If you think this sounds like philosophy, you should read some philosophy. That **** fries your brain.

GB - Yeah for sure man. I'm reading one about stoicism right now. I'm only like 1/10th through it and my head's in circles.

lecterz12 - If you make a song with words, I've been told that the best way to go about it is to make the words first. The meaning of the words is perhaps the most important element as far as your message of the music, so start with those. Then give the words a meter/rhythm. Then give it a melody. From there, figure out what harmonies support the melody which supports the meter which supports the words. What you'll then have is a piece of music that, from the ground up, is totally supporting the words and your message.

Another approach to this is to get a simple chord progression, and then improvise melodies on top of it. But this puts a large strain on your chordal progression.

Sung music, in a large sense, comes from poetry, and as such, lyrics are just like poems. If you start with the music, you're stressing the music and that'll be what people hear. If you start with words, your message will come out easier.

This all being said, start with what you can. If you get a nice chord progression, vocal lick, or guitar riff, start with that if you feel comfortable. Everyone makes music in different ways with different degrees of success.

Although many people do compose music in separate parts I wouldn't support it as a method of composition, but more of a crutch to aid those that can't compose a piece as an organic whole from the bottom up. If you're going to harmonize a melody or embellish a chord progression with a melody as an exercise it would better to compose a short phrase than an entire song, ironing out a melody that has been built with no harmonic considerations to try get it to fit over one will just be a complete waste of time, it would be more productive to find out where and why you ****ed up and move on.

I've wrote and helped write over 100+ songs. When I was in a band, what I would do is tell the members to play something, could be anything at all, and then create a line of lyrics to it. It can also go the other way. Soon enough a whole song will be made using this method. It is much easier to be in a band and write accordingly with them.

If you're by yourself however, you can write a simple chord progression and then write a line to it, play the same chord progression or move on to another one and write another line. But you usually want the chord progression to repeat or be in a pattern in verses and choruses. You will have the occasional song or two that changes chord progressions constantly regardless of verses and choruses. (Listen to some Coheed and Cambria, Mastodon, Periphery, and Tesseract) You can also have a line wrote and play a chord progression that fits to it.

Take it a little bit at a time. Also, take time to think on it. It is very rare a song will just pop up in 10 minutes, and if it does, don't expect it is the greatest thing in the world. It could be a week of thinking before a whole song comes together.

Make sure the words flow, and make sure the beat is real tight unless you're going for djent or progressive or some Enter Shakari, then the beat can change and do whatever it wants.

Also, don't write symetrically. When you make a riff, don't play it over and over again. Like four of the same riff to a progression and then repeat, put some pizazz and put your own character and little clink-clanks, boop-bops here and there that stray a little bit off of the riff but go right back in. A good example of symetrical writing was in the Classic Rock days and the Rock n Roll days. I'm not saying these genres are bad, but the norm today is to REALLY get down and dirty with creativity. If you're interested in Electronic music, listen to Skrillex, he usually sticks to a main riff but has many attempts to stray off a bit and do his own thing.

I have a few questions for Jazz theory -

When playing scales over chords, there are certain rights and wrongs.
What determines if a scale is 'legally' paired with chords?
If my chord changes (goes to the next chord in the progression), do I need a new scale, and therefor a new scale for each chord?
Is there an easy way to remember what scales go with which chords? Or is that just brute-force memorization?

Well you say that as if every scale has completely different notes. I mean typically chords within a progression are going to have quite a few similar notes making 1-2 scales applicable to the entire progression.

Im sorry but thats a terrible comparison. Comparing symetrical writing between classic rock 3-5 piece bands of the 60-70s to skrillex??? Not to mention the playing of each's respective music is done in an entirely different way.

So if you're using chords X Y and Z chords, and there's a scale, maybe the X-RezZ scale that fits within them, that's the one you use, right?

Also, I agree with RezZ's second comment. :)

I still have issues with time signatures. I usually just go off of feel and vibes. But I really want to work with some music theory on a more advanced level, and would like to work with varying time signatures.

Someone will tell me a song I'm playing is in 6/8 or 3/4 or whatever, and I'm still able to tap my foot while playing, keep the beat...but I've no idea really what they are. Which is kind of ridiculous because I used to actually play first chair french horn without every bothering to learn this.

i don't see the point of knowing all this stuff. if you are a true musician, you do it by ear because you don't need all the theoretical nonsense to tell you how to play music.

Honestly from the knowledge you have shown regarding theory I dont think anyone here is going to be able to help you out. If so my guess is it will be something you will already know.

