Any help playing notes?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Raydio
  • Start date Start date
Thank u

First of all I would like to thank Pirate, Tex, and Flo' Dolo; for not feeding in to the negativity of this thread. I have been doing beats for over 6 years, and I have used every sequencer from Cakewalk to Pro Tools; so dont down me like some newbie. All I asked was for tips on getting notes transfered to my projects easy... I didnt say I was freekin trying to be Bach or something. Just because you guys play instruments well dont mean that you have that creative. I used Dr. Dre for example because he grossed more this year than 95% of the producers in the U.S. Irv Gotti from Murda Inc. now does what Dre does and now Ashanti has hits, and so does Ja Rule! How can you down anyone and say where my career is going. I can read music, but we all want shortcuts; thats why you guys buy certain gear over others. I've been playing by ear, and I promise you that "some" of you wouldnt know a hit song if it were shot out of a pistol at you. I still thank you for your input though, just lighten up will ya?
 
The keyboard is still the easiest and most efficient method of getting midi notes into the computer. There are voice to midi boxes but I've never heard of any of them being worth a shit.

The truth is that in Rap/hip hop/rock and pop there are few chord progressions that haven't been done a thousand times before. You could probably break down 80% of the music into about 8 different chord progressions. The keys change but the chord relationships don't.

If you can spend some time to learn basic music theory (you could do it in a few months) then it will be much easier for you to identify the patterns in your head with a chord progression that already exists. That is really what being a musician is about - Converting the notes in your head to an instrument.

If you want some actual music theory tips let us know and there are many here who can help.
 
Thank you, Mr. Dolo. Very articulately said.

The truth is that in Rap/hip hop/rock and pop there are few chord progressions that haven't been done a thousand times before. You could probably break down 80% of the music into about 8 different chord progressions. The keys change but the chord relationships don't.
Click to expand...

How is this more true for rap/hip hop/rock/pop than any other kind of music?

I just don't understand why somebody would want to get into music and not be driven to actually learn the basic theory behind it.
Click to expand...

I don't know, maybe JUST BECAUSE IT'S FUN! Maybe someone wants to write, perform, and create without studying thousands of dry, useless music texts that suck the fun out of it. Let's see, as far as I can remember music existed before music theory, which pretty much proves that music theory is completely unnecessary to playing music.

As far as me being the "defender of the absurd," I will admit to some frustration with this bulletin board at times. The viewpoints of 90% of the people that post on here seem diametrically opposite to mine regarding music and its goals. The consensus around here seems to be that commercial success is the ultimate indicator of music's worth, that the most expensive equipment is the best equipment in all situations, that you shouldn't call yourself a "musician" unless you can give a detailed essay on why what you play is "music," and that Yanni is the standard by which all music should be judged (ok, that last one was a joke, but still, see above...). A lot of the views on this board seem designed to frustrate the beginning musician/home recorder by making music/home recording seem like the realm of the rich, well-educated elite that no one else can belong to. At times, I think this bulletin board is in danger of becoming an exclusive club where members masturbate furiously over their new $6,000 mic pre-amp while disdaining anyone who is looking for a cheap way to start playing and recording music. If it's absurd for anyone to have a point of view that's different from yours, then I guess I'm a "defender of the absurd."

Finally:
There are loads of technically proficient, artistically shitty musicians out there.
Click to expand...
Amen to that.
 
hey Dolo,Pirate........well said..

By "others" standards I am not a "musician" because I can't read or write music fluently.....BUT......I play by ear........If you put any cd inthe radio I will playback anything on it just by hearing it for a couple of bars.......

some of the greatest "singers" in history can't "sing"(by sing I mean like Whitney Houston,Mariah,Celine,Luther,etc.)but they call themselves singers......and they are,they get the job done......

James Argo.....I ,along with plenty ,consider a dj a musician.They take music (sometimes original....sometime by others) and manipulate into something fresh,new.....maybe you don't agree cause most of the time the music is somebody elses,but country musicians play and sing there own shit,rock plays and sings its own shit and the same is true for dj's.That is there instrument.....
all instruments had some kind of origin and before them they didn't exist,but thatdoesn't mean because Mozart din't dj,and because djing wasn't around for the past 300 years,that it isn't art or musicianship!!!!!When the xylophone came out was it not an instument just because it didn't look or sound like a guitar?C'mon that's insane!
 
