Solfège : exploration du son, du rythme et de la mélodie sur la grille MIDI

1. Trailer: Hi. I'm Fernando Arruda. I am a musician, producer and composer. Music theory for me a lot of devices and a lot of tools to use when you find yourself in a creative dead end. You're going to be able to work in any software from garage bands to Ableton to Logic to Pro Tools. You're going to be to create melodies, you're going to be able to create chords, and you're going to be able to create bass lines. You're going to have notions of rhythm and notions of musical density. If you don't judge yourself to be a musician at this point, don't worry you'll be soon, and you'll be making great songs in no time. You're going to be able to efficiently express yourself musically. 2. Does Music Theory Matter?: Hey guys. Why music theory matters to producers? In short, the answer is because it enhances your ability to listen to music and because it makes music making easier, faster, and more fun. Nowadays, music producers are expected to compose music as well as to execute it. That means that you need to be a composer and a master of your musical instruments simultaneously. In many cases, your only music instrument will be the computer and a good music software. That's why we'll be learning music theory on a MIDI sequencer instead of traditional music notation. Video number two of this unit, we'll talk about it. As a composer, music theory will be very useful to know no matter what kind of music you decide to make. By exploring rhythm, harmony, melody, form and texture, music theory will reveal how western music works. It will speed up your creative process which is very important for professionals, but also important because it will improve your workflow. A better workflow means more time transforming your inspirations into music, rather than spending time in how to transform your ideas into music. Trial and error becomes an option, not a necessity. Instead of composing by trial and error, music theory will give you the tools to just execute the music you are hearing inside your head, instead of guessing what works and what it does. Music theory will provide you the ultimate tool to get unstuck when facing a creative dead ends. As music theory expansion music vocabulary, it will serve you as the ultimate creative tool. It will enable you to more effectively dig into past music styles and borrow ideas from other composers. It will make the process of learning musical instruments and music softwares faster and more enjoyable because you already know all the basic musical concepts. At that point, learning and musical instrument or a music software is just a matter of learning mechanical techniques or where certain commands are. Let me give an example. So Tiesto heard this song from Samuel Barber. It's Adagio for Strings. It's a string quartet piece, and he borrowed the melody and the chords and to make a remix of it, to put it into his musical style. But you can't really do that if you can't find the notes from the original song. So music theory will help you to do this. So for example, in my case, I can hear the notes that make that song. So I know like E-Flat ring. So I can just go. Then it's just a matter of you producing the rest of the song around, but the musical part of it; the notes, the chords, the base. You can hear it. Music theory will help you to do that, and that's also very helpful if you hear songs in your head that you wanted to compose. So like for example, then I can find the first note, and go. So, anything that comes to you from your heart, from inspirations, from any number of places, you will know how to execute it those on your MIDI sequencer. There are a few misconceptions about learning music theory. Theory does not apply to the genres of music I make. Well, if you're using the 12 notes of a piano, and 99 percent of western music does, music theory does inform how that music works. Even if you are doing non-western music, music theory will still provide valuable inside each of these rhythms, structures, forums and textures. I'm afraid theory would lock me in. Music theory is not a requirement to make great music. But surely, this knowledge will not be harmful to our creative process. It's a fundamental tool. And as any tool, positive results depends of how this knowledge is applied. You should not make music decisions because theory says this or that. You should make music that you hear from your head, from your heart. Music theory is just the most effective way to extract the music you hear in your imagination and make those sounds into a reality others can enjoy. In short, if you spend the time to learn how music theory works, it will be out of the way later. The idea is to study music theory now so when inspiration strikes, all you have to do is make music and not worry about how to make music. Let's go to video number two where we're going to talk about the tool we're going to be using to learning music theory; the MIDI sequencer. 3. MIDI Sequencer Vs. Traditional Notation: Hey, guys. We're going to use the MIDI sequencer of the music software you use to learn about music theory. We're not going to be using traditional music notation. Why? It's very challenging to learn traditional notation if you do not play a traditional instrument and practice reading and writing all the time. Since this course is designed to all music producers, let's stick with the musical instrument we are all familiar with, the computer. The easiest way to making music on a computer, is by using a MIDI sequencer. We also want to invite musicians that have no interest in dealing with traditional music notation, to learn the concepts of traditional music theory. For example, Paul McCartney cannot read traditional notation, but he knows the basic concepts of music theory. Traditional music notation is the standard way composers communicate musical ideas to the performer. But, for most music producers nowadays, the performer is the computer, or the deejay. The computer or the deejay don't care about traditional music notation. So, what is a MIDI sequencer? A MIDI sequencer, is a grid that provides a timeline in which the user can input pitches, would focus on MIDI sequencers, builds in in the most use DAWs. DAWs means, Digital Workstations, which means music softwares that you'll use to make music. This is how MIDI sequencers look on Logic, GarageBand, Proteus, and Ableton. During our classes, we'll stick with Ableton. The y-axis vertically, on the left usually, we can find the keys of the piano sideways. High pitches on the top, and low pitches on the bottom. The x-axis horizontally on the top of the grid usually, we can find the timeline. The MIDI sequencer is where we write the notes that will create our songs, our musical projects. Let's move on to video number three, and discuss the project steps for this unit. 4. Creating a Practice Schedule: Hey guys, let's discuss the project steps for this unit. Successful music makers need 10% talent and 90% consistent work. Knowing why you want to learn music theory will serve you as a source of motivation to ensure you are constantly practicing it. It's all about momentum. So, maybe take a second and write it down why you want to learn music theory. Even though Music Theory is easy to understand at first, in order to apply its concepts in practice, you need time and patience to allow the information to sink in. The most important dynamic to understand is how to learn music theory. Ten minutes of music theory every day, it's way more efficient than if you spend eight hours study on Sundays and then you don't even think about music theory for seven days and then the next Sunday you do music for eight hours. Just do a little bit every day. So, let's learn how to make a practice schedule. What's the most amount of time you can dedicate to studying music theory every single day? After you answered this question, write out the practice schedule. What time and for how long are you going to study music theory on Mondays? What about Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and so on? It can look like this if you want you only study music theory for 15 minutes a day. Make sure you're having there which day, what time, and where you'd be studying music theory. Remember the mantra. A little bit every day keep frustrations and demotivation away. Music is a language and as such it needs to become part of your new lifestyle. You start with 10 minutes every day. It will set up a fun routine and after a few weeks you can gradually increase the time you practice every day. Note that if you only devote X amount of time per day, do not go beyond that limit even if you're craving more music, more information, don't go over the time you stipulate it. The idea is to stop studying it when you still crave for more information as opposed to stop studying it when you're burned out. If you're constantly associate studying music with feelings of stress and fatigue, chances are you will stop studying music in the long-term. If you do a little bit every day, you'll gain all these skills you are searching for in an effortless manner. So, now it's your turn. Make a practice schedule before you proceed to Units Two. After your schedule is done, place it next to your computer, near your workstation, or next to the mirror you have in your room, a place that you can see every day. Try your best to follow your schedule. If you miss a day, do not punish yourself, acknowledge it and try your best to follow it the next day. If you go a whole week precisely following your schedule and you still crave for more information, this is a sign that you should adjust your schedule. Add 5 or 10 minutes here and there and try for another week. If you're not being able to stick with your schedule, reduce the amount of time you should study per day in 5 or 10 minutes increments and test it for another week or so. Remember, learning music, especially music theory is like learning martial arts, no one expects to get a black belt after one year of practice. Same principle applies for music theory, set a consistent routine and enjoy the process. The results will start shining when you least expect. Also make sure to check out the additional resources below and have fun exploring music theory. 