All I could add is like a said above but also using lots of chromaticism. Not always playing perfectly within a scale but improvising based on what your hearing. If your trying to write a part...well then I have no clue.

Trolling or serious?

i'm serious.
i guess there could be some merit to knowing theory if you're teaching or trying to learn music that someone else created, but i don't see how anything beyond knowing how to play the instrument you're playing is important to creating original music.

Its nice idea i can share some of my knowledge about rock music, it was all started with "The Beatles"
they have taken gutiar music from streets to the heavy concerts .

RezZ-
Thanks for the feedback man. I'll keep exploring into it. I really wanna be able to play some decent jazz someday. :)

-------------

ThePhanastasio -
Okay you have the time signature - two numbers stacked on top of each other.

Top number tells you - how many beats per measure. (This can be any integer 1 - 10000, usually 12 is as high number, 2 is a low number).

Bottom number tells you - which note gets one beat. (This can be 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64.... (just multiply by two). Anything higher than 16 is kind of ridiculous though for most pieces, and 1 isn't too common. Most are in the range of 2, 4, or 8).

With the top number telling you how many beats per measure, the only question is "what note gets one beat?" And that's easy enough. You have to realize that the relationship between note durations is always the same-

One whole note ALWAYS equals 2 half notes.
One half note ALWAYS equals 2 quarter notes.
Etc.

But a quarter note is not always 1 beat.

If you have a 1 on the bottom of the time signature, a whole note is 1 beat. So a 4/1 measure would be 4 whole note per measure (and any combinations of other notes that add up to this total number). 4/1 is not very common. But in having a 1 on the bottom, a whole note is 1 beat, a half note is half a beat, a quarter note is a fourth of a beat, and so on.

If you have a 2 on the bottom, the half note is 1 beat. Therefor, the whole note is 2 beats, the quarter note is half a beat, and the eighth note is a fourth of a beat.

If you have a 4 on the bottom, the quarter note is 1, the half note is 2, the whole note is 4, and the eighth note is half.

If you have an 8 on the bottom, the eighth note is 1, the sixteenth note is half a beat, the quarter note is 2, the half note is 4, and the whole note is 8.

Finally, if you have a 16 on the bottom, the 16th note is 1, the 8th note is 2, the quarter note is 4, the half note is 8, and the whole note is a whopping 16.

This means that each time your metronome clicks (or your toe taps the ground), the beat that equals 1 has passed (generally).

The way I figure out what note equals 1 is that you just put 1 over x (1/x), where x is your bottom number.

So if you have 4/4, you take 1/4, which is a fourth, or quarter, so the quarter note = 1 beat.

If you have 2 on the bottom, 1/2 is a half, so the half note = 1.

More examples to drive the point home:

8/8 = 8 eighth notes per measure.
5/4 = 5 quarter notes per measure.
2/2 = 2 half notes per measure.
682/128 = 682 128th notes per measure (This is a ridiculous time signature only to illustrate. If you see this in serious music, you have full license to punch the composer in the face.)

---------
::Strong beats::

Generally you have strong and weak beats. These beats are played with a little more power to give the rhythm a feel of being in a certain time signature. Normally, strong beats are places for chord changes, important notes, etc. But first we need to talk about 'simple' and 'compound' meters (time signatures).

Simple are either 2, 3, or 4 (we're talking about the top number of time signatures only).

I'll bold the strong beats.

2 : 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 (1 is stronger than 2).
3 : 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 (1 is stronger than 2 and 3).
4 : 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 (1 and 3 are BOTH stronger than 2 and 4).

Now onto compound: 6 9 12. Basically you multiply everything by groups of 3:

1 2 3 4 5 6 (1 and 4 are the strongest) 1-2-3 4-5-6. Notice how it's similar to just the simple 2, only with a triplet figure present.

Same with 9 and 12.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8-9


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8-9 10-11-12

----------

Mixed meters:

Still talking about your top number here, these are the ones that don't divide into groups of 3, and aren't the simple ones. Typical numbers include 5, 7, 8, 10, and probably even 11.

5 is uneven. It's usually a group of 3, and a group of 2. Which one happens first is up to the composer. I've seen some compositions in one version, some in the other, and a few that actually switch back and forth every measure.