The thread is getting hot huh? LOL, well my last question is dealing with playing chords. I mainly use a korg triton studio to compose my melodies right? Well, I have a book on the different chord progressions, but I can't play chords that well. I has a lot of single note melodies that people tell me would sound better if played with certain chords... my quesiton is; how do I convert my single note melodies, into chords. I heard that will make them sound more full also. Thanks for the feedback last time guys, even tho we have a few haters in this forum. Peace!
 
Yeah it is hot!I love these types of debates!!Anyway dog I'm in the same boat Raydio with trying to convert single lines into chords.Can anybody hook us BOTH up???!!!


................one..............
 
Well, computerized music is somewhat different in that you don't ever need to really kow how to play any instrument in real time. You can download sounds from obscure ethnic instruments and use them, without ever knowing what the instrument itself looks like, much less how to play it. And if you're mostly distributing your music over the internet and don't pretend/expect you'll ever become any sort of star, then there's really no reason to feel that you have to learn to actually play any real instrument.
........
Anyway, uh, chords:
There's software that allows you to assign the lower keys of a MIDI keyboard to guitar-style chords, it's a DXi plug-in, I'm not remembering the name right off, but it was pretty expensive. What it did was, you just hit one of the lower keys, and it played a chord in a pre-assigned key. It wasn't idiot-proof though, you really had to understand how chords were set up to use it.
-The cheapest way is to just experiment: simple keyboard chords are just any three keys, with an unhit-key in between them, but that sounds pretty simple. You can also find many good-sounding chords by doing #1-#5 variations, like so: hit any (white) key, and also hit a key 5 keys above that key. Now, hit one or more other keys that is one octave from either of these keys; most of them will sound good.
For instance:
try keys 60 + 67 + 72,
or keys 60 + 67 + 79,
or keys 60 + 67 + 72 + 79
or 55 + 60 + 67 + 72
or 55 + 60 + 67 + 79. <----(Okay, these wuz wrong I fixed em.... <;D)
Note that there's a 1-5-8 spacing that occurs frequently.
Another quick way to find 4-note chords is that many that sound good are two pairs of notes, each an octave apart and interlinked like so:
___1_______1
________2_______2
-on yer keyboard.
~
-Guitar chords are something else entirely: you almost have to know how to transpose guitar chords to the keyboard. Because of the way guitar chords are fingered, the notes are closer together on the keyboard, maybe one and a half octaves or so. The other problem with guitar chords is that you often can't "slide" the same keys up and down the keyboard. That is, if you find a 5-note chord that sounds great, you usually can't move all your fingers "down" four keys and hit the same chord, and have it sound right. The same chord is played differently, depending on what key it's in.....
 
Last edited:
Good tips from DougC. It's hard to just turn a melody into chords because often the chords will extend a measure or more while the melody plays over it.

Here are a few common chord progressions that you can play around with. For the sake of this experiment use only the white keys starting with C ( the note before the 2 black keys).

A Cmajor chord is C E G. The first, third and fifth note. Hit almost any white key and then the 3rd,5th note (counting only white keys) above that and you will have a chord. (They are not all major but dont worry about that).

The single most common chord progression is the 1,4,5. The verse will alternate between the first and fourth note/chord and the chorus will use the fifth. You can also start on the 5 and go down to the 4 and 1.

Another common progression is 5,4,3 or 3,2,1. Those have a darker feel and when played slow can be a sad love song and when played fast have a dark, dramatic feel.

That should give you something to play with. Did that make sense?
 
First of all I would like to thank Pirate, Tex, and Flo' Dolo; for not feeding in to the negativity of this thread. I have been doing beats for over 6 years, and I have used every sequencer from Cakewalk to Pro Tools; so dont down me like some newbie.
Click to expand...

raydio, did you happen to notice the name of this forum?

I don't know, maybe JUST BECAUSE IT'S FUN! Maybe someone wants to write, perform, and create without studying thousands of dry, useless music texts that suck the fun out of it.
Click to expand...

