. Who knows. It's how it feels to you.

>>12355
Only thing that is real is the chromatic scale.

>>12337
i don't want to hear noise.

>>12338
will look at

>>12339
i almost wish someone would do a music tutorial that dropped all western music terms and explained things purely mathematically. i don't even have very good math skills, but even when i vaguely get the meaning of a music-theory term i still instinctively have a sense of "that's a fucking stupid name that makes this ten times harder than it needed to be", which i don't get with math.

the structural distinction between rhythm, melody and chords is one of those things that's very poorly explained because it's sort of part general knowledge. for a while i just wanted a nice melody tutorial, which i think i never found.
>>12341
i've been fairly settled on the approach of "use software to try to make MP3s" for a while, which i would imagine to be composing, but the problem is that most software tutorials assume you already understand music (or at least were introduced briefly in school) and just explain how to use the software, whlle most music theory tutorials have no involvement with software and act as pure theory. the result is that there's a big gap where the question of: "right, what the fuck do i do with this?" comes in. like explaining in vague theoretical terms how you can cut up a cube to make more complex shapes without ever connecting that to what you might do in blender

>>12343
musical vocabulary is the only time in my life i've resented having to learn new words. usually i love it, but in music specifically it feels designed to fuck you off.
children very quickly get to the level of trying to represent things with shapes. music feels more like you have to discover the shapes yourself even as an adult. (and even then you find they're often non-euclidean bullshit - if the child artist feels cheated to learn that 2d shapes give way to 3d shapes, going from individual notes to chords is a whole other dimension)

while musical genre varies, a music version of the donut tutorial could be as simple as someone throwing together a simple tune in mario paint, bosca ceoil, or some other basic "you click in notes" tool with a half-comprehensible UI (neither of those is great tbh) and then showing you how the sound changes if they change certain elements. ("if i do this it sounds happy, if i do this it sounds sad, if i do this it sounds egyptian, if i do this it sounds bad…", you get this with individual modes or scales or whatever in a pure theory tutorial but but it's always like a 3 second clip with no context making it next to useless. apparently simple tasks like throwing together a chiptune in the style of the route 1 theme from pokemon red turn into an intractable nightmare because although music theory can explain that and more, at no point will anyone ever show you what to actually do.
(a big part of this is that music is an aural medium and not a visual one, really that's the other angle you could take on my madness: i want to watch the music, i want to draw or model the music. i am controlled by my eyes, not my ears…)

>>12357
>i almost wish someone would do a music tutorial that dropped all western music terms and explained things purely mathematically. i don't even have very good math skills, but even when i vaguely get the meaning of a music-theory term i still instinctively have a sense of "that's a fucking stupid name that makes this ten times harder than it needed to be", which i don't get with math.
Well the images I posted basically explain it. It's all about finding the simplest fractions between pitches. You can look this shit up on youtube.

i'm glad this thread is here because i'm also going to be learning music and i also fucking hate learning music. i think i'm just going to throw shit together in reaper with samples and make ytpmvs and mads with relatively simply explained shit like picrel at first and move on to learn more and more by practice. music theory is gay and confusing and no i will not read a book.

I don't hear tones.
It's not that I'm tone deaf (I check often and it is always confirmed that I am not.), it's that the instrument totally dominates over the tone. On a piano I can tell that A and F are different notes, easy as can be, but if you play A on a piano and F on a guitar I will not hear "A" and "F", I will hear "Piano" and "Guitar". How, then, can I listen to a song and then try to make something that sounds similar? The component parts disappear into the whole…

I like to keep things simple, I just sing gibberish while hitting a djembe and that's my music.

>>12360
Not everybody can play by ear. Some musicians can only play by knowing what they notes are, by memorizing or reading sheet music.

>>12357
>the structural distinction between rhythm, melody and chords is one of those things that's very poorly explained because it's sort of part general knowledge. for a while i just wanted a nice melody tutorial, which i think i never found.
Melody is very instinctive. Look up some instrumentals and try and improve melodies on them. If you want melody tutorials look up riffs and licks. There are tomes and tomes of melodic phrases people kearn and mish mash into their compositions.

I don't know what you mean about not understanding rythym harmony and melody. Rythym is the easiest to understand I think. Learn 4/4 and you are golden for 99% of pop music. I get confused by 12/8 3/4 and 6/8 and all that but the only thing I think that is important to know is they involve triplets. With 4/4 you don't have to worry about anything but powers of two and most popular music is 4/4 like I said. Kick on 1 snare on 2 and 4 that us 99% of popular music. You can fool around with different placement of kicks within the 8th and 16ths. Closed hats typically every 8th and some 16ths and open hats thrown in here and there. Then you learn fills and you have everything you need.