5. Sound Waves and the 12-Pitch Palette: Hey guys. Today we're going to talk about sound waves, octaves, and the 12 pitch palette. Let's just start from the most fundamental question, what's music? Music can be defined as organized sounds and sounds are made of sound waves. What are sound waves? Traditional definitions can get complicated such as Margaret Rouse's definition, "A sound wave is a pattern of disturbance caused by the movement of energy traveling through a medium such as the air, water, or any other liquid or solid matter." For our purposes, let's just understand how a wave looks like and how it works in terms of loudness and pitch. Let's have a look at the Daniel Palacios sculpture. Here we have a speaker, and the membrane of the speaker is pushing the air in front of it in particular patterns. These patterns of movement are the sound waves. If these sound waves are faster than 20 cycles per second and slower than 20,000 cycles per second, it will produce sound that humans can hear. Some animals can hear below 20 cycles per second. We call this sounds infrasounds. Other animals can hear above 20,000 cycles per second. We call the sounds ultrasounds. Let's have a closer look at a sound wave. The amplitude of the wave how tall the wave is defines its loudness. The bigger the amplitude, the louder the sound it is producing. Is more amplitude means quiet sounds. So, the shorter a wave is in terms of amplitudes, the quieter it will sound. The length of the wave define its pitch. The bigger the length, the lower is the pitch produced. Something like. We can almost hear those big, slow, waves producing the low sound, listen again. Waves with smaller lengths produce higher pitch notes for example. We can almost hear really fast vibrations here, really fast frequencies. Let's try again a different note. Let's have a look at the pitch A4 on the MIDI sequencer. In order for those notes to be produced, something has to vibrate at 440 cycles per second. Let's have a look at the pitch A4 on the MIDI sequencer. In order for these notes to be produced, something has to vibrate at 440 cycles per second. In order to find the A5 which is the same note as A4, but one octave up, all we have to do is to double the frequency which A4 is vibrating at. So, here we have 440 cycles per second. If we want to find a five which is this, we need to double the original frequency. So, 440, 880 cycles per second. The same principle applies if we want to find A3 which is the A below A4. So, this A right here. If this A is 440, this A here will be half, will be 220 cycles per second. The unit that represents cycles per second is called hertz or simply HZ. This means that anything that can vibrate at a frequency of 440 Hertz will produce this pitch, A4. If you can wave your hands up and down 440 times during one second, your hands will be producing this pitch. Do you know when we hear mosquitoes and the buzz of their wings generate a pitch like. We hear a pitch in does noise, and the reason is because the mosquitoes wings are flapping at a rate that's fast enough for us humans to hear. So, his wings are flapping somewhere in between 20 and 20,000 times per second. A guitar, a violin, or even a piano produces this pitch by vibrating its strings at a rate of 440 cycles per second. A saxophone has a bamboo reeds on its mouthpiece. That reed is set in motion by the wind coming from the player's mouth. When it vibrates at 440 cycles per second, it produces, you guessed right A4. Brass instruments such as trumpet, trombone, tuba, they produce these notes by vibrating their lips 440 cycles per second, which is something like. That's not quite an A, but that's what the buzz they create with their lips sound like, and the tip of their lips are vibrating 440 times per second. In short, that's how the note A is produced. But what about the other notes? In Western music, one octave. The distance between two of the same notes are divided into 12 equal parts. I call it the 12 pitch palette. Let's count and make sure we have 12 different parts in between this distance. One. two. three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Then the next note, the 13th note is just the repetition of the same notes, right? A A, A A. These 12 pitches arching Western music, the same as the 26 letters of the alphabet arching the English language. They're the basis of everything we do in music and they're the building blocks from which we can create melodies, bass lines, harmonies. But what is Western music? It's easier to say what isn't Western music. Music from Indochina, Indonesia, Indian classical music and Indian ragas, and traditional Arabic music are not considered Western music, because they have different pitch subdivisions within one octave. All that means is that between these notes in between one octave instead of having 12 pitches like we counted that we made sure we have 12. They would have a different number, sometimes more than that. So, a piano couldn't really reproduce those songs. So, these types of music are excluded from Western music theory just because they have a different pitch system. Finally, are you familiar with sound waves? Do you know what an octave is? Do you know what 12 pitch palette is? If yes, move on to unit two, video two. If no, watch this video again and try tomorrow. 6. Sharps, Flats, Whole Steps, and Half Steps: Hey guys, let's talk about sharps, flats, whole, and half steps. In order to discern between each distinct pitch, western tradition uses the first seven notes of the alphabet to name the piano's white keys. Let's start by writing the notes on the white keys of the MIDI sequencer. It's starting at A3. So here, we have C3. So, let's go up here A3, let's put a note there. Now, every white note, so here, you see we have a lighter gray and darker gray. So, every white, let's put a note. Now, here, we're going to repeat the A so we don't need it. So, we have seven notes. Now, let's see the names A, B, C, D, E, F, G. What about the other five notes missing, the black keys? Well, in order to find them, we need to learn about sharps and flats. Sharps, they look like this, and flats look like this. Sharps mean go up one piano key no matter if it's a black or white key. So, if we get this note here and we make this note sharp, that means we're going to go up one piano key, easy right? Now, if we get this note and go sharp, that's it. So, let's go flats now. Flats mean go down one piano key no matter if it's black or white. So, here, this note flat will be here, this note flat will be here, and this note flat will be here. Piece of cake, right? So, the distance between every note on the piano and the next note, it's called a half-step. So, these sequence, this sequence here, if it's like this. It's moving a half-steps because every next note, it's going up by half-step only. So, a whole step is two half steps. So, that means, every note we going to go up by two. So, let's go from scratch here. So, we have one, right? So, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two. That means that this sequence now, it's going up by whole steps. Every pitch we're at, we go up by two half steps so one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two. So, we can say that sharps mean go up by a half-step and flats mean go down by a half-step. So, if we get this note here and say, go sharp, or if you get this note here and say go flat. Piece of cake, right? So, let's get back to our initial sequence, the one that's simply the alphabet so A, B, C, D, E, F, G, the white keys of the piano, and we see here that there is one note missing here, one note missing there, a third note missing here, and a fourth note missing there, and one more here before the next A. So, this note is at A, if I go up a half-step, it's called what? A#. This note here is a C, if I go up a half-step, it becomes a C#. This note is a D, if I go up a half-step, it becomes a D#. Here, we have the E, we have the F. Now, F, if you go up by half-step it becomes F#, and then G, if you go up by half-step, it becomes G#. So now, we have 12 nodes four, four, and four, and they are going up by half-step. So now, we have all the nodes. Notes that the piano has one black key in between every two white keys but there is two exceptions here. There is no black key in between two whites, and here, there is no black key between two whites. So, that means that the note E, when you raise a half-step should be called what? E#, right? But when you look here, it says F. Well, another weird thing. Here, we have B. So, if we go B a half-step up, should be called B#. But now, we have here C. So, how does that work? Well, we're going to learn about enharmonics and enharmonic means two different notes in name that have the same pitch, the same sound. So F# enharmonic is Gb. So, let me show you that. So, here, we have F# so let's find the F here, it's an F. So, F# is a Gb. Let's check that, let's get a G. So, see here, G. Now, let's go half-step down from the G, see? They're both the same notes right here. They are called F# or Gb. So, F# and Gb is the same thing. So, that's all this complicated word means, two different names for the same pitch. So, once again, if we have B, let's say we have a C, and we're going to go down a half-step so it will become a Cb, right? So, piece of cake. If I tell you what's the enharmonic for A#? So, what's the enharmonic for this note? Well, it will be this notes here, B, lowered half-step so Bb. So, Bb is the same thing as a sharp. Piece of cake? Now, it's your turn. Learn by doing it, moves and MIDI notes around and be aware of their names and how they sound. So, for example, this note, it can be a F# or a Gb. Or, if I move it up here, this is an, let's say, A# or a Bb, or this is a E, or it can be a Fb. If you can easily find the following pitches on your MIDI sequencer, please proceed to video three. If this was hard for you, please watch this video again, 7. Tension, Resolution, and Musical Forms: Hey guys. Contrary to painting and sculpture, music is a temporal art form. It can only happen in time. This means that music is all about movement, but movement where from or where to? Music is always moving between tension and resolution. From resolution to tension, from tension to resolution. Let's see an example. So here we have Berlin, it's a mode selectors song from the CD Monkeytown. Let's hear how this sounds from the beginning. So here, let's hear the chords of it. So, I listened to that song and played on the piano and found the right notes. Don't worry about it now but soon you will be able to do that as well, but it sounds like this with a piano playing the chords. So here, we have tension and resolution. Let's see how this plays out. So, this is pretty relaxed. That's dance, resolution. Now, tension. So, its resolution, and then tension, then resolution, then tension. So, basically this block moves as emotionally towards this tension that pushes us to a resolution that pushes us again to a tension. I made it here an example for you to hear if all the songs were tensions, it could sound something like this. Here, we don't have any movement. It's like tense, tense, tense and tens. Let's listen to it again. These are the same roots. So basically, the same base notes with chords that are all tense and they don't seem to be moving anywhere. We will learn how to manipulate those tensions and those resolutions as you create an expressive shapes we want later on when we learn about tonality and chords and harmonies. Once we understand how to move music between tensions and resolutions, the next step is to organize these groups of tensions and resolutions into sections, and use those sections to form our music composition. For example, intro, versus, choruses, bridge, outro, or we can call them each of these different sections by letters. So, similar sections having similar letters. So, for example, verse being A, and the chorus being B, for example. So, we can have musical forums like AABA or ABACADAE or A variation, BA variation, CA variation and so on. We can have many different musical formats. Instead of overwhelming you with traditional definitions of this forms, for example, like binary, ternary, rondo, variational, developmental, and a strophonic forms, I will simply show you how to figure out what is the form of your favorite songs. That way, you can go on your own and find out what is the form of your favorite songs, and what are the most used forms in the style of music you're into. It will help you to organize your productions into conventional musical forums. Let's see an example. So, this is Amy Winehouse's Rehab song. So let's analyze the structure, the forum with it. It was a big hit. So, something interesting in the form must be happening for people to remember the song so well, for people to understand and empathize with the song so well. So, I'm just going to let the song run and show you the sections that form the song. Notice every time we have the same letter, it's because the section is the same. Maybe the lyrics is different, but the music is the same. So, let's have a look here. Let's quickly analyze the simple melody like Oh Susanna. Now, it's your turn. Let's learn by doing it. So, get a song that you really like, put on the music software and see what is the form of the song. If you don't want to do it in the computer, you can get a piece of paper and write these many beats of A, these many beats of B, these many beats of C, and then A again, and then B. The important thing is for you to keep track the large picture, the overall form of songs. That way, next time you're doing a song or producing some sort of music project, you can have a vocabulary of forums you can pull from in order to create a very effective piece of music. 