Amen! Wouldn't that be great? BTW, how's that comin along for you? lol...

You might wanna pay attention to Dougc and Tex then...
 
You guys are wonderful

First off, I want to thank DougC and Tex for the superior tips they blessed this board with. Next off, I have a question in regards to Tex's post. You stated.....

"The single most common chord progression is the 1,4,5. The verse will alternate between the first and fourth note/chord and the chorus will use the fifth. You can also start on the 5 and go down to the 4 and 1.

Another common progression is 5,4,3 or 3,2,1. Those have a darker feel and when played slow can be a sad love song and when played fast have a dark, dramatic feel."

**Well this is where i just got lost. I understand the whole C E G chord thing for majors, but how do I play a 1,4,5 backwards. Basically, I want to know fingering for the 5,4,3 and stuff; its hard to explain but I just dont get it; i guess im just dumb on the whole chord thing huh? Haha. Whenever you have time, I'd love some more feedback. ---- Oh yeah, as for Subtractor.... somebody put something in his mouth........ because my zipper is stuck. Haha, just kidding; your cool man, just lighten up will ya! Peace.
 
You definately should try and get some chord charts to help you out. There is probably some stuff on the net that isn't too hard to find.

1,4,5 is the chord progression. So if we decide that 1 is the C chord then you count up for the other chords 2-D, 3-E, 4-F, 5-G.

To figure out the chords start with the 1,4, or 5 note and that is your root note. Use the 1,3,5 notes (relative to the root note). A simple chord chart will make this a lot easier because once you know your root notes you can just look up the chords you need. The bass notes will often be the root note for the chord.

I'm sure there are some web sites that explain the basics better than I can with a bunch of cool charts. If you can learn that stuff it will make writing music a lot easier.
 
*Ahem*

Perhaps I was misunderstood, and am partly to blame for this flame-fest. My feeble attempts at humor are usually quite dry, and I often seem to come across as a smartass.

I wasn't giving you a hard time dude, just giving you the tips that I learned from. I was a self taught keyboardist until I went to school and studied percussion (yes, including piano.)

For what you're doing, I see no need to spend a lot of time and money learning piano & theory from a professional. You're looking at years of work there.

As you're now asking about chord theory, I recommend you seek out what's called a fake chart/book. You'll find it helpful until you get the hang of things.

Michael Jones is right about learning bad habits by self teaching, I had to retrain my hands in college when (re)learning scales... however, I'm not playing concert halls, so I don't need an instructor rapping my knuckles with a ruler. :D

As well, most of the opinions stated here in this thread are valid - depending on what you want out of the experience.

Good luck.
 
I'm sorry raydio, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything. I have a rather dry sense of humor, and am somewhat of a smartass at times. And I couldn't help but find your newbie defense quite humorous. I mean if your gonna post in the newbie forum...:)
It's all good! I'm just glad to see this thread has finally turned around and produced some useful info for you/us.

I felt an obligation to try to help out so you might find this helpful...
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ ;)
 
Re: You guys are wonderful

Raydio said:

Another common progression is 5,4,3 or 3,2,1. Those have a darker feel and when played slow can be a sad love song and when played fast have a dark, dramatic feel."

**Well this is where i just got lost. I understand the whole C E G chord thing for majors, but how do I play a 1,4,5 backwards. Basically, I want to know fingering for the 5,4,3 and stuff; its hard to explain but I just dont get it; i guess im just dumb on the whole chord thing huh?
Click to expand...

Originally posted by Michael Jones... and you'll have a much better understanding of things like the Chord/Scale relationship, theory, and improvisation techniques...
Click to expand...

Don't say I didn't tell you so.
But I'll see if I can help:
When Tex speaks of a chord progression of 5,4,3 (Usually written as V, IV, III) he's talking about chords built on the 5th, 4th, and 3rd tones of the scale. The reason we use (roman) numerals is because that notation works for ANY given KEY.

So, a V , IV, III chord progression, in the key of Cmaj, would involve playing the Gmaj chord, the Fmaj chord and the Emin chord. The Gmaj chord, in the key of C is comprised of the notes G,B, and D. The Fmaj chord, in the key of C, is comprised of the notes F, A, and C. Emin consits of E, G, and B.

