Bride of LimpyLoo's Tip Du Jour

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:09 PM, missingsense said:

yeah man, I pluck around all the time. But I'd like to get back to a track and know what's going on inside the patterns I did, that's my struggle. Motives become buried in thick static loops that are difficult to break apart and modulate on. It would be useful to know which of the notes I can describe as a motive's base elements, so I can replicate and modulate those at will.

Can you post an audio example, or a sequence of notes, you'd like to examine?

okay, I was working on this and I think I would have a hard time decoding it again. would be nice to progress it a bit further.

I just work in ratios and distances in my head, not something you can write down. Never really attach a note in my head, so I really have no memory of that stuff. I think it's because I'm so used to programming pianorolls that I never really have to look at that stuff. But even with pianorolls it would be a massive boost to know how I could relate all those notes in terms of music theory. Just so I can get on with it.

don't even have a keyboard on my desk these days, though I would like one of those soundplanes :)

Alright well here's a perfect demonstration of what I was talking about with functional harmony and voice-leading:

Blues: I IV V

Jazz: II V I

Now go ahead and make some corny sounding music!

(I personally bow at the altar of those who freed us from all that awful functional harmony based music - namely Debussy, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, etc.)

  On 3/14/2014 at 8:09 AM, psn said:

Blues: I IV V

Jazz: II V I

 

Now go ahead and make some corny sounding music!

 

(I personally bow at the altar of those who freed us from all that awful functional harmony based music - namely Debussy, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, etc.)

All genius practitioners of functional harmony.

First 40 seconds of "The Rite of Spring" is a great example (when the bassoons come in).

Another great example is the lovely "Nocturne in E minor." Beautiful voice-leading.

And where to begin with Miles Davis...

Of course, they were masters of it before they started breaking the rules. And I prefer to focus on their post- or non-functional music. The dominant-tonic cadence is so boring and over used in my ears that I have difficulties enjoying music that rely on it. With notable exceptions, of course.

  On 3/14/2014 at 8:27 AM, psn said:

The dominant-tonic cadence is so boring and over used in my ears that I have difficulties enjoying music that rely on it. With notable exceptions, of course.

Yeah same here.

I'm not peddling diatonic harmony. Functional harmony is not necessarily diatonic. It doesn't even require a tonic. It simply deals with moving from one cluster of notes to another cluster of notes. Even in Miles Davis' wildest, modal-ist moments there are Chick Coreas and Herbie Hancocks giving functional harmony masterclasses.

  On 3/14/2014 at 12:15 AM, LimpyLoo said:

Alright well here's a perfect demonstration of what I was talking about with functional harmony and voice-leading:

 

minor/major7

a minor triad with a major 7th

so like C Eb G B

Sounds like a good opportunity to whip out the good old dim scale.

  On 3/14/2014 at 9:50 PM, LimpyLoo said:

minor/major7

 

 

a minor triad with a major 7th

 

 

so like C Eb G B

  On 3/14/2014 at 10:06 PM, psn said:

Sounds like a good opportunity to whip out the good old dim scale.

While strictly speaking the chord tones don't fall into the dim (whole/half) scale, it would definitely be a good 'color' scale.

The more traditional choices would be melodic minor and harmonic minor, and other candidates would be neopolitan minor and whatever the hell you call the variations of the melodic- and harmonic minor scales each with raised fourths and/or flatted seconds.

thanks man, you boiled it down to a delicious jelly

  On 3/30/2014 at 4:18 PM, very honest said:

thanks man, you boiled it down to a delicious jelly

I'll try to keep posting stuff I think is interesting. I suck at being productive.

Topic Two: Compositional Concepts pt 1: (Pulling Chords From a Hat)

When I was sixteen I spent the summer at a UNH music program. One of the classes--a composition class--was run by this rather spaced-out, soft-spoken eccentric kid. He said "today we're gonna pull chords from a hat and then make a song out of it."