So either one of these is correct:

1-2 3-4-5
1-2-3 4-5

Same with 7 - a group of 3, and 2 groups of 2:

1-2 3-4 5-6-7
1-2 3-4-5 6-7
1-2-3 4-5 6-7

10 is usually 2 groups of 3, and 2 groups of 2. This cannot be arranged (usually) like 1-2-3 4-5 6-7-8 9-10 nor 1-2 3-4-5 6-7 8-9-10 because then you run the risk of it just sounding like it's in 5, and why not just use that instead, right?

I'd say the most common 10 setup is 1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8 9-10.

As for 11, it's kind of out there (and I'm not sure I've even seen it). But I'm sure it's been used somewhere by someone. It's not a very common one though, of course. I'm sure you can use groups of 2's and 3's to make it sound interesting at your discretion.

8's a little special. Simple ones would just be 2 groups of 4: 1-2-3-4 5-6-7-8.

But a more interesting one is: 1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8. Coldplay uses this in Clocks as their background rhythm pattern. It's a very very common setup in pop music of today.

----------

Two final things you should know about time signatures:

4/4 is the most common time signature. It's nicknamed "common time" and written with a C.

2/2 is another common one, and is called "cut time" (or "alla breve" in... England? I don't know anyone that says "alla breve", but it's in a theory book that I teach out of). This is written with a Cents sign (a C with a vertical line through it).

I hope this answered your question. Feel free to ask any follow up questions, ThePhanastasio.

----------------

jayshreddz-
And if you're a true English speaker, you just speak it with your fellow man because you don't need to read or write something that isn't verbally spoken.

Oh wait. You're on a forum, reading and typing.

It's important if you ever want to work in a professional environment or with anyone who's had that experience. Otherwise you come across as a hard headed idealistic pretentious hipster brat (I've got years of experience and little to show for exactly that reason).

Basically learning theory is an easy way to prove to other musicians that you're flexible and adaptable to styles and techniques besides the favourites from your personal comfort zone.

You don't need to learn much but I have to say, it's incredibly frustrating to try playing with someone who 'knows' how to play but never bothered learning 'any' theory. When someone asks you how to play a song and you call out 'it's G, C and D' and they give you a wide eyed look like you started speaking alien until you show them the actual chord shapes they recognize but refuse to learn the names of. That's your attitude. How awesome is it?

The worse thing was that guitar player who refused to learn alphabetical names of the basic major chords could blaze through Eruption on his acoustic. People lost their sh1t and kept praising him like he was some sort of wunderkin. But ask him to play a E minor chord? Forget it.

I can agree with you that approaching a new composition with theory rather than your ear will yield nothing more than a collection of musical facts that will most likely sound rather artificial, but the purpose of theory isn't to create music by following where things should/could go, it's about developing your sense of form so your ear is better equipped when you need to rely on it. Relying on an untrained ear to compose will produce very simple works and seeking to enrich will always prove difficult.

You could of course put ignorance on a pedestal and go about it your own way relying only on your own judgment and undeveloped sense of form, learning from pitfalls along the way but even if you were naturally gifted enough to reach the same level as those that took formal training you would have gotten there a hell of a lot faster had you of taken up music theory, So if you did have the interest in music why would you ignore an integral part of it and choose a more taxing, risky route that offers fewer rewards?

:)

edit :

The main riff definetly sounds like 123-123-123-12, like it would've been a straight up 3/4th (or something) had it not been for cutting out the last "3" there. I guess that's what you mean by groups of 2s and 3s!

Very nice find, tore! I'm still going to bet that 11's uncommon. But this is lovely to see. And yes, I'm hearing 3-3-3-2 here too. But that's def in 11, starting at about 0:45. The drumming at the start is probably too, but it's certainly harder to hear given the rhythm.

I'd venture to say this is 11/8. But that's just a personal preference. It's certainly 11. :)

For more obscure time signatures, this might be an interesting read: List of musical works in unusual time signatures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's a bit of a funny coincidence :) Me and my friends are doing an album club on our mailinglist and Sailing the Seas of Cheese was last week's album and I noticed it had that that song in eleven time. I can't remember any other songs in 11 .. at least not right off the bat!

Although I do listen to a lot of prog so songs in 15/8 and 10/8 and so on come to mind!

Never would I ever compare Classic Rock to Skrillex. There is nothing to compare. BUT you can compare writing and the musicality behind it. I was giving contrast between symetrical writing and "non-symetrical writing." For example, Classic Rock usually follows a Ternary ABABA sequence, while artists like Skrillex write in ABABAC, also called a Rondo.

This brings up a situation I've pondered on quite a bit over the years in regards to Verse / Chorus / Verse songs.