8. Musical Density: Hey guys, remember that we learned on video one, that high pitched sounds are made of short length sound waves and the low pitch sounds are made of long length sound waves. Think about in a different way, like a violin, a flute, a trumpet, a ukulele, all these instruments produce high pitch notes and they are all small instruments. Think the opposite, acoustic bass, tuba, bassoon, bass drums, all producing low pitch notes and they are all large instruments. That's just the way physics works. Because of that, sounds have a different density on the higher register than in a lower register. This means that the low-end of your production, can only fit a few musical elements. On the other hand, on the high-end of your production, on the high register, you can fit a lot of elements. Let's look at the orchestra. Since, it took centuries to develop this musical ensemble, let's see if this principle of musical density holds through here. Let's look at the string section. For the high strings, which are the violins, the violas, they have a lot of them. In order to balance the low-end, the cellos and the basses, look how few of them in comparison to the rest. That's because in the low-end, we need less, on the high-end, we can have more. Think about electronic dance music, the bass and the bass drum, the kick drums, are the only elements in the low-end on the low register. All the other instruments take up the mid and the high register. Same thing with mixing a track, the low-end will make your meters jump way more than high-pitched sounds. But, why do we care about that, when we are talking about music theory? Because soon, we're going to start learning about chords and scales, and how to place chords in synthesizers, pianos, guitar, and this principle is very important. If your chords, if your notes are on the low register, make them be far away from each other. If you're working with a high register, don't worry about, you can have many notes, then, they will still sound good. Keep an ear out and you'll realize this principle of sound density, applies for all sounds everywhere and anywhere. It's quite fascinating. Now, it's your turn to learn by doing it. Please complete to the project steps below, before you proceed your unit three. 9. Simple Meters: Duple, Triple, and Quadruple: Hey, guys. As I mention on the previous unit, music is a temporal art form and as such, it can only exist in time. When we divide the given amount of time into beats and then group a particular number of beats, we call it a meter. Let's break it down in two steps. One, divide a given amount of time into beats. All that means is, choose a BPM and BPM enable tone. It's here, for example. It means beats per minute, which will relate to the speed of your song. A higher BPM, the song will be faster. A lower BPM, the song will be slower. A 120 BPM means that in one minute, we will have 120 beats of equal duration each. Two, group a particular number of beats. Most music nowadays is made of groups of four beats. Other groupings are possible as well. For example, two and three beats per group. These groups, the correct term for it is a bar or a measure. So, basically, what I'm saying here, if we have two beats per bar, we call it a duple. If we have three beats per bar, we call a triple. If we have four beats per bar, which is most common what it is, we call the quadruple meter. Don't worry about these names. Most importantly is to know how they look like. Four-four means four beats per bar. Three-four means three beats per bar. Two-four means two beats per bar. So, let me show you some examples. Let's hear this song and let's try to feel the strong beat. Let's try to count how many beats we have in one bar. Okay? So, this is a song by DJ Marquis LK. Let's hear. So, without the beats, it can be a little bit confusing, but let's try to count. One, two, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. So, this is the most kind of common meter, four-four. Now, a two-four, arguably, you could still counting four because two is half of four. But let's try to listen to the music and let's see if it feels better, if we count at four or if we count at two. This is a techno track from Kazakhstan and it's called Variations. Let's try two. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, since one. Now, lets try four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Both four-four and two-four could work for this song. For me, it's the two-four times signature because the song feels in two as opposed to feel in four. It's just how the music was composed. Let's try another song. I had to get one of my own productions because I couldn't really find any electronic music songs in three-four and I wanted something more current. So, here it is. This is a F Jazz track called the Greek Secret and let's hear. So, lets try to count in four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one. It doesn't fit, right? It doesn't line up with the kit. So, let's try three. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two. You see that when we count in three, it lines up. So, this song was made in a triple meter on a three-four times signature. So, it's a three beats per measure. Okay. So, yeah, if you free to make songs in three-four, two-four, four-four, explore these meters. You shouldn't be restricted by what everybody else is doing in. Now, they're in descend, duple, triple, and a quadruple meters, why they are represented like a fraction like four over four? Well, I will explained that in the next video. For now, just to start listening to the beat groupings of your favorite songs. Are they in four-four or three-four or they have a two-four feel or how are they built in terms of measures? This knowledge will improve your sense of rhythm and we will make music sound even better to you. It's very important to know what kind of meter your song will be in. That's the first thing we going to do as producers, is to decide what meter this song is going to have. 10. Simple Note Lengths : Hey, guys. Now, that we know what a bar is, let's learn how to cause specific note lengths. One single note, when it last the duration of a whole bar of music, we call that a whole note. So, here we have a note. Let's make this the whole duration of a bar. The reason I know this is a bar it's because here says length, and it says one, so one bar. I can also see here that a bar has four beats. It's a 4/4 bar, and I have one, two, three, four. This dark-light-dark-light areas, they are the units. So one, two, three, four. So, this is a bar. This is what I call a whole note. When a note lasts half of the duration of the bar, it's called a half note. We can double this because it will still fit, so we can have two half notes. So, it's called half. Now, if one note lasts a quarter of the duration of the bar, so we can have four of them, it's called a quarter note. If a note last one eighth, that means we can have eight notes in a bar, it's called an eighth note. If one note lasts one sixteenth of a bar, so we can have 16 notes in a bar, it's called the sixteenth note. Note that one whole note can fit two half notes in it. Same thing here, one half note can fit two quarter notes in it. One quarter notes can fit two eighth notes in it, and one eighth notes can fit two sixteenth notes in it. So basically, all I did here was get a whole note divided by two, divided by four, divided by eight, and then divided by sixteen. You get the idea, right? All right. Let me give an example. Here, on this note here, I'm going to write one half note, one quarter note, one eighth note, and two sixteenth notes. So here, half note, then I say one quarter note, then I said an eighth note, and then I say two sixteenth,right? Piece of cake. Now, it's your turn. Learn by doing it. Tune in to a random radio station, and listen for the meter of the first three songs you hear. Are they in 4/4, are they in 3/4, are the songs in 2/4? Next time you listen to music in general from now on, try to identify what's the meter. How many beats you have per bar, and have some fun with it before you go to the next class. 11. Triplets: Hey, guys. As you probably noticed on Video two, we started from a note length that lasted the whole duration of a bar of music, and then we started dividing by two. So, for example, we had a note like this big, and then we divide it by two, which was like this big, right? Then, we got this one, and we divided by two, so we got a note that was like this big and so on, right? But, what if instead of dividing by two, we want to start dividing by three? Okay. So, one whole note instead of two half notes. Let's create a half note triplet, which is three notes that last the duration of whole a note. So, here on MIDI grids, usually can switch the way the grid is subdivided. So here, we can select triplets grids, and we want a half notes, so let's click here. So, you see these lines here. So, one, two, three. So, these notes are half notes triplets because it's three of them that fits inside a whole note. So, let's go back to the simple grids, and let's go back to the grid, like a quarter node grids, okay? So, we had half notes, and we could have divided by two. But now, we want a divided this space here which is a half notes, like a half note like this. We want to divide that by three. So, let's select the triplets grids, and now let's quarter note triplets, great. Let's go. One, two, three, nice. So, this is a quarter note triplets because we have three of them that fit into one half note. Now, let's go back to normal grids, eight notes. So, in one quarter note, we can make a two eighth notes. But, instead of two eighth notes, let's make eighth note triplets. See how the grid changes? So, now let's put the triplets right there, so three eighth notes in the space. You could only fit two before. So, that's called the eighth notes triplets, so same thing. Let's go back to, here's one eighth note. If you want to divide this by two, it's easy. We go 16, eighth note 16 grid. So, half of one eighth is 1/16th. But, what if or when if it's three notes here as opposed to two? Well, let's go, 16 notes triplets. Now, these notes allow you to fit three of them. So, now we have three of them. Okay. Triplets give a very nice feeling. So, for example, let me do a simple rhythm here for you. We have here quarter notes. So, let me repeat this, and then here at the end, I'm going to put two eighth notes. Let's hear. Right. So, now, instead of two notes here, I add three notes. Look how different it would sound. I'm just going to double this bar, so we can hear both from the same time. So, I'm just going to duplicate here. In here, instead of feeding two notes, I'm going to go eighth notes triplets, so eighth notes triplets. Now, I'm going to write here one, two, three. Look at the difference between eighth notes and eighth notes triplets. Let me remind you that theory is only a representation that helps you to understand how music works. Music's organized sounds waves traveling through the air, not complicated mathematics on a paper or on a computer screen. What I mean is do not stress over the meaning of this fractions. You know one sixteenth, one eighth and what they mean, and why so many people start calling these names. There's no flanks even when the meter changes. Instead, just remember how the subdivisions can be derived from successively dividing the whole note by two by three. So, all you need to know is this, get a whole note, and then ask yourself, "Am I going to divide this by two or by three? Am I going to use a simple grid, or am I going to use a triplet grids?" This is all you need to know about triplets. Please complete the project steps of this unit before you proceed to Unit four. Bye. 12. Six Major Intervals: Major 2nd, Major 3rd, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, Major 