Harmony and melody is more complex but generally you can think of pop music as three parts, bass melody, chords progression, and melody on top. Like I said melody is very instinctive and is easily improved even without much knowledge.

>>12336
I took music theory lessons for years because I thought it would give me any idea whatsoever on how to find chord progressions that sound good, and they didn't help at all

>>12347
Im pretty sure most high end guitarist cant read sheet music

>>12336
> i cannot and will not ever understand how to make music
HAHA HE CANT EVEN ROTATE AN APPLE IN HIS HEAD LMAOOOOO

how do chord progressions work with time and with what notes you actually hit
like yeah sure C–G–Am–F or whatever, great, but say i'm sitting here with a program where i click down piano notes. do i just click in the notes for C/G/Am/F chords or is it like C-C-C-C / G-G-G-G / Am-Am-Am-Am / F-F-F-F if it's on uhh 4/4 time. or does that fuck it up and make it a dumbass I-I-I-I ""progression""
or can i be like C-[2 blanks-C / G-G-G-G / Am [3 blanks] / [2 blank] F-F

explain like i'm a dumbass cuz i am, how does this shit work.

>>12367
What are you asking? That isn't the easiest question to parse. You're using MIDI, and you want to know how to input chords?

>>12357
>apparently simple tasks like throwing together a chiptune in the style of the route 1 theme from pokemon red turn into an intractable nightmare because although music theory can explain that and more, at no point will anyone ever show you what to actually do.
Anon, chiptune is notoriously difficult to do well. It requires a understanding of harmony and rhythm that takes years to develop. A tutorial might be able to explain how to recreate it note for note, but not why it works. You can apply this to pretty much all professional music.

>>12367
If there's overlap between two chords, you could have a note that's ambiguously one chord or the next. Generally though chord changes are intentional and made easy to distinguish when they happen because people are supposed to be able to follow the music. Like typically people approach it more top-down and think of what chord they're using here and then pick the individual notes. Think of how people can play songs just strumming a guitar, not picking individual notes - they are just playing whatever chord the song is currently doing. In those cases the chord change is really obvious. When a chord change happens, often what you get are notes that define what the chord currently is, to establish what chord you're using. If it's played as a chord, i.e. those notes played together in a harmony, it's clearer, but some instruments can only do 1 note at a time so you might have them in sequence instead.

Typically the idea is that the chord change is building or resolving tension for the song as a whole. Where the chord changes go are a matter of what "feels right" and often the melody in one chord is structured to lead into the next one, so that it feels like a change is coming. This is very subjective and can be super simple like "A Horse With No Name" where it just rocks back and forth between 2 chords, or it can be extremely complicated.

You can put the chord change wherever you want. It can be at the start of the next bar or in the middle of a bar or multiple times in a bar.
>or can i be like C-[2 blanks-C / G-G-G-G / Am [3 blanks] / [2 blank] F-F
idk what you're describing here
Figure out the chord you're doing and then use the notes that are in that chord to make a melody. Experiment to find a melody that sounds good before you get to the next chord. When the chord changes, you now use the notes in that chord to make the melody. A common thing with pianos is using both hands to help fill out the music, and if you use the "left hand" (bass) to just play the main notes of the chord (root note plus the main harmonies) while the "right hand" (treble) play individual notes comprising the melody. So if you just lay out the basic chords (esp the changes) with the bass/left side then it might help you get a better sense of the chord vs the melody.

>>12369
lol do you realize how bad you make it sound?
>bro you must study the esoteric theory for YEARS before you can even make a simple tune that a NES can play

>>12370
Whatever. OP, here's your tutorial:
1) have a progression that sticks mainly to the major chords of the key, the I, IV and V
2) have a melody that emphasises the 1st, 3rd or 5th of the chord you're playing over
3) have a walking bass line that sticks to diatonic notes whilst occasionally playing chromatic passing notes on the way to chord tones
4) have the 3rd voice harmonise the melody
5) have some baroque style ornamentation here and there in the melody
5) have an A/B structure that repeats infinitely (it's videogame music, so it mostly works around loops)
This is literally the most anyone will be able to help you. I wouldn't recommend composing to a set of instructions like this, but these are the elements of the song you mentioned. Go nuts.