If ABABA is Ternary
and ABABAC is a Rondo

How many other 'standard' variations are there? What would something like ABABCBAB become?

I'm not a music specialist, I've studied very little theory myself and most of my theory knowledge comes from personal observations and friends who have studied music at university level, but...


It depends on what you mean by "standard". There are some style of music that you can pin down so far as a sort of ABABACBB(modulated) - namely most entires into the Eurovision Song Contest in the last 40 years - but I'm not sure if that "Pop music" format has a name unto itself. The lack of a name doesn't make it any less common or predictable, though. Then you have things like the Sonata form, which isn't well represented in letter format, because of the way the development and exposition sections build on the initial forms, but aren't repetition.

Virtually every form of music has its own set of templates. It's what makes that music sound like... that music, as much as the instrumentation. Music is driven by patterns, and we notice the exceptions that break the patterns. Ergo, there are a lot of templates :P

Always a pattern in musical form will start with A.
Then there's a B.
Followed by an A.
Followed by a B or a C.
Followed by an A.

It's a pattern, so there will always be an A after the next sequence.

So usually Rondo examples will look like this:
ABACABAD or
ABABABAC or
ABABACADAE or anything else.

There are musical forms called Compound Ternaries, which are composed of A's and B's but with bits of the others in between. For example:

ABABA can be AbBAbBaA
*so, we can say that the first A is divided into two parts: The A and the b.

The form you have given me is ABABCBAB.

Now, this is definitely a Rondo, but in a different taste. Usually, a rondo will follow a pattern of A's, but as you can see, the BCB is very much together. You have seen me talk about compound ternaries, but I am not very sure if there is a such thing as a "compound rondo". But I'm sure you can write it as ABABcbAB (the only reason I lowercased the cb is for understanding that there is a pattern of A's) . There really is no limit to what you can create with musical forms, you can make one and name one.

Other standard music forms:

Progressive/Alternative:
ABCDEFGH
ABACADAEAF
ABACADEFG
ABCBCDCECFC
(listen to Coheed and Cambria, Mastodon, Periphery, Tesseract, or any other form of Prog for info.)

Rock:
ABABAC
ABABA
ABABc

*it doesn't really matter what the letters represent, but usually A will represent verse and B will represent Chorus. But in some songs like in Progressive and Alternative, the A's can represent choruses and B's verses. Or ABCDEFG = verse and H = chorus, this is especially true in MAAAANNNY of Coheed and Cambria's songs.

NOTE: This is not the only way you can write musical forms, this is MY way and there really is no RIGHT WAY to do it. (Just as you can write Major chords with a triangle hmmm?)

MoonlitSunshine is off to a good start. Mr. Dave is good too.

Form is what you want it to be. I've written and played a lot of those little

||:A:||fine
||:B:||DC al fine

pieces. They're cute, simple, and easy.

Basically a lot of music, especially popular things today, are in sections. The letters are clear ways to mark them. But here are a lot of forms:

Strophic form is just the same section over and over, maybe slightly altered. Thus you get AAAAA... or AA'A"A'''... . The A' is said "A-prime", A" is "A-double prime" etc.

The opposite of Strophic is Chain form or Free form. These are the other extreme and hit ABCDEF.... Medlies practice this, but usually a medly will end with A after the whole chain finishes.

Before we go further, it's important to realize that there's no right or wrong. There are common practices, but that doesn't stop you from making one that goes ABACDECDEFGCBCEH. If this works for you, you might have just made a new form. Form allows for pieces to be predictable, which is good for both listener (people get mentally satisfied when they hear something they think is coming), and also the performers, because they all have to move together. If a performing group knows the piece's form, they just have to think of a few sections, and their piece is ready to go. Great for improv players too.

Let's continue to other popular forms:

Binary form is simply AB. These can have repeat signs and make them AABB. Same thing really. These can be rounded binary, in which you have ||:A:|| ||:B A':|| The B section isn't terribly different from A, however, and the final A is usually only part of the original A section.

Ternary form is a closely related one. This is usually ABA or AABA or probably even AABBA. Basically, you state your main theme (A), go away from it (B), and then come back to it (A). AABA was popular for Arias of the 18th century (called Da Capo Arias, since they go back to the beginning and play the first section again). This form made divas shine. Apparently Arias were the most popular songs from operas. They were best songs as far as the public was concerned. This form also worked its way into a 32 bar song. This was used throughout the 1900's. The first 16 measures were A A, the next 8 (B) was called the Middle 8, and then you have A again for the end. Very popular form. The B section in ternary is quite different from the A material (where rounded binary was not), and then the final A section is a full return of the A section (where rounded binary was only half).

