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An amateur's approach to deep arrangement

olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 9:02 AM I have been listening to quite a few of the artists on dmusic - and most of them seem to be similar to me in the respect that they appear to have had no theoretical background in composition and harmony. I will try to offer some tips that are based on my own experience. This has allowed me to create relatively intricate pieces of music, though I am not a genius obviously. My tips would be able to get you to a level of composition equalling that of this orchestral piece, but no further. Indeed, this piece of criticism from classical music connoiseurs is telling. The first tip I have is to do exercizes on simple chord progressions. Use a string instrument and build a sequence of four notes. On top of those, build two other parts, one with 3 and one with 2 notes. This finishes the first section. For each succeeding section, remove one or two parts and replace them with other parts that still 'fit in' melodically. If you don't know what fits in, you will have to experiment. Keep adding sections through this method. Hopefully, after 3-4 sections you would have a chord sequence that is completely different from the original one. You can progress like this ad infinitum. -- PS. What do you think of this tip? PS2. Why don't you offer your own tips? PS3. If we get enough tips I might set up a page on composition based on the contributions.
olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 9:04 AM http://www.idiap.ch/~dimitrak/downloads/mp3/fungi.mp3 If you think this is a good piece of music, you are much mistaken. This piece of criticism says much: http://www.idiap.ch/~dimitrak/olethros/music/fungi.txt " id="29886">Oh, bah, the links. To see what level you can get to with these tips, listen to http://www.idiap.ch/~dimitrak/downloads/mp3/fungi.mp3 If you think this is a good piece of music, you are much mistaken. This piece of criticism says much: http://www.idiap.ch/~dimitrak/olethros/music/fungi.txt
olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 11:27 AM http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk/2.html" id="29897">This tip is related to creating a continuous flow of change - look at this link for more in-depth discussion: http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk/2.html
mcarp555	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 12:11 PM It's been my experience that most competent musicians use theory, even if they don't know it. But being aware of what chords are associated with the key you're working in will help guide you in selecting the pieces to make your songs musically stronger. Or allow you to flaunt the rules, but know why and how you're doing it." id="29899">I would think instead of stumbling around to find what "fits in", a better way to learn about composition would be to study Music Theory. Learn what keys are, why they're built the way they are, how the circle of fifths is used to create keys, and what it means for structure and chord composition. It's been my experience that most competent musicians use theory, even if they don't know it. But being aware of what chords are associated with the key you're working in will help guide you in selecting the pieces to make your songs musically stronger. Or allow you to flaunt the rules, but know why and how you're doing it.
Munz	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 3:08 PM Does theory in composition and harmony really make the song?
mcarp555	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 3:44 PM Yes and no. At its most basic form, all theory does is explain a song. There are rules to theory, and you can use the rules to analyze a piece of music. But there are no penalties for 'breaking' the rules. If it sounds good to you, do it. Theory just gives you the framework to understand the choices made. But if you observe the rules, theory can guide you. It can suggest chords and harmonic structures that may sound 'right' to you. Serious arranging without some knowledge of theory is like building a house without a blueprint; it might work, but wouldn't the plans be a big help???
GrooveTonic	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 3:57 PM I think stumbling around can be a great way to learn about music theory. Although it may take you longer to learn, it is more fun and I think it stays with you longer as you get to see what works and what doesn't first hand. Most of what I know about theory (not an incredible amount, but...) I learned by first stumbling around and then later I confirmed it through reading or talking to other musicians about theory. As olethros said, experimenting with different chord progressions is a great way to discover what works on your own. A book or two about basic music theory wouldn't hurt either though .
olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 5:35 PM Well, there are rules and rules - you can read them. Some of those links I posted have them there, if you are patient enough. But no rules will help if you don't also experiment. One more thing. The rules apply to the 12-tone system only, correct? In any case, the theory is simply a set of rules-of-thumb. What is missing, however, is a few ways to help people experiment more with their music. One trick is to do the progression exercise. There are other tricks I found useful, such as the 'endless variations of a phrase' exercise. I'll post that later. Hm.
olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 5:37 PM Beyond theory books: Learn to read music and study a few early classical composers, such as Bach. Most of the rules are contained within his pieces and you can see their application. If you can recognize chords, then in Bach's music you will see how the separate melodies give rise to the chords. Most people nowadays just use a set of chords for a song and then slap a bass-line and a lead.
mcarp555	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 6:28 PM True true; most of what sounds good to us today can be directly traced back to Bach and the Baroque era, when Western Music (as in Western Europe) settled on the 12-note tempered scale, as opposed to the earlier modal scales (still in use today; ask any lead guitarist). I'm not saying a theory background is the only way. Many people use their ears and their fingers to achieve the same results. Theory just explains WHY some things sound better than others. It's also very handy if you want to develop music that may be more complex than you can actually play yourself.
olethros	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 7:44 PM Good... so, I mentioned Bach as someone whose music you can study in order to help yourself learn composition skills. Any other composers that are easy to approach? (Modern music is out of the question as it is usually hard to get full transcripts anyway - usually they don't exist in a readable form anyhow afaik)
victorsskull	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 8:01 PM my music was meant to be ruff and unpolished. in it's rawest form and thats the way I like it=D
sinai	Date: January 9, 2003 @ 11:57 PM yeah, ill just agree with victor up there so i have a decent sounding excuse for why i sound like shit
olethros	Date: January 12, 2003 @ 3:01 PM This is not really 'music theory' in its standard form, but tries to give tips on how to compose music without giving any 'rules' whatsoever. When this course is finished, you should be able to experiment freely with music and be able to create your own rules to follow, should you want to. Firstly, some things about notation. All chords will be denoted fully, using the roman letters for denomination. For example, Mi will be denoted with the letter E. The chord 'E minor' will be denoted fully as 'EGB', ordering will not be considered important. Sometimes chords will be denoted as semitone intervals 0,3,7 - any minor chord 0,4,7 - any major chord 0,3.5,7 - an example microtonal chord. So, I was going to talk about scales. First, forget any music theory you already know. Here, a scale is just a set of notes. Playing anything on this set of notes is playing on this scale. Order is not important. I guess almost everyone is familiar with the scale C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C using intervals: 0,2,4,5,7,9,11,12 or, if we use relative intervals: 0,+2,+2,+1,+2,+2,+2,+1[,+2,+2,+1..] It is easier to think of scales as just this set of notes, and then to learn order n-tuples of notes on each scale. To those familiar with musical theory, this reduces the seven standard modes into a single mode. There is not really any difference between them. So, you might ask, what other types of scales are there? Perhaps on different keys you have different scales? Unfortunately no, in the standard keys the scales are all the same, just transposed by a number of semitones. This holds true for the current 12-tone even-tempered tuning, by which the interval between C and C# is the same as the interval between any other two semitones. In the old days of music it was not like that. But now we have this simple system, so all standard scales in all standard keys are equivalent. Of course there other scale, such as this one, which emulates the oriental scale. E F G# A B C D E and variations E F G# A B C D# E E F G# A Bb C# D# E E F G A Bb C# D# E E F G A Bb C# D E E F G A B C# D E Now, let's move to patterns, taking the first variation of the oriental scale. We define a pattern: E F G# A B C D# E... which we want to continue without repeat ing the scale exactly. That is, we want to play a new pattern on a slightly different scale. How can this be achieved? One great trick is to use matching intervals. Using intervals, the first pattern becomes (From D#), +1,+1,+4,+1,+3,+1 So, now we match the +1 interval with another point.. Aligning: E F G# A B C D# E F Shift by one: F F# A A# C C# E F #F A F, which can be used to bridge the two scales together. Another possibility is to use patterns that do not run the whole length of the octave. For example the pattern 0,+1,+4,+2,[+1,+4,+2,...] E F A B C E F# G B C# D F# 0,+1,+4,+2,+1,+4,+2,+1,+4,+2,+1,+4 This is a melodic sequence that is not confined to a standard scale. Indeed, if you were to try to interpret the melodicity through the use of standard harmony methods you'd be in trouble. Frequently you might want to use a pattern like this to escape from a normal scale. So, if you are playing on CDEFGABC, and your lead instrument has just finished playing the phrase ABC, you might deviate naturally from the scale by repeating the ABC intervals (+2,+1,+X). Two examples A B C D E F G A A# C D D# (using +2, +1,+2) A B C C# D# E F G G# A B (using +2, +1, +1) Ok, I think this is sufficient.