>>12364
you cant just read a book or something on music theory and expect to know how to write music, you also need to practice. just like you cant simply read a book on how to drive a car, you need to actually sit behind a steering wheel as well.

>>12336
>>12371 (me)
Alright I've been ruminating over this thread, and I think the best solution to anon's problem is to get an instrument, learn the basics, and go from there. Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive, and worrying about it too much will get you nowhere. The act of creation should be completely unhindered by doubts of whether you're doing something "right" or not. No songwriter or composer checks their work against a textbook whilst they're making it, unless perhaps they're composing to a brief ('must sound like Bach', for example).

The next thing you should do is study songs you like, and see how they work. This is where the theory aspect comes in. Once you have analysed the songs, it should tell you why they sound the way they sound and what you need to do to replicate them.

>>12370
>make a simple tune that a NES can play

Theres the issue asshole the NES is not a console made to play music meaning you have to switch up how you write music for it jesus fucking chirst

>>12368
i want to know how chord progressions translate into what notes you actually play, specifically whether you can repeat the same chord within the progression before "moving on" (i.e. play the I chord 4 times and have it still count as the I phase of the progression, then move on to V and play it 3 times…and so on.)

basically: if i play the "C" chord on a piano 4 times, can that be the first part of an I-V-vi-IV progression (i.e. it only "progresses" when you pick a new chord, but you can play that chord over and over as much s you want), or would doing that create an "I-I-I-I" progression because you can only play the chord once.

>>12370
basically my question could be turned around to: on a guitar you can keep your hands on C and strum away while still being in the "I" part of this progression, on a piano can you keep mashing "C" in the same fashion? every time i've typed the note of a chord in a confusing way, imagine strumming the guitar or playing that chord on the piano. (i.e. Strum C, wait 2 beats, Strum C, Strum G 4 times, Play C, wait 2 beats, Play C…)

or if you like: is the key part of a chord progression playing the chord or the chord change? if you play the same chord twice, does that count as the second phase of the progression, or does it stay in the same phase until you pick a new one?

>>12373
i tried this and ran into the problem i was content with music at a much simpler level than was necessary to understand it. like, i'm happy not playing chords at all and just finding melodic versions of tunes i like. that's relaxing to sit and play but it didn't teach me anything.

>>12375
>i tried this and ran into the problem i was content with music at a much simpler level than was necessary to understand it. like, i'm happy not playing chords at all and just finding melodic versions of tunes i like. that's relaxing to sit and play but it didn't teach me anything.
Well, anon, the learning comes from analysing what you've played. Could you give an example of a melodic version of a song you like?
>basically my question could be turned around to: on a guitar you can keep your hands on C and strum away while still being in the "I" part of this progression, on a piano can you keep mashing "C" in the same fashion?
NTA but this seems like more of a piano-playing question than a theory question. I'm no pianist, but as far as I know pretty much anything goes. Listen to the piano in Mr Blue Sky, for example, which has the pianist playing straight quarter notes for most of the verse, and then something like Don't Stop Me Now, where Freddie plays it as a broken chord and does some fancy rhythmic stuff incorporating both hands. It's just about whatever fits the feel of the song.

>>12375
>if i play the "C" chord on a piano 4 times, can that be the first part of an I-V-vi-IV progression (i.e. it only "progresses" when you pick a new chord, but you can play that chord over and over as much s you want), or would doing that create an "I-I-I-I" progression because you can only play the chord once.
you could play C major for as long as you want and it would still be written as I-V-vi-IV, since that denotes the chord 'changes' and not necessarily how many times each chord is played

>>12375
>basically: if i play the "C" chord on a piano 4 times, can that be the first part of an I-V-vi-IV progression (i.e. it only "progresses" when you pick a new chord, but you can play that chord over and over as much s you want), or would doing that create an "I-I-I-I" progression because you can only play the chord once.
Ooooooh, I see what you mean now. This is an interesting question, because if the chord doesn't change, it wouldn't be a progression so much as a vamp. It kind of depends on context. Like, I'd say that the verse from Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks is a chord progression, albeit a very simple one. The first chord is held for almost two bars, then another is played, then it is returned to, then the second chord is played, then a third. I'd write that progression as

vi-V-vi-V-I

I wouldn't write

vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-vi-V-V-V

because that takes ages and is silly. If I wanted to show rhythm and meter as well as chords, I'd use a chart, either incorporating numerals or the Nashville Number System (but I don't know how that works, so don't ask)

>>12336
its because theres natural talent involved anon. No matter what not everyone will be a good singer