Those are basic 3 note chords, or triads.
Remember that term, it's very important.

A III, II, I chord progresssion, in the key of Cmaj, would involve playing chords based on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st tones of the scale. Those chords would be Emin, D min, and C maj.
So you see how these numbers relate to chords built on the tones of the scale?

When Tex talks about a I, V, IV, chord progression, what do you think he means? That's right!! He's talking of chords built on the 1st, 5th, and 4th tones of the scale.

When he says "play it backwards" I think he's talking of playing the progression as IV, V, I. In which you would play the chords Fmaj, Gmaj, and Cmaj.

This barely scratches the surface on chord progressions, people make carrers studing this, but it gives you some very basic music vocabulary. This doesn't even begin to touch on the relationship chords have to one another, or the harmonic function of the chord itself, which can range from tonic, to dominate. So you can see it is an elaborate topic.

Additionally, playing triads over and over can get VERY boring, so often, ways are comprised to "mix up" that triad for some additional flavour. This can involve inversions (when any note, other than the root of chord is played in the bass) and extensions (adding additional tones of the scale) and even pivot chords or notes to make a logical change to another key, thus broadening your musical pallette.

I would encourage you, if your serious about music, to seek some formal instruction/education in music theory. It can only server to enhance your understanding of music, music composition, and the general well being of yourself and those around you! :)

An interesting side note:
In a chronology, that is in a very elementary sense, this "theory" is based on a period in music known as "The Common Practice Era." This was a period of time from the late 1700's to the late 1800's, after wich time, around 1880 or so, we saw a new development known as "Ragtime". This gave way to early jazz in which a completely different set of "rules" evolved.

And that, is a completely different study!

At any rate, I hope that helps a little.
 
Last edited:
Michael, Tex, others...
Do any of you have any particular books on basic/beginning music theory that you would recommend? I understand it's an in-depth topic, just looking for a starting place.
 
Shit...

I just wrote a rather lengthy post trying to get you skippin', Raydio. Too bad my machine has gas...

In a nutshell, you now are armed with enough knowledge to really "hurt" yourself. Get ta' crackin'. No reason to keep asking questions until you done some of your own dirty work. If so, you run the risk of being (this time) deservedly torched. Let your findings dictate your questions.

Everything everyone has offered/suggested/explained is what I referred you to or recommended to you in my original post. I think somebody's already written something about leading a fish to a horse, or teaching a horse to fish, or something. And, Pirateking's most recent post is a good example of the kinds of questions I think you should be spitting. 'Course, my opinion is probably worth less than the shit that comes out of everbody's ass, but here it is, for all the world to smell.

Just my 2-cents worth (on my visa, of course)...

Flo' Dolo

check this link out. There are surely thousands more available...

http://members.aol.com/chordmaps/chartmaps.htm
 
Pirateking said:
Michael, Tex, others...
Do any of you have any particular books on basic/beginning music theory that you would recommend? I understand it's an in-depth topic, just looking for a starting place.
Click to expand...
Most of the theory books I have are text books from college. And most of those are advanced, dealing with counter-point in composition and orchestral voicings.

But I think I may have a few I can recommend, I'm at work right now though, I'll check when I get home.
 
Thanks for adding the info, MJ.

I haven't checked out any books lately but this looks interesting http://www.edly.com/comments.html

There are probably some Theory for Dummies books with charts and basic info to get you started.

The interesting thing about learning theory is that it really demystifies the whole writing process. Some may think that it will stifle them but that is generally BS. What it does is enable you to work much faster and find those missing chords that are driving you nuts.

It also helps to learn chord substitutions so if you have a pretty simple song and it just sounds boring you can throw in some more interesting chords for color. It also helps if you want to fake certain styles of music to know what types of chords they use.
 
Wow!

Thank you guys so much for da help in this thread. im not mad at anyone, I just wished those type of recent answers came before the discouraging, ya know? Thanks for the site Sub, its gotta be worth half a book. Im going to the bookstore today to find something of theory, thanks to everybody who posted a reply. I wont forget any of this. Peace out!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top