Then we have Rondo form, which, as the other have stated, is A_A_A_A_A_A where the blanks can be other sections. The important thing is that we start A with and come back to A as every other section. A couple popular Rondo forms are ABACABA and ABACABADA. A variation on this idea is Arch form, which comes out as ABCBA. I think the name speaks for itself. A larger one, then, would be ABCDCBA.

Theme and Variation is where you play a piece of music, usually not too long, and then you play it again with some kind of varied result. The Major key goes to minor, the melody is infused with triplets, the bass and treble lines switch, or whatever you want. This can be repeated into many variations on the original melody.

-------------

The granddaddy of musical form though is probably Sonata Form. This came about in the classical period, and set the standard. A lot of people groan about this, so I'll try to simplify how it works.

A sonata, in general, is a 3 or 4 movement work. If it has 4 sections, they'll be like this, based on tempo:
Movement I - Allegro (fast).
Movement II - Adagio/Lento/Andante (something on the slower side)
Movement III - Minuet and Trio (Usually. This is a 3/4 piece in rounded binary or "Minuet form".)
Movement IV - Presto/Vivace/Allegro (something on the fast side)

If you had a three movement sonata, the third movement above would be omitted.

For those of you unaware, when you play many movements in a set, traditionally you'd play the first one in its entirety (it's a piece in itself). Then you would stop playing. Then you'd play the second one, finish, stop playing. Then the third, and finally the fourth in the same manner. Only when you're done with the full sonata would the audience applause.

The second and fourth movements' forms are usually very simple - rounded binary, ternary, or rondo are great choices. The bulk of the form analysis for sonatas is found in the first movement, and is called Sonata Allegro Form.

There are three parts to a sonata allegro form - Exposition, Development, and Recapitulation.

Here is what happens in the Exposition part:
The sonata can start with an intro. (Optional)
After that, it plays Theme One in the tonic key (you have to start somewhere).
Then it can play an interlude going to a related key (usually the dominant [V] or relative key).
Then it plays Theme Two, in the related key.
Then it plays a coda to end the section.

Development
All hell breaks loose in this part. You have the material from Theme One and Theme Two, and they all mix and modulate, sequence, imitate, repeat, whatever you want. It's basically a roller coaster ride of the material from the two themes.

Recapitulation
This section ends the sonata allegro form. This happens much the same way as the Exposition.
Theme One comes back in the tonic key.
BUT now you have Theme Two in the TONIC key as well.

You can imagine like you (Theme 1) and your friend (Theme 2) are having an argument. You're on opposing sides (I and V, respectively). This is the exposition.

Then you have your discussion, talking about his mother's parents (foreign keys), how you felt when you didn't get to share ice cream last Friday (sequences), etc. That's the development.

Finally you reach a conclusion and agree (Theme 1 and 2 are both in the same key). And you won the argument, of course, since you both ended in the tonic where you started. So the moral of the story is that your friend is stupid for disagreeing in the first place.

-------------

I know this is a lot to take in, but hopefully it's in digestible chunks.

Up last is a favorite of mine - Fugue (fugal) form. This is difficult because it has to do with counterpoint, but the sections are still apparent.

All fugues will start with the main Subject - a melodic statement. This can be likened to a Motive, but in fugal analysis, it's called the Subject.

After the subject dies, two things happen -

1. A second voice comes in, usually at an interval of the 5th, and plays the subject again in the new key of the 5th. This is called the Answer.

2. The first voice turns into other melodic material, supporting the answer. This is called the counter subject. The counter subject now will partner the subject (answers) whenever they come in. They're best friends, but the subject/answer is the main character of the story, where the counter subject is more of a supporting role.

When the second voice ends, the third voice comes in with the subject on the tonic key. It's a subject because it's on the tonic key, rather than an answer, which is on the 5th (dominant). Voice two becomes the new counter subject. Voice one, having done the subject and counter subject roles already, is free do do whatever it wants and supports the other two voices, but it's just musical fluff. There's no importance of what it turns into.

If there are more voices, they keep ping-ponging with subject and answers, and then turning into counter subjects to support the new-coming voices. This whole section from the start up to this point is called, like Sonata Allegro Form, the Exposition. This ends when your last voice finishes its initial subject/answer (it doesn't have to become a counter subject).

Throughout the rest of the fugue, you have two parts that will alternate - subject material, and episodic material.