6th, Major 7th: Hey guys. This is one of the most important topics in Music theory so please take some notes as you watch these videos. We're going to learn how to identify all the possible distances between all the 12 notes we use to make music. These distances are called intervals. Let's write one note per white key of the piano is starting on C, and ending before the sequence C starts repeating itself, okay? So let's find this C here, then every white key I'm going to put a note on it. Then the next one is C, so we don't need it. Those intervals I was telling you guys, is the distance between this and this, and then between this and this, and then between this and this and so on. So, to make it easier let's analyze this in half-steps. Let's look at the distance or interval between the first note C, and the second note D. We have two notes here right? So, this is going to be called the second of some kind. But, which kinds? All intervals we find in the major scale going from the first note to the second, first to the third, first to the fourth. They are all major intervals, with the exception of the fourth and fifth degrees. I'm going to change their coreless here. With this exception, all the intervals are going to be major, okay? So here, we have a major second. Now, it's important to know how many half-steps make a major second. So here we can tell that's one and two. Now, let's see from this note to this note. How many notes do we have here? Three. So, this got to be a third of some kind, and because all the intervals except four and five are major, three is going to be major. So it's a major third. Now let's count how many half-steps falls together. So it's one, two, three, four, right? So major third has four half-steps. Let's go to the fourth. So, here we have how many notes? Four. So it is going to be a fourth of some kind, but the fourth and the fifth degrees they are not major, they're perfect. The reason they're called perfect it's because they have this simplest frequency ratios, but don't worry about why they are called perfect. Instead, just memorize. A fourth we find here is called the perfect fourth, and a perfect fourth has one, two, three, four, five intervals to get there, right? So perfect fourth, five intervals. A fifth, five notes we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So seven half-steps equals a perfect fifth. Now here we have six notes. So, it got to be a major six, right? Because all the intervals are major except four and five. So let's see here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So nine half-steps equals a major sixth. That's great. Now, the last note. How many notes do we have here? Seven. So it's got to be a seventh of some kind. Let's see how many half-steps? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven half-steps makes the major seventh. Or the easiest way to think about major seventh is this. If we make the C one octave higher, we have C four. Right? If you just go down one, you have the note we want, the B. So that means an octave has 12 half-steps. So minus one, 11. So a major seventh equals 11 half-steps. Note that these intervals, they are just going up but you can easily form them going down. So for example, let's have a random note here. Let's say an F. Okay? If we want to go a major second up, we know the major second equals two half-steps, so one, two. But now let's say we want to go down. So, F, let's go down a major second, count two half-steps down. So now you can go down with all these intervals. Let's have another example. A perfect fifth, we know there has seven half-steps. Let's get to the same note F. Okay? If I want to go a perfect fifth up, we know we count seven up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, that's that. So F to C is a perfect fifth up ascending. So if we want to get to the same note and find out what a perfect fifth is descending, we have to count seven half-steps down. So I'm just going to scroll here, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So F to A sharp is a perfect fifth down. So, just quickly memorize this. A major scale has a major second, a major third, a perfect fourth, a perfect fifth, a major sixth, a major seventh. Having this knowledge very sharp in your mind will speed up your creative process. Before you go to video two, try to write out the following intervals on your midi sequencer. How to do it? How many half-steps make a major six. Now, count these many half-steps down from the given note in this case the G. The same process applies for the second question. The answers are attached below. Cheers. 13. Four Minor Intervals: Minor 2nd, Minor 3, Minor 6th, Minor 7th: Hey guys. So, we learned the intervals we could find from the major scale. So, we had a major scale here, C major scale, and we found out how many half steps we need to make a major second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth, major seventh. But now, there are other intervals we are going to learn today. The minor second, minor third, minor sixth and minor seventh. So, all we have to do is to get the same interval measure and lower a half step, then we find the minor version over the interval. So, for example, we know that a major second has two half steps so one, two. So, this is a major second. If we want to make minor, we're going to get the top node and we're going to reduce a half step, we're going to make the interval smaller. So, now this is a minor second. Note that Ableton, the software is telling us that this is C and this is the C sharp, but because both are C's, this doesn't look like a minor second, this looks more like a first interval. So, let's change the name of this note. Instead of C sharp, let's call by the enharmonic. So what's the enharmonic of C sharp? Yes, it's called D-flat. So, C to D-flat is a minor second. A minor second is made of half step only, one-half steps only. One, that's it. So, minor second equals one-half step. Okay. So, now let's see the third. So, we have three notes here, this is a major third and how many half steps? One, two, three, four. So, four half steps equals a major third. So, now, if we lower these notes by half step, we have a minor third, and a minor third is made of one, two, three half steps. Now, once again, the problem is that C to D sharp looks like a second C D. So, let's make this enharmonic. So E, what kind of E? E-flat because it's going down half step, right? So, C to E-flat here, it made our minor third. Now, let's see six. So, we're going to skip this, too, and I will explain in the next video. So, a major six, we have these six notes and we said this guy has nine half steps distance. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine to get equal here, right? So, nine half steps equals a major six. If we lower this, eight half steps, it will equal minor six. Same thing with the seventh, we know it's 11 half steps simply because 12 would be an octave from C to C. So, this is 11 half steps. So, if I lower, 10 half steps, that will be a minor seventh. Once again, C to A is six, right? So, C D E F G A. That's six and we need to be at seventh. So, let's change his name to the enharmonic of this note which is B-flat. So, C to B-flat is a minor seventh. Does this seem complicated? Are you feeling overwhelmed at all? Don't be, there's only a few possible intervals and only 12 notes. As you use those concepts on your music making process, every time you place a notes here, you think, oh what's that interval, and more you do that, you just going to internalize these concepts and you're not going to have to think how many half steps make this or make that, you're just going to know it. Time and practice will make this information become second nature. When that happens, it's when the fun begins. 14. Diminished and Augmented 4ths and 5ths: Hey, guys. In the same way we got major intervals, the major second, major third, major sixth, and major seventh, the same way we got those intervals and we lowered by half step to find the minor versions, so the minor second, minor third, minor sixth, and minor seventh, the same thing applies for the perfect intervals. So, for perfect fourth and perfect fifth, when we lower or raise these intervals by half step, we create the diminished and augmented intervals. So, a perfect fourth, we know it has one, two, three, four, five half steps. So, five half steps. If I lower this by half step, it's going to be a diminished fourth. Well, look, diminished fourth is the same as a major third. That's true. The difference is, if you call C to E, that's a major third. If you call this by the mnemonic name, so, meaning, F-flat, this will be C to F-flat, and this will be a diminished fourth. It doesn't seem like it makes a lot of difference now because you're getting the same note anyways, but later on, when we're talking about chords, things are going to get a bit more interesting, and these terminologies will make a difference. So, let's go back here, and now, let's get this perfect fourth, F to C, C to F, and let's raise the interval by half step. So, instead of one, two, three, four, five half steps, now, we have six. So, six half steps equal augmented fourth. So, go back here. Here, we have a perfect fifth. So, we know a perfect fifth has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven half steps. So, seven half steps equal a perfect fifth. If we lower perfect fifth six half steps, that's called a diminished fifth. So, you notice that augmented fourth is the same as a diminished fifth. Same sound, different names, depending on which mnemonic you call each note. So, same thing here. Let's get a perfect fifth, perfect fifth raised seven half steps. Let's augment the interval. Let's make the interval larger by half step. So, now, we have eight half steps. That's called the augmented fifth. Now, give it a shot, learn by doing it. Memorize this information and play with these mediant notes on your MIDI sequencer, and see if you can have some fun with it. So, for example, I'm going to make fourths, so fourths are one, two, three, four, five, five half steps. So, what happens if I just make a melody that goes one fourth up, and then, from here, it will go another fourth up? So, we have one, two, three, four, five. So, we have a fourth, and then, a fourth. Let's see how this sounds. Maybe this will sound good in the baseline. Let's make more, and then, maybe we start here again. Let's see. Add a little loop, and you have, or, I don't know, maybe let's try with fifths now. So, let's make a fifth here and a fifth seven. So, let's count, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So, this one, let's leave a fourth. So, we have fifths, and then, we have fourths. This could be the beginning of a song, or this might inspire you to do other songs. So, just go around and play with intervals in your MIDI sequencer. See if you get anything inspiring out of it. As you're doing that, you're going to be reinforcing the concepts and the knowledge of how many half steps are in each interval. See you in video four. 15. The Interval Project: Hey guys. On this unit, we spoke about intervals. Intervals are the breaks of your music building. They are the ladders of your musical alphabet. The most basic foundation from which chords are built upon. Without this knowledge under your belt, the rest of music theory will feel heavy and complicated and we don't want that to happen. From my experience, both as a student and as a teacher, you should spend about two weeks to internalize the information about intervals provided in this unit. Please take your time and do not rush into the next videos. Memorize the information on the previous videos, write down a chart of interval names, how to find them and how many half steps each of them are made off. Read it every day and make little songs based on a particular interval. You can also try to teach this theory to a friend or to your girlfriend or whoever. However you choose to do it, please spend