Thanks for bumping the thread, @JDDaniel and for the video share! Yeah, there are some gems in the old forum chats, but, I also like coming back here every now and then and reading the new stuff too. Good wisdom, good laughs, this Forum is one of the best out there, and, it keeps my bass from gathering too much dust when I take breaks, lol.
I think we started this thread when there was no separate Music Theory area, and wondered if any theory nerds would show up, then, discovered that a lot of us actually liked theory. But maybe didn’t completely understand it (and still don’t, but always fun to pick up some tidbits along the way)
You should check them out some time, I think Scaler is a bit better for theory, it gives you so many different ways that you can explore music. https://youtu.be/2pNT0rIolmI Captain chords is a lot of fun for composing music though it’s aimed a bit more towards the EDM genre. The biggest problem i have with them is i can spend hours “playing” with them, but it’s never wasted Scaler has a trial version and some good YT videos, can’t recall if captain has a trial version.
I’ve often wished I could find something like this as well. I’ve only anecdotally collected ideas as they come up. I think a good place to look is to reverse engineer film scoring since it’s so iconic. Find the triumphant music and see what they did. I had a teacher point out that a lot of tear jerkers will go between the 6 and the 5, beck and forth and back and forth hanging out and changing intensity until finally the 5 drops to the 4 for the crying. I like watching videos like the one where Rick Beato dissects the pattern that makes every John Williams score sound like John Williams. Sure enough, follow that formula and you can play anything you want and get the mood of Indiana Jones or Star Wars.
I found interesting, that emotion - chords association we are use to, is completely a western thing (fruit of years of influence). I read somewhere that It’s common to do happy songs with minor scales (and others we would often associate with a sad emotion) in India, for instance. Also curiously, some classical composers make use of minor tonalities to produce happy tones.
Sorry for no hard data, I’ll try and back this up when I get home.
This is very interesting! I studied some theater sound design when I was at university. One of the assignments was to play a series of pieces: Love, Anger, Fear, Joy and Confusion using only one aspect of composition at a time. For example, use only rhythm or use only melody.
The rest of the class would listen to the compositions and then assign which they thought was which.
When listening to one composition in isolation it was nearly impossible to correctly identify, the best was to narrow it down to a set of similars if it was obvious enough. After hearing all 5 compositions and knowing the categories to be used, however, it was almost always possible to classify them relative to each other. It required relative contextual reference to make a communication.
If you check out the plugin Scaler2, it has scales and chord progressions by style/feel and song style so you could choose cinematic horror and one of them is A Ukrainian Dorian.
Cinematic Trumph gives you an A minor chord progression:
Am9, Em7, F maj7, Dm9, G 6(sus2)/E, G 9 13, Am7, G maj/B (i, v, VI, iv, VII, VII, i, VII)
yeah, I’m probably going to buy Scaler2. I was not looking for this in a plugin and didn’t see much use for its analysis features but I realized that’s kind of dumb as I probably would someday
It has a really nice UI and looks like a solid choice.
Every month or so my FB feed is full of plugin sales and I dont need more right now lol, i have a bunch of stuff i’ve never even tried yet because it was on sale and i’ll need it Soon™
That bit at the very end about natural notes in the keys turned on a lightbulb for me.
And its true, once its explained that simple and basic, it makes total sense.
Why don’t they just tell you that at the very beginning of Music Theory 101?
Because if you know nothing about the very basics, then you would not know WTF he was talking about.
You need to know enough about what is inside the keys Circle of 5ths and 4ths.
Notes, intervals, major and minor scales etc…
And when you get that down, you immediately want to jump further into theory, and go for modes and chords and arpeggios, etc….
But we usually think we learned too much already by the time we get that down, that we don’t look to go back to learn more about those basics that we just learned about, no, we want to go forward and get more advanced…
This bit of info would fit in before the modes IMO, It would have helped me a lot then. It still helps now, but then, when you could just know enough to follow what he is saying, would be a great time to get it explained like that.
Filling a book with simple breakdowns like that, as a SIDE book to music theory would be awesome.
Thanks for sharing that one, I liked it, got me thinking lit a light bulb at the ending.
Those distinctions are all meaningless now but before equal temperament, all the keys sounded slightly different.
My favorite:
“B♭ minor
A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key.”
(on the piano, Bb minor contains all the black keys )
I recently bought V4, it looks like it has pretty much all the theory one could ever hope for and I got it on a 60% off sale. By page 20 though I think I’ve decided I don’t care about theory that much
(and still don’t, but always fun to pick up some tidbits along the way)
Scaler has a trial version and some good YT videos, can’t recall if captain has a trial version.