After the Exposition, you have an episode. The episode will modulate to new keys, transition in any way it wants, and move the music to different places. The episode is in lack of a full subject (in any key).

A subject section has at least one full subject. This can be in any key, and any voice.

The episodes and subject sections just keep ping-ponging back and forth until the end of the fugue, where you usually have a coda to end in the tonic key.

A useful term in fugal works is stretto. This is caused by many subjects entering (but not finishing). Instead of hearing a full subject by one of the voices, many voices interrupt one another before the subjects can finish. It's a really cool effect that builds tension, and usually happens near the end of the fugue.

------

That's all.

Well, time for breakfast.

^ What a great post! Fugue form is my favourite too, especially Bach - the absolute master of fugue:

Here's one of my faves, Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Major, WTC Vol. I



Oh, I should also add that fugues can have up to 5 different voices - Bach's Fugue in Bb minor from WTC 1, and the one I posted above (C# major) are the only two from that collection to have 5 voices. All the other fugues have only 3 or 4 voices. A three voice fugue has Upper, Middle, and Lower voices, and a four voice fugue has Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. There is also one fugue with only 2 voices - No. 10 in Em from WTC 1. That one is just played like a canon.

Also, fugue expositions can have a false entry of the subject - that is, the first part of the subject appears but not the rest. It's almost like stretto, but in the exposition and usually only in one voice.

Burning Down - very cool addition. Just to reiterate, because it can't be said enough - Bach IS the master of fugue.

I hadn't heard the one you posted before, but my favorite fugue hands down has to be BWV 578 - "little fugue" in G minor.


J.S. Bach - BWV 578 - Fuga g-moll / G minor - YouTube

Again, Bach's a master in polyphonic music.

I wanted to append your voices discussion. Just because you found a fugue with 5 voices, doesn't mean you're limited to that :P. You could probably have a 50 - voice fugue, where each voice of a symphonic orchestra has a part (even the percussionist on a marimba!) Granted, you'd have a lot of muddied sounds, what with all the plethora of musical voices, but it'd still work and be fugal, don't you think?

That being said, 3-5 are totally common. 2's a little thin, and anything heavier than 5 is probably too chaotic to function in a pleasant way.

But oh, the possibilities. ;)

Thanks for all the replies, I thought my question was rather simple and would get a few examples and a link haha wasn't expecting this. :shycouch:

This is off topic now but I wonder...

ABBA the band, a slight twist on that method to cash in with a bunch of divas using a slight twist on the form that created 'the best' songs for the public?

As for Fugues being based on counterpoint melody and interaction between the instruments is that basically the same deal as rock guys doing trade-offs or call / answer riffs? The way it's described sounds like what happens during a 12 bar blues where one guitar plays the clunk-a-clunk-a-clunk rhythm while the other punches it up with lead licks.

Sorry if I seem to be trivializing the theory, I'm coming from an ignorant rock background. Basically I had a verse / chorus / verse tune with a twist that I was a little curious about haha

Enjoy and thanks :thumb:

@Burning Down - I can't really say much more than that was a nice piano piece. Hearing a single person perform all the voices provides a great counterpoint to my normal environment where each voice is a different instrument and player.

It is nice! Originally written for the harpsichord, as the piano had not yet been invented during Bach's time. Here is the same piece on the harpsichord:

I adore harpsichord and clavichord and am always in awe of accomplished organists.

mr dave - ABBA (the band) probably has nothing to do with deriving itself (themselves) from the form. According to wikipedia, ABBA's the name of a Swedish fish-canning company. But the parallels are un'can'ny ;)

Call-and-answer type music has been around a while. Perhaps the fugue is a great illustration of it, and that's a great observation. For what it's worth, I think modern call-and-answer comes from the gospels and American slave songs.

I know rock has a long lineage from the hands of Blues, Folk, Country, Swing, and Gospel music. Perhaps its ties into the gospel branch gave it that element. But call and answer is a varied form or Imitation, which has been around since at least the baroque period. After all, fugues are imitative monsters, and you nailed that on the head with your observation.

Fugues differ from the concept of a lead line over the clunk-a-clunk of accompaniment by the element of all voices (in this case, parts) would be the melody and the accompaniment and everything else. You could argue that the main voice (the one to start off the fugue) is more important than the others, but that argument is easily lost as the piece progresses.

In jazz and rock and all, normally you have one lead (usually guitar and/or voice in rock, usually trumpet/sax/voice in jazz), and everything else is strictly a background instrument. There's never (ok, rarely) any trade off to other instruments. Even in a drum solo, usually the guitars and other instruments stop playing altogether.