I thought that was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard. I thought it was a waste of time, there was nothing to be learned from it, and furthermore it would almost certainly sound like shit. But it turned out to be probably the most important lesson I've ever learned regarding composition.

The chords will not naturally sound good when strung together haphazardly: they have to be glued together using voice-leading, melodic devices (e.g. motif) and bass devices (e.g. alternate root notes).

...Anyway, lemme know if anyone wants to make an interactive little game out of this. It's an invaluable exercise that will force you to keep an eye on every little detail you're dealing with...

Please do continue. I much prefer your theory explanations to most other people's, since you devote a good amount of time to why something works or you might want to use it, and how one thing grows out of another. I was very impressed witht he first post and was worried that it had got derailed.

  On 4/9/2014 at 3:01 AM, anigbrowl said:

Please do continue. I much prefer your theory explanations to most other people's, since you devote a good amount of time to why something works or you might want to use it, and how one thing grows out of another. I was very impressed witht he first post and was worried that it had got derailed.

 

Alright well in the spirit of continuing, why don't you provide 8 random chords and we'll take it from there.

Oh noes - exposed!

OK...

F Bb D

D A C F

B D F#

G Bb Eb

G# C# F

A D G C

B E G#

F# A D

This was challenging in itself, because chords and I don't get on - I had several years of piano lessons and theory growing up and although I can read music (slowly) and lnow my scales well I didn't get the concept of key until years afterwards - indeed I got into making electronic music because of Goa trance, which involved computer and lots of tricky synth programming (which I figured I could learn because I was good with computers), and is also mostly modal and in a melodic minor type scale rather than relying on typical western harmony. I didn't get the circle of 5ths for a long time so tried learning some 2 part counterpoint instead. I know my types of chords and practice constructing them on the keyboard, but I don't think I've ever written anything with more than 2 or 3 - it's hard for me to hear chord progressions and I have no real concept of how to harmonize a melody so I usually play it safe and stick with diatonic scales and no or very very basic modulation.

Picking 8 chords was educational in itself because it had me thinking about inversions and so on from the outset, whereas that's usually something I do after I've written three chords and don't know what to do next, so I start inverting things to make it sound it's going somewhere, though it usually isn't. At this point I usually give up and make minimal acid techno until I feel better.

In short, I'm your ideal student

^ My favorite thing I've written harmonically, and I would have difficulty reproducing it now. I made it in a hurry and don't really understand why it works other than it's diatonic and so hard to mess up.

Well, the idea was to pick 8 random chords (e.g. Cmin, Gbmaj7) from a hat (or through some similar random or semi-random process).

The whole thing kinda falls apart if someone sits down and thinks up the chords and their particular voicings.

But hey, let's roll with it.

...To be continued....

Well, I plonked my hand down randomly on the keyboard with my eyes closed and removed obvious duplicates, but I didn't mean to tie you down to any particular voicings! If they're not working out, I took the same roots and threw dice for the chord type: Fmaj7 D Bm G6 G#min7 Am B F#6. Whichever you prefer!

  On 4/9/2014 at 8:36 AM, anigbrowl said:

Well, I plonked my hand down randomly on the keyboard with my eyes closed and removed obvious duplicates, but I didn't mean to tie you down to any particular voicings! If they're not working out, I took the same roots and threw dice for the chord type: Fmaj7 D Bm G6 G#min7 Am B F#6. Whichever you prefer!

Oh cool. That's perfect.

I'll post all my thoughts in the morning when I wake up.

Cheers.

I'm still curious about what happened with the chords that got pulled out of that hat?

  On 12/9/2016 at 4:54 PM, circular konrad said:

I'm still curious about what happened with the chords that got pulled out of that hat?

Shit dude...I used to be so unreliable.

(I still am but not quite that bad)

Voice-leading is important stuff so I'll try to work out a post this afternoon.

would be very interesting..

I'm really bad a music in general. Apparently I stick to melodic and harmonic minor keys and occasional other stuff.

I don't think I've ever tried making a 'by the numbers' music theory track. Make me a chord combo to futz with limperz. 'Make me better