some time with the information presented here before you proceed. It will make the other lessons way more enjoyable. As an assignment during these two weeks, you're going to take to digest this information, I highly recommend you to do the interval project. So, go in the link below and complete the song chart generator it says, "Create your own lists of songs to memorize intervals." A common way to recognize intervals is to associate them with reference songs that you know well. For example, this song Amazing Grace, begins with a perfect fourth. So, when you hear an interval that sounds like the beginning of Amazing Grace, you can quickly conclude that the interval was a perfect fourth. This is very important because one thing is to know the intervals in theory, another is to be able to recognize these intervals by year. That's when all this theory will become very useful to you. Once you hear the intervals, it will start to feel that your musical creative processes on steroids. It takes months to become really fluent in intervolic recognition. But this is the single most important ability I recommend you should learn. A little every day and it will come to you, stress-free, no worries just do it a little bit every day single interval. Remember how many half-steps you have an interval, play with a piano or a keyboard if you have, if not, play around with a midi sequencer and eventually the information is going to sink in. Once you have completed your interval chart, print it and place it next to your workstation or next to your bathroom mirror. Put it in a place that you're going to see every day The next step is, have fun with it. Let's say you are in the subway and you hear two pitches that says that the doors are closing for example. What's their interval? If you know your interval chart well, a song would come to mind that starts with those same pitches. Then you're going to know it, oh that's the interval. So, for example. So we have, let's find that. Oh! I recognize that from the chart I made, it's. So, that's Summer time, Oh nice! So, summer time on my shirt says Major 3rd descending. So, I know it's a major third. So, I can just find the first note. All right. So, the subway tune is a major third. Keep playing this game constantly and in no time your ears will transform into HD resolution. Most importantly, a lot of the emotional potential music has, can be manipulated by using the right intervals in the right time. After all, you are essentially combining faster and slower raves in a way to push and pull the listener in the direction the narrative of your song wants the listener to go emotionally. Once you realize that, for example, an augmented fourth on that effects, doing song you like, gave the track this kind of feeling. Or the descending forth the Skrillex used on his baseline and made everything sounds like this or like that. You can start gathering this knowledge from anything you hear and creating a vocabulary that will allow you to very precisely design the music you want to make. Good luck and after you finish your interval chart, your interval project, please proceed to the next unit. But keep study intervallic recognition on the side. Keep trying to hear and identify the musical intervals around you. It will upgrade your ears and your productions big-time. 16. Major Scales: Hey guys. We already know how to write the seven notes, one per white key of the piano, starting on C to make the C major scale, right? So, let's do this, let's find the C here. One per white key, that's the-. This time I'm going to put the first notes one octave up there but what is the general formula of whole steps and half steps that make a major scale. When we're talking about intervals we are measuring the distance between the first note and the second, the first and the third, the first and the fourth. That gave us the recipe for intervals, how many half steps we have in each interval. Now, we want to analyze this to this and this to that and this to that and this to that. That way, when we do successively like this, we're going to find a recipe that tells us how many whole's and half-steps make a major scale. Okay. So, the way we're going to do this is, let's just analyze, here the intervals and memorize them. So, here we have from C to D, that's one, two, so, two have steps, that's a major second. This interval is the same as this interval, right? So, it's got to be a major second. So, we have two half steps here and two half steps here. So, how we call two half steps a whole step, okay? So, here we have whole step, whole step. From here to here half-step, right? Half-step then here we have whole step, whole step, whole step then a half step. So, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half-step. Now, it's easy after you memorize this formula and you can make a major scale like this. You can make all major scales for you can have two methods the first one, which is the one I recommend you to do it because later on it will make your life easier when we talk about chords is just memorize the relation. The relation is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, okay? So, we can start this in any note we want. So, let's say your song starts here, okay? So, we're just going to make the same relation. Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Now if you listen to this, it also sounds like a major scale, same thing as C major. But if we think about O, F sharp, G sharp, A sharp and B-naturals, C sharp like it gets complicated, but if you simply memorize the structure how many half-steps you have in between the notes of the scale, you can easily do it. Another way to simply do this is, select all the notes and just move them all together. Now we have F, or if we move up here we have G sharp or G. Congratulations, now you can find all the 12 major scales. But if you're like me and you're into EDM, electronic dance music, major scales won't work so well for you because 90% of EDM music is made using minor scales. So, on our next video we'll learn about minor scales. 17. Relative Minor Scales: Hey, guys. This is a nice and very useful topic, relative minor scales. All major scales have a dark side to it. This mysterious side, its relative minor scale. If you use the same notes of C major, but instead of starting on C, we call it the root, you start on the sixth degree, which in this case is A. We'll find C major is relative minor scale, which is called a natural minor. I'll explain why it's called natural in the next video. For now, let's just find these scales. So, if we have a C, we put the notes in the white keys. So, C major will sound like. Now, let's use the same notes but let's start from A. So, I'm just going to get this notes here, put in the beginning, and then C, A, B, C then you have D, E, F, G. Nice. So, now we still have the same white notes, the same notes we had before, but when you start from A, it gives a different sound. It sounds like this. Easy? Let's go back to C major. So, let's write C major here. Now, I'm going to make the C major into G major by transposing everything to G. So, G major. Now if I want to find the relative minor of G major, which is the minor sonority that uses the same notes as G major, I do the same thing. I go on the sixth degree. So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and I'll put that in the beginning, and then I'm just going to complete to the same notes. So, we have E, F sharp, G. Then, we have A, B, C, D. So, I'm going to put that here, A, B, C, D and we start on E, I'm just going to put a E octave up same note as we started. I'm just going to put it here to complete. But not here, we don't need it. Now, let's listen. So, this is how you find a relative minor. Now I want to give you another example, but let's do it randomly. So, I have my eyes closed. I'm moving my mouse up and down. Let's just make a note right here. Where is this? All right. So, this note is G sharp. Now, instead of, I don't have a scale to begin with, but luckily, I memorized the intervals that make a major scale. So, I'm going to go whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Let's see if it sounds like a major scale. Yeah, it sounds like a major scale. So, now, let's find the sixth degree. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 is F. Now I'm going to put this guys in the beginning and I'm going to complete this scale with these notes. So, we have F, G, G sharp, and then we have A sharp, C, C sharp, D. A sharp, C, C sharp, D. A sharp, C, C sharp, D. Now, the first note here is an F. So, I'm going to put an F octave up here just to use all the space we have in the bar. I don't need this guy. Now, let's see if this sounds like a minor scale. Yeah, it does. So, this is how you find the relative minor scale. So, next time you want to make a song in a minor sound, all you do is choose a major scale that you know how to make it. Either you know the intervals because you know the intervallic relationship whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, then you go to the sixth degree and you start from there using the same notes as the major scale and that's it. You'll find the minor scale. Congrats, now you know how to find all major and all minor scales. Now it's your time to learn by doing it. Now that you know the scales, pick a scale. So, I'm just going choose here the A minor scale. So, A minor is all the white notes of the piano. I'm just going to have some fun with it. So, maybe I'm going to start from A and I'm going to write something like. So, maybe something like this. Let's see how that sounds. So, let's hear. Maybe I'll add a little loop to just get things going. 18. Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales: Hey guys, now that we know how to find minor scales, the natural minor, we can learn the other variations. That's why, when we just use the same notes as a major scale by starting from the sixth degree, we call it natural minor, because there's other two variations. So, there is the harmonic minor and there is the melodic minor scales. So, let's find A minor, so A minor is the same notes as C major, both starting from A, so the white keys of the piano. So, let's just use the white keys of the piano to make this, okay. So, we have here A. Zoom a little bit. All right. So, here's A minor. So, once you have A minor, it's really easy to find the harmonic minor scale. So, you just get the seventh note which is the one just before the sequences start repeating again or you can come from here, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Raise a degree. Look the difference in sound. As opposed to. Harmonic. It sounds very exotic, very mysterious. It has almost like a wordly like a Middle Eastern vibe to it. That's all you have to do, raise this seventh degree a half step. So, you can select the whole scale. You know each one of D sharp minor harmonic scale. Piece of cake. So, once you have the harmonic minor, to find the melodic minor is pretty simple. All you do, you find a sixth degree and you raise a half steps. So, one, two, three, four, five, six. So, I'm going to raise that, let's see how it sounds. This scale. The first part of it sounds like a minor scale. The second part sounds like a major scale. This is a scale we used in jazz and lounge music in many other circumstances is the interesting scale to know. Another easy way to find this scale is instead of finding the relative major to find the notes of the major scale, we're using the relation we memorized; whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half step, we can just find the major scale that starts with the same note that we want to find in terms of melodic minor. So, D sharp major, lets just finds the notes that makes D sharp major. So, we know that major scale is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half step. So, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half step. So, let's hear to see if it's really a major scale or better to hear if it's a really major scale. Yeah. This is a major scale. Now, all we do is you get the third note. So, one, two, three, and you lower a half step. So, this now is the same scale we had before which is D sharp melodic minor. Piece of cake. So, once again to clarify. Let's find A natural minor, A using white keys of the piano. That's it. So, to find the harmonic minor, we raise the seventh degree. To find the melodic minor, we raise the sixth degree. Or, we add the harmonic minor. This seems very easy. But if I just ask you for example, make it F sharp harmonic minor scale. So, how are we going to think of it now? Well, what we can do is think what's the relative major of F sharp minor. So, this has to be the six degree of a major scale or we know that to find a relative major scale go up a minor third. So, a minor third has three half steps. So, let's count. One, two, three. So, A major would be the relative major scale. So, let's leave the F sharp on stand by and make the A major scale. Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Here it's A major. Now, let's start from the sixth degree which is one, two, three, four, five, six. The F sharp we had it before. So, let's put that at the beginning. Now, we have D sharp, A, now we have B, C Sharp, D, E. Here we have B, C sharp, D, E. We can also repeat the F sharp up there just to make it, to use all the spaces we have in this bar. So, now we find F sharp minor scale but this is the natural. So, if you want to find the harmonic, we raised this a half step. But we wanted to find the melodic. So, we also raised the sixth degree which is one, two, three, four, five, six, a half step. Now, you can find harmonic minor, natural minor, melodic minor scales and all the major scales. So, now you can find all the scales that exist pretty much to produce any song or compose any melodies and harmonies you want. Don't feel overwhelmed. This seems a lot of information and a lot of steps to take in order to find the scale. But remember that once you internalize this information, this will be automatic process for you. After you do it so many times, you'll know these skills without having to think about it. So, for example like in my case that like if you just pick a random note here, let's say this note B flat or A sharp. I wanted to do the natural minor scale or let's go harmonic minor scale starting here. I don't have to think, I know this scale of A sharp by memory. So, I just go. I know this is going to be A sharp harmonic minor, so let's see how it sounds. Yeah, that was correct. So eventually, this will come to you. So, don't worry. Do a little bit everyday and it will come to you. Once it comes to you, all you're going to need to worry about is producing, mixing, mastering sound design, beautiful compositions, which feelings you want to express. You're not going to have to worry about, oh, I wonder which note I need in order to make that sound. So, stick with the material, be persistent and don't rush. Don't be impatient. This knowledge will come to you. If you have any doubts, any questions, remember to go in the class forum and talk to your peers. On the next video, I'll give you guys a quick assignment to help you master this information. Bye. 19. Recapping Basic Scales: Hey guys! After intervals, major and minor scales are the second most important concept music makers need to master. If you play an instrument, you will learn these concepts faster by practicing these scales and intervals on your instruments. If you don't play any other instruments other than your computer and your MIDI sequencer, I have a similar way to teach you how to internalize the sounds. So, write a scale. So let's write a C major scale on your MIDI sequencer, C major, right? So, let's try to sing this scale, I'm gonna put it over here because I have a low voice but same scale, right? So, we go. So to sing this would be. Let's check. Close enough. So now, let's try a minor scale, let's write a minor scale. Now, listen to it, let's see if you can sing it. I need to review this node, so I'm going to click on it, nice! Keep doing this. Oh! Let's practice harmonic scale, so let's see if I can get it. This is why you want to do, you want to know this scales by sound not by how they look on you immediate grid, and by doing this, you will internalize the sounds very quickly. Once you have the sounds of all scales and all intervals in your head, it's just a matter of shuffling those sounds around in order to compose music, so composing becomes very fast and very fluid and you will avoid getting stuck. There are twelve major scales one for each different pitch, twelve natural minor scales, twelve harmonic minor scales and twelve melodic minor scales. But don't feel overwhelmed, there are a lot of scales but they are all close to each other, so if you practice all the major scales very well, in order to find the natural minor, you'll just start from the sixth degree. So that's a piece of cake. Once you know the natural minor, all you have to do is to change one note the seventh degree in order to find the harmonic minor. Once you know the harmonic minor scales, all you have to do is raise the sixth degree and make it into a melodic minor scale, so it's easier than what it seems and as long as your are persistent and you're having fun with it, this information will sink in. You can also try to write one scale a day on your MIDI sequencer, more and more you do this, you would just memorize this scales and you just memorize the notes that go together. We don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about and going through this whole process we're going here during class. This is just for you to learn. So keep practicing every day, add these exercises on your practice schedule and then take your time, one, two weeks, a month, two months. The lessons will still be here when you come back and most importantly, we don't want to rush into new material before we master this material. Once you feel up to the challenge, write on the MIDI grid the following scales and then check your answers on the answer sheet below. Before you proceed to lesson two, let's review the topics we learned on lesson one. Lesson one taught you why music theory matters and why one would once should learn it, what it is and how to work with a MIDI sequencer, how to set up a sustainable music practice casual. The basics of how a sound wave behave when it produces pitch. All simple intervals (within an octave), ascending and descending. The basics of how music moves between tension and resolution. How to identify the form of a song. The principle of music density. Basic rhythm: All simple meters, simple North length and triplets. All major, natural, harmonic and melodic minor scales. If you're familiar with all this music concepts, keep studying the scales and the intervals but feel free to proceed to Lesson two 20. Major and Minor Triads: Hey, guys. On this session, we are going to talk about Triads. Triads are the chords made of three notes. Most pop music uses triads because it is still very effective in terms of creating tension and resolution in music, but without the overly rich colors that are chords with four notes have. So, let's get to it and learn about Major Triads. Let's start by building a C major scale. So all the white notes. Now that we have the notes of the C major scale, to make a major triad, we need to stack these notes up, like this. So, just get all the notes and stack them up, so they all happen at once. Right? So, a triad is a chord made of three notes, but we're going to skip every other notes. So, we wanted the first one, we going to skip the second one, we going keep the third one, we going skip the fourth one, and I'm going keep the fifth one. So, because it's three notes, we already have three notes, let's delete the rest. So, this is a Major Triad. It's a C Major Triad. So now, let's learn how to call the names in this triad. The first note, this one on the bottom, it's what's going to give the triad its name. So, in this case, is a C Major Triad, because there's notes at C. Now, why is it major? Because the first interval, and the first, I mean, from the bottom up, so this interval, it's a major triad. So, we know that major triads are made up of four half steps. So, here it's one, two, three, four. So, it's a C Major Triad, okay? Also, this interval here is important, which is perfect fifth. So, from C to G, we know that we should have seven intervals, so it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So, this is a C Major Triad. This note here is called the Root. This note is called the third because from the root to this note there is an interval of a third, a major third. So, this is the third, and this is the fifth. So, we have root, third, and a fifth. Now, let's analyze the intervals within this major triad so we can reproduce any major triad we want. So, we have a major triad here, and from here up, we have a perfect fifth. It contain the major third here, and from these notes to that note, what interval it is? Is a minor third, right? Because it's three half steps. So, one, two, three. So, major third in the bottom and minor third on the top also makes a major triad. So, now we can do any major triad we want. So, let's pick a random notes here. This note, let's say, okay? So, now I'm going to count here, major third from here, so I know it's four half steps, right? One, two, three, four. Now, from these notes to the next should be a minor third. So, one, two, three. So, this is also a major triad. And which major triad? The sharp major triad. So, here we have C major, and here we have the sharp major. Cool, so you just learn what it is a major triad and how to form any major triad that you want. Now, let's find Minor Triad. So, for our minor examples, usually, we start from A, because A minor is all the white keys, so it should make it easy. So, let's make A minor scale, just the white notes of the piano. Now, let's stack the notes. Now, we keep the first note, let's skip these notes. We keep the third note, let's skip these notes, and we keep this note. So, we have three already, let's delete the rest. This is a minor triad. Which triad? A, because this note here at the bottom, it's called A, so A Minor Triad. So, let's analyze the intervals. Oh, let's analyze first the name of the notes. The names are the same. So, this is the root, this is the third, because this interval is a third, and this is the fifth, because this interval here is a fifth. So now, you can think about it two ways in terms of intervals. We have a minor third here because there's three half steps one, two, three, or you have perfect fifth here, which is seven. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Or you can still think about, we have a minor third here, and a major triad here. So, here we have four, right? So, one, two, three, four. So, this is a minor triad. Now, let's see if this formula is correct. Let's try to find another note, just random note. Let's say this. It's a B, okay? So, we have a minor third, and then a major third. So, minor is three half steps, one, two, three. Then from here, we need a major third, so that's four half steps. So, let's see. One, two, three, four. Piece of cake. So, this is A Minor Triad, and this B Minor Triad. Let's hear the sound, and this, right? So, when they played at the same time. Congratulations, you just learned how to make all major and minor triads. Or you need to, we'll learn how to use it in a way that makes sense, in a song or how to group this cords together. Now, just play around and try and make triads. The only thing you need to remember is major triads have a major third at the bottom and a minor third to the top. Minor triads have the opposite, a minor third at the bottom and a major third on the top. 21. Diminished and Augmented Triads: Hi guys. Now that we know all the major triads, and all the minor triads, I'm going to teach you the diminished and the augmented triads. The diminished triad relates to the minor triad, and the augmented triad relates to the major triad. So, let me show you what I mean. So, let's do a major triad here, right? So, I'm just going to stay with C major because the white keys of the piano, it's easy to see. So, how do we make a major triad? We have major third, and then a minor third on the top. Okay? So, this is the C major. Now, if you want to make an augmented triad, all you have to do is get the fifth, which is this note. So, remember this is the root, this is the third, and this is the fifth. All you have to do is get the fifth and raise a half-step. Now, notice, you have the C augmented triad, both of these distances are the same. So, here we have a major third, and from here to here, we have a major third as well. See, one, two, three, four, and then you have one, two, three, four. So, this is a symmetric triad. So, let's see if this formula works, and let's try to make another triad. So, I'm going to pick a random note here. This is a D. So, if I want to make a D augmented triad, I just make two major thirds. So, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. So, this is C augmented, this is D augmented. Let's hear the sound. Now at the same time as chord, piece of cake. Now, let's do a diminished triad. Let's do a minor triad. So, a minor triad. Let's go to a minor. So, we have a minor third, and then a major third. So, minor here, major here. So we have, one, two, three, half-steps of minor third, and here on top, we have one, two, three, four, major thirds. So, this is A minor. So, if we want to make this a diminished triad, all we have to do is get the top note and lower it a half-step. Now, notice that the intervals are symmetric again. They are the same. So, we have a minor third here, and then we also have a minor third here. So, both the diminished and the augmented triad, they are similar. They are symmetric, so they have the same intervals in the bottom and the top. Now, let's say if we want to make another triad. Let's say this A sharp. Now, count a minor third. So, one, two, three, one, two, three, right. So, here we have a minor third and a minor third so, right? All you need to remember here is the diminished triad is made of two minor thirds one on top of each other. The augmented triad, it's made of two major thirds on top of each other. Soon, we'll be learning how to use these chords in a musical way. For now, just make sure you know the information of how to make minor, majors, diminished and augmented triads. 22. Playing Triads: Hi, guys. So let's put in practice what we learned, major, minor, diminished, and augmented triad. Let's make a little song here. So, I'm going to start with, let's see, a minor chord, okay? Then maybe I would switch to a B minor. Nice. Maybe now go to C major. So, it's a major third C to E, G in minor third. So, we have A minor, B minor and then C major. Then we just going to go back to B minor here. Nice, also another thing I like to do is to use the knowledge we have about forms. So for example, let's look at these two guys here and let's call this section of form letter A. So we have A, B. So, I'm going to repeat the A. So you have A, B, A again and then here we will see what happens. So, we have minor major, two minor chords, one major and here let's play augmented. This is a fundamental method. So, major third and major third, let's see how it sounds so far, and then we just need a diminished chord here. So now I'm going to do a B diminished minor third and another minor third, right? So, what I'd like to do is find a generic loop. I really like drum and bass. So, I just have a random loop here just to help to get things going. Later on, you can just delete this loop and make your own grooves, your own drum beats. But for now, just to get things going quickly, let's hear that with the beats. Then we can try a bass note. Here, the root of these triads gives you the clue of the bass note. So, I'm just going to try something really simple just to get things going. So, we have A. The next triad we have is B, then we have a C, then we have a B, then we have an A again, then we have a B again. Then you have G flat, and then you have a B here. Well, let's use the triplets. So, let's have a triplet here, triplet quarter notes. Right? This is what I'm hearing in my head. So, let's see let's see if it works. Nice. Now we have the bass, the chords, now let's do a little melody maybe. So, maybe, now I am not certain which note I really want here, so I'm going to look at the chord. See, we have a C. I have a C. We have an E on the chord, so I want to go up. I'm going to try a E here, and then we'll see how it sounds. We have an F sharp and then maybe I just go because we have a F here and then the next note to be because it repeats right. Let's see if it worked. I like the way it goes up, down, up. It goes down, up, down, up, down, up. Then I'm just going to an octave up. Then here we have, so here I'm going to do something similar. Let's see if it sounds good, the whole thing. I think this note can improve. Nice. So from this sketch, we can get the chords and give it to nice strings or some side of synthesizer. The bass, we can put in acoustic bass or we can have like some subs, like some sine waves. The melody, we can have a girl singing or we can have a saxophone or a lead synth melody, but most importantly you capture the essence of your song because here you have the meat and potatoes of your meal. You have the melody. You have the chords and you have the bass. So, try to do a piano sketch like this, but just before you try, form the following triads in your MIDI sequencer just to make sure you know how to make the diminished, augmented, major, minor triads. So, try C diminished, F sharp diminished, C sharp major, B major, A flat minor, D minor, then check the answers below. If you found this exercise hard, you stay with these concepts before we move on as there will be the foundations of our next unit. So, make sure you know this well before you keep going to the next unit. Take your time and have fun. You already know plenty of music theory to make great songs. Ciao. 23. Two Types of Chords: Major 7th and Dominant 7th: Hey, guys. Now, that you know how to form triads, we can move on to a more sophisticated type of chords, the tetrachords. These are chords made of four notes as opposed to three like the triads. Jazz music, Bossa Nova from Brazil, and the blues are based on tetrachords. So, this sound is found anywhere and everywhere from like that Mao's to Bach. Anything that you hear probably has a tetrachord in it. So, tetra means four. That's why is four chords, tetrachords and triads for three, it means three notes. In this video, we're going to talk about two types of tetrachords. The major seventh, and the dominant seventh. Both of these chords are built upon major triad that we learned in the previous lesson. So, let's build a major triad here. We need a minor, sorry, a major third. So, one, two, three, four. Then we need a minor third. So, one, two, three. So, now that we have C Major, all we have to do to make these into a Major seventh chord is to add another major third on the top. So now, we have a seventh chord. Also, another way to think about is this. Let's make a C Major scale. Now, let's tack the notes up on top of each other. So, we're going to delete every other note because they're thirds. So, here we have the root, let's skip the root, deletes that, we have the third, deletes the fourth. We keep the fifth, deletes the sixth, we keep the seventh. Now that we have our four-note chords, we can delete the rest. So, this is the same tetrachord, C Major seventh we added before. So, it's a major third, a minor third, and then a major third again. This chord sounds like resolution. It sounds like it arrived somewhere, listens to it. It's like you don't want to hear anything else after that. You hear that chord and you will relax, you know it's a resolution type of chord. So, this is the C Major seventh. Now, let's talk about the dominant seventh. The dominant seventh is the same thing but we're going to lower the seventh down a half step. So, now we have a major third here, then we have a minor third here, and then another minor third. So, when we have these intervolic relation, it's called a dominant seventh chord. The reason for that is that this chord is very tense and this tension sounds like movements, this chord wants to go somewhere, so listen to it. After you hear this chord, you want to know what's going to happen, like what else? If you imagine if you just end the song like this. It's very strange, right? So, this chord is to get things moving and the C Major seventh or any major seventh chord sounds like more of a rival resolution type of chord. Remember, you can apply these formulas to find chords anywhere. For example, let's pick a random note, F sharp, right? F sharp, if I want to make F-sharp major seventh. I know it's major third, minor third, and then, major third. So, I'm going to do that. Major third, one, two, three, four, and then, minor third, one, two, three, then major third, one, two, three, four. This is a major seventh chord. If I want a dominant seventh, let's find the dominant seventh from scratch. Let's pick a different note, let's pick a G, and I know that the dominant seventh is major third, minor third, and minor third again. So, let's do it. Major, one, two, three, four, minor, one, two, three, minor again, one, two, three. So, this is a dominant seventh chord. See you on VideoQ, where we're going to learn about the minor seventh and the half-diminished tetrachords. 24. Two Types of Chords: Minor 7th and Half-Diminished: Hey guys, now that you know how to build tetrachords from major triads, let's try to learn the chords that we can build on top of minor triads, two of them. The minor seventh and the Minor seventh flat five chord, also known as the Half-Diminished. So, now that we know what a minor triad is, we can easily build this chords. So, let's build our minor chord of choice here, which is A-minor, right? So here, we have a minor third, one, two, three, and then a major third, one, two, three, four. So, that's A-minor. Now, in order to make A-minor seventh, we just add another minor third on top of it. So, we have one, two, three. So, a minor seventh chord is basically a minor third, a major third and then a minor third again. Another way to think of it is, if you have the minor scales, so, A-minor which is all the white keys of the piano. You stack them up. So now, let's skip every other note. So, let's leave this one, let's delete the second, lets skip the third, lets delete the fourth, let's skip the fifth, lets delete the sixth, lets skip the seventh, and let's delete the rest. So, this is the same chord we had before a minor third, a major third and then a minor third. Note that the name of each note remains the same as the triads plus one, so we have the root. Here, we have the third, here we have the fifth, and here we have the seventh. The reason for those names is the distance between the roots and each of these notes. So here, we have a third, here we have a fifth, and here we have a seventh, nice. So, let's try to build another chord. Lets see B-flat or A-sharp, B-flat, same thing, right? So, we need a minor third, a major third and a minor third. So, minor, now major, now minor. So, this is A-sharp minor seventh chords or B-flat minor seventh chord. Let's listen. This chord also can be thought of as resolution, generically speaking. You see sounds like relaxed. Now, let's learn about the minor seventh flat five chord, which is also called a half-diminished chord. Let's bring this back to A-minor seventh, that's all the white keys, so it's easy to see. Okay, now that we have here A-minor seventh, the new chord is called minor seventh flat five. So, all you going to do is exactly what the name of it says. Get the fifth, the five, and