Not in a live show. Go to any bar that has a blues night or house band and the call and response goes between drummer/guitarist...bassist/singer...and pretty much any combination you could imagine. When guys have been playing to gether for a while it really shows and is amazing how they can connect through different instruments.

I posted this in my "dilemma" thread but I haven't got a response. By the way, if you really want to give some advice I'd suggest you look into "my guitar dilemma" thread more often.

So here it is:


So, I thought I had a fair idea of how to tell what key a certain progression is in. If it starts and ends on the same chord then it is In the key of that chord. Or whichever chord gives that feeling of resolving the progression (which is always gonna be the last chord) is the chord that tells you the key. Am I right?

Well I've got a new problem on my hand. Let's say you have practically two different progressions in the same song - a different progression for the chorus and verses, for example - how do you tell what the key of the entire song is?

Let's say the verse progression is: Am/G/D/C. So this progression would be in the key of C because the progression resolves on C?

Now let's say the progression for chorus is: C/Am/F/D. This progression is in the key of D?

Keep in mind that those progressions are part of the same song. How do I tell what the key of the whole song is when both progressions are in a different key? I'm sure I'm wrong somewhere along the lines, but as of now, I'm confused.

I guess I could solo in the key of C for the verses and then in the key of D for the chorus.

Edit: I've been working with the first progression. The one that goes Am/G/D/C. I've been soloing over it using a mixture of the "A" minor blues scale and dorian mode and it sounds good. That brings me to another question, if the progression is in the key of "c", why does a scale in the key of "a" sound good? I've also been using the "c" major pentatonic and that sounds good as well. I've even mixed the "c" major pentatonic and the "a" minor pentatonic and it doesn't sound bad. Why is this? Isn't it wrong to mix a scale in the key of "c" with a scale in the key of "a"? And isn't it wrong to play a "a" Minor scale over a progression in the key of "c" major? Maybe that progression isn't even in "c" major, maybe I'm mistaken. I'm hoping you can put some clarity on this for me.

Am/G/D/C
C/Am/F/D

Both of those are easily in the key of G, the ♭VII taken from the parallel minor. Interpreting the first progression as belonging to C would be weak as the F♮ doesn't occur, so the sub-dominant region becomes very slack, not only that but the secondary dominant on II overemphasizes the dominant region. The notes from the C major Pentatonic and the A minor pentatonic scale lacks both the F♮ and B♮, so it can easily fit into keys located on the Tonic, dominant and sub-dominant regions (C,G and F).

Ok, you might need to dumb that down for me :laughing:

I'm stumped. It's actually in g? Damn I was off.

So now that I get my handy dandy key chart, I see that D major is not located in the C major column. And I see that all those chords are located in the G major column. I don't really understand why but I now know to use my chart and that whichever chord ends the progression doesn't mean it's in the key of that chord. But the F major isn't in the G major column, so I'm still confused as to how the whole thing is in G major.

The F major chord in G is taken from the parallel minor (♭VII), it's often referred to as a borrowed chord, that is to say the F major belongs to G minor (natural/unraised), because G major and G minor are so closely related it's not felt as foreign to the key. The D major in C is the secondary dominant of V (V/V), it puts emphasis on the dominant, this chord is actually fairly common, but because of the lack of strength in the sub-dominant region here it actually pushes us directly into the dominant key (G major).

The sub dominant and dominant keys are very closely related to the tonic, The sub dominant shares all notes with the Tonic except for B and the Dominant shares all notes with the tonic except for F.


T-------------------C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
SD--F - G - A - B♭- C - D - E - F - G - A - B♭- C
D-------G - A - B - C - D - E - F#- G - A - B - C


if you look at the first progression

Am-G-D-C

they contain the notes A,C,E - G,B,D - D,F#,A and C,E,G

to cancel out the Dominant region we'd need an F♮ to counteract the F#
to cancel Out the sub-dominant we'd need a B♮ to counteract the B♭

The first chord is fairly neutral, the second cancels the sub-dominant key as we'd expect G minor (G,B♭,D). Now the key could be either C or G, since the next chord contains F# and there was no F♮ to contend with it we are now pushed straight into the key of G rather than C, the progression D-C also enforces the interpretation of G being the tonal center as it makes a deceptive progression V-IV.