sinai	Date: January 12, 2003 @ 4:05 PM my lord, mebbe ur right, i needed a code breaker juss to understand what u were talking about! lol
olethros	Date: January 13, 2003 @ 5:29 AM My god, I am not clear. sobs
mcarp555	Date: January 13, 2003 @ 5:59 AM I woujld personally find it easier to follow if you used conventional notation based on the root of the scales used, instead of intervals. So instead of a major chord being 0,4,7, it would be expressed as 1,3,5. Since this is how most people learn chords and scales, it won't require any recalculation in the head first. Since you're already writing out the notes in the altered modal scales being used, it would simplify things considerably. Just a suggestion.
olethros	Date: January 13, 2003 @ 7:36 AM I apologize for the confusion, but you will need to forget any music theory you already know while reading these articles. They are not about music theory, they merely outline methods of composition. Of course I could have outlined the same methods using standard notation, but it would have been much more complex in the end: The problem with the scale root notation is that it depends both upon the scale and the root. Also, the correspondence is not 1 to 1. Taking the 1,3,5 example. Major chords in this scale: CDEFGAB 1234567 can be written in a number of ways 1,3,5 (C) 2,5,7 (G) 1,4,6 (F) This is convenient when you want to quickly find out what major chords are possible in each normal scale, but it just makes things messy when you use a scale with modified intervals, forcing you to learn a new set of combinations for each scale. But the main reason I am using the interval notation is that I will also be discussing microtonal music. Also, some chords cannot be expressed using this notation, without also mentioning the scale: E G# C (0,4, is a good example. In short, I need to define scales independently of chords (and vice-versa).
curvyangel40...	Date: January 17, 2003 @ 12:05 AM omigoodness...i wish my concert choir teacher sounded as intelligent as u!LOL!
Elu	Date: January 17, 2003 @ 11:09 AM Olethros...I find this interesting. It is somewhat similar to the approach that Antares uses in their Auto Tune...if you read their book they talk a little bit about changing or varying keys to make different sounds or feelings out of standard progressions. I do this on a small scale when I write also. I think I might try going full bore with your examples and see what I get. Cool thread...
olethros	Date: January 18, 2003 @ 7:48 PM Thanks guys. For the next installment I will be giving out more melody construction examples and go into polyphony and hand out some exercises. (homework, yes ) From the outset it will be seen that by following particular interval patterns we can immediately step away from normal scales/keys - it will be an extension of the previous examples. The next step would be to elaborate a bit on this by putting emphasis on continuity and hidden structures. The duality of polyphony and interesting single-tone melodies will be investigated.
ChillinBuzz	Date: January 18, 2003 @ 10:17 PM impressive i think i'd rather watch this unfold than drop myself in it and admit I dont know nothing except this little finger goes here, that one goes there (and i do know the chords ) and now and again a nice chord appears (i.e. one that makes the mother-in-law run for cover ) - keep it up!
victorsskull	Date: January 19, 2003 @ 12:00 AM I play by ear and stuff
coax	Date: January 19, 2003 @ 6:14 AM nice stuff olethros.
sinai	Date: January 19, 2003 @ 10:39 AM and he sayz HE iz an amateur!, hell i need a thesarus to keep up

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