This explains why the ear would struggle to find C to be the tonal center, If you done the same with G you'd find it poses no risk of moving to its closest regions, with C being its sub-dominant and D it's dominant (difference between G and D is C#, C♮ of course occurring on the first chord, the second now neutral and the third canceling out C because of the F# present.

You just mind ****ed me a little bit. I understood a little of that.

Just to clarify that some pretty important terminology isn't going over your head:

http://www.dolmetsch.com/mediantsubmediant.gif

The "Tonic" is the base note of the key. If the key is C (like in the image), then the tonic is C.

The "Dominant" is the 5th up from the topic, i.e., the 5th note of the key. Again using C as an example, G is the Dominant.

The "Sub-Dominant" is a 5th down from the Tonic. In the case of C, you can see that this is F, so we can deduce that it is the 4th note of the scale.

The same logic follows for the mediant and the submedient, the 3rd (E) and 6th (A) notes of the scale respectively.

When Rubato talked about Sub-dominant and Dominant keys being closely related to the Tonic, he meant that they have almost all their notes in common. Indeed, the only difference between C and F(Sub-Dom) is a B natural in C and a B flat in F, and the only difference between C and G (Dom) is an F in C and an F sharp in G. Every key has two other keys that it only differs from by one note, which just so happen to be the dominant and sub-dominants of that key. This can be easily seen in what is known as "The Circle of Fifths"

http://media.wiley.com/assets/1305/8...-3_1102-01.jpg

As you can see in the above. If you go a fifth up or a fifth down, you get another closely related key. The beauty of it is that you can go the whole way around in either direction and get back to where you started. If that doesn't seem to make immediate sense, try it out - it's quite satisfying to work the whole way around it.


To relate all this to what Rubato said: Because the keys of C and G are so similar (and F, incidentally), we look for pointers to figure out which key it actually is - namely the one note they differ on; F sharp (or a B flat for F).

As rubato showed, the first chord rules out none of them - they all contain A C and E, the A minor chord. the Second chord has G B natural and D, which rules out the F (because if it were in F we would expect a chord containing B flat), Finally, the Third chord is D F sharp A, which leads us right in the direction of G, as we know it's the only one of the three which fits those notes.

Does that make sense?

Of course, this is just a guideline for finding the key - many pieces may not even bother with having a central key, and might shift between keys at will - though generally they tend to modulate (change key) to a related chord - either one up or down the circle of fifths, or possibly to the Relative Minor/Major (the Minor.Major key that shares all the same notes - each major key has one (and vice versa obviously), it's A minor for C if you want to check).

The other indicator Rubato mentioned was the chords themselves. Within a Key, each Chord has a number, defined by where it sits on the scale of the key you are in. f.ex., G is the 5th note in C, so the G chord in C is denoted V, F is IV, E is III etc. etc. Because chord progressions are so important for the tone of a piece, it means that it's easy to document the "Common" chord progressions, and the chords that turn up most often in a piece. For example, III is a chord that doesn't tend to turn up that much outside of Jazz, from what I remember (because it contains 3/5/7 of the key, which is a distinctly jazzy sound). ii (some of the chords (ii, vi, vii) are written in lower case, to denote the minor-key aspects of the chord - try playing them and you'll see why) only really ever comes up as part of a sequence of chords, because it sounds odd on its own, V and IV are waay more common, especially in Pop/Rock, and are used in tandem as a cadence (the "end" of a phrase, sort of like musical punctuation) all the time. There are lots of cadences, some more widely used than others. Each one has its own unique sound - it might be a full stop, or a comma, or in the case of the Interrupted Cadence (V-vi), like someone has gone over a bump in a car and you're waiting for it to come back down. There's an old joke about how Mozart's wife used to get him out of bed in the morning by playing an interrupted cadence. He couldn't leave it like that, so he'd have to come downstairs and resolve it :P Whether or not that happened, I have no idea, and it's probably been used with pretty much every famous composer as the subject at some point...

I hope that that didn't confuse you further, and that if there was anything that wasn't making sense thus far, that this went some way to explaining it. If you already knew all that beforehand, well, good for you :P

So I have another one. The chord progression is C/G/Am/F. Is it in the key of C?

Yes :)

What keys could I solo in over that? I know a C major should work, but the A minor doesn't sound bad with it. Maybe because A minor is a part of the progression? I'm a little confused as to how scales in a key that is different from the progression will still work.

Why not just stick to the main key of the progression? Use the different mods within a key for your flavors.

A minor works because it is the relative minor of C (meaning it shares all the same notes, it just sounds different because of where the scale starts).