lower half-step, make it a flat. So, this the root, this is the third, and this is the fifth. So, let's get the fifth, and bring it down a half-step. Nice. So, for this chord, what we have is a minor third, then we have another minor third, and then we have a major third, okay? Let's listen to how it sounds. It's dark, right? It's a dark chords. Listen to it again. Very tense, like suspense kind of feeling. Obviously, all chords can sound in many different ways in terms of emotion and mood. But this I think is fair to say. The first thing most people would associate with this chord isolated, would be the sense of uneasy, something uneasy. Nice. So, let's try to build this chord elsewhere, right? So, we need a minor third, minor third, and major third. So, let's pick a- I don't know. Which note, a B? Okay. Let's do a B. So, minor third, one, two, three. Another minor third, one, two, three. Now a major third, one, two, three, four. Nice. Let's see if it sounds similar to the other one. Nice. So, this is the minor seventh flat five, and this chord is also called a half-diminished chord. You'll understand why in the next lesson. Ciao. 25. Three Diminished Chords: Hey, guys. On this lesson, we're going to learn a very important chord called the diminished chord. There is a vast amount of literature on diminished chords. I added a few links on additional resources. Make sure to check it out. One interesting thing about the diminished chord is its symmetry. A diminished chord is simply three minor thirds stacked on top of each other. So, pick any note you want, E in this case, and let's have three minor thirds on top of each other. So, minor third one, two, three, minor third one, two, three, and an another minor third one, two, three. So, let's hear how it sounds. Super tense. This is the ultimate tension. This chord was prohibited back in the day when you had the church music like choirs and Gregorian chants. You couldn't use these tensions, these intervals because people thought they were so tense, they related this sound to devil, to Satan. It's just interesting. There's a lot of things about the diminished chord. For example, each interval is made of three half steps, one, two, three, and then, you have three of those. So, you have three of three, and then, also, you only have three possible diminished chords. Let's make three diminished chords a half step up from each other. So, look. If we want to make a diminished chord that starts, let's say, the next one here would be a G. So, if we do a G diminished chord, look what's going to happen. You see this chord here? If I flip this note up one octave, it's the same chord we would find here. So, if I just move this chord there, see? Same thing. Then, if I get this chord here, the next chord we need to find, it would be a G-sharp diminished, which would be a minor third, then a minor third, then a minor third. So, if I flip this chord here an octave up, look. I move this chord, look. So, you can keep going like this, and you keep finding the next chords. When you invert the bottom note to the top, it forms the next diminished chord. So, there's only three possible diminished chords, and all the rest is just a variation of which notes on the bottom. But the chords [inaudible] the same because they are made of minor thirds. Look what a weird sound this has. If I keep doubling this, look the sound this makes. Have fun with it, try some diminished chords on your songs, and I'll see you on the next lesson, where we're going to learn about chord symbols. 26. Reading and Playing Chord Symbols: Hey guys. Congratulations for coming so far. You already learned how to create all triads and all tetrachords and you also know all of the musical intervals at this point. In theory, you know way more than Bob Marley or Paul McCartney, all these guys knew before they made great songs. So, that doesn't mean you're going to make great songs right off the bat, but that means that you should speed up from now on your creative process. You can still look at Paul McCartney and Bob Marley songs and learn the things that are very unique about the way they compose. But you can look at the chords they make and their emotional expressions they use, and how they use, how musically they make certain thing happens and you can learn from that and apply it to your songs. Now, you need to make sure you can hear and identify the chords you know how to build. Identify chords using our eyes in the MIDI Sequencer is very helpful but this won't help you that much. What would really change your production and really speed up your compositional process, is if you can hear and identify by ear these chords. The most fun way and effortless way to learn how this chord sound, is to write on the MIDI Sequencer the chords for popular songs you know, songs you're already very familiar with, write those chords on the MIDI Sequencer. Then when you hear the song, you remember which chord it is and the other way around. Next time you hear a song you never heard before, you'll be like, oh, that's the chord from that Paul McCartney song. So, that must be a C major seventh chord, or, oh, this blues, this got to be like a dominant seventh chords and so on. So in order to do that, you need to know how to read chords. So, let me give you an example first of how to find this chords and then I'll show you how to read them. So, for example, if you just do a quick Google search. So, let's go here to Google and type "Woman no cry." I just typed Woman No Cry chords and then here, we see "C No woman," and then, we have G and with the base in B I'll explain later "no cry," and then we have A minor and then we have F. So, for those of you that don't know the song, it sounds something like this. Okay. So now, we know these chords, let's go to our MIDI Sequencer. So, the first chord was C major. So, we know that, so that may occur within a minor triad. The second chord is G with the base in B. What that means is you make a G chord so G. So, G is a G triad. Now, the B got to be on the bottom. So, we can just get the bottom note and flip up. So now, the B is on the bottom. But you see that this chord here the first one is jumping to the second one. So, let's get this whole chord, and bring it down an active. So now, it's closer will sound better. So, the next chord here is A minor. So, A minor. Just bear with me and I'll show you how to read those chord symbols but so A minor. How do we make A minor? We have A then a minor triad, then a major triad. Then here we have a F. So it's a F triad. F major triad. So, F we have an F, then we have a major triad then you have a minor triad. So now, let's hear. The point is more chords you look up online of songs you already know really well and you write the MIDI here, you'll be training: number one, how to make the chords; number two, how you read the chords from Websites and stuff; three, how you're going to start to think like those composers were thinking. So how does Mao's makes those cool chords or how Paul McCartney make those cool chords he does. So, by doing this, you'll learn a lot from these guys. So take a moment and do a little bit of practice like that. A thing that you will need to know in order to do that, is to learn about this table right here. If you just see a letter, or a simple letter that means a triads. So that C-E-G so a major triad C here. So, a simple letter means major triad. If you see a simple letter with a little m or with M-I-N like minor, so this or that means minor triad. C plus or Caug means augmented triad or you could have a F plus that means F augmented triad. So, diminished triad is this little symbol here, this little circle or dim. So, a letter and the circle and dim means diminished triad. So, the dominant seventh chords that we learned is just a seven. So, a ladder and the seventh, that means dominant seventh. Major seventh, you will be CM7 or Cmaj7, major seventh. Now, minor seventh chord will be Cm7 or Cmin7, minor seventh chord, and the diminished seventh chord we learned, we have C, the diminished symbol and seven or Cdim7. Now, half-diminished chord we learn is C, it's a diminished with a little dash on it cool. So now, give it a try. Write the first four chords for the song Help by The Beatles, and then check your answer below. Keep doing this exercise. This will make your ears way better and this will give you a lot of vocabulary that will allow you to make music really fast. Ciao. 27. Finding the Diatonic Major Chords: Hey guys, before we actually make music with all Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented Triads, the Major 7th, Dominant 7th, Minor 7th, Half-Diminished and Diminish Tetrachords, we need to learn which of these chords can be grouped together. These chords are like planets orbiting in gravitating around other chords and another musical objects. In order to effectively use them, we need to know which chords leads to which chords, and which chords belong together in a particular tonality. Tonality it's something that most all musicians know what it is but it's kind of like complicated to define. So, I just type here on Google and you got some pretty straightforward definitions that I liked. So the effect of being in a particular key. So, the chords you group that it sound like they belong, and also the use of conventional keys and harmony, so many chords, as the basis of musical composition. So, notice the word hear conventional. So, conventional is because we have centuries of music being developed and being used in a particular way. So, I understand that sometimes you want to be thinking outside the box and making super new music then nobody ever heard it before, but it's good to know the conventional ways, and how to make music within a tonality, and then after you can do that then you will be much stronger to break from that if you desire. All right, so let's start like we always start usually by making a C major scale, so all the wide notes on the piano. Okay, and 'm not going to make a C here because we're going to try to find the chords that belong to this scale, to a major scale. So we already have this note so we don't need to repeat it. Okay, so now we have this major scale here horizontally, right? So now on top of each note of the scale, on top of each step of this stair, let's make a Major scale vertically. Okay, so C D E F G A B okay, so that's all the white keys of the piano okay, so D E F G A B C. Notice I'm stopping before the sequence repeats, the next note would be a D but we already have a D. Okay, so just one of each so E F G A B C D F G A B C D E G A B C D E F A B C D E F G and then B C D E F G A okay? Nice. So, remember that the Triads and the Tetrachords we learned, they are made in intervals of thirds, thirds on top of thirds. So, when we have thirds so for example C to E, you notice that you skip a node right in order to make a third, so you have C and E, that's why it's called third because one to three and then we're skipping this one, so let's do the same thing vertically. So, we have this note, we skip that, we have this note, we skip that, we have this note, we skip that, we and we have this note, okay? So let's delete everything that we don't need in order to find these chords. So, we keep this, delete that. Keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, keep, keep, delete, keep, delete Oops! Delete, keep, delete okay. So, now let's hear this chords how they sound. Okay. So this cords belong to the C Major scale to a Major tonality okay. Now let's analyze the general formula. So, on the first degree here based off the first note, we have Major 3rd, Minor 3rd, Major 3rd, that's my Major 7th chord C Major 7th. Now, we have a Minor 3rd here, Major 3rd here and a Minor 3rd there. So we have a Minor 7th chord. Now, here we have a Minor 3rd and Major 3rd and then a Minor 3rd here, so we have an E Minor chord, E Minor 7th chord. Here we have a Major 3rd, Minor 3rd and then a Major 3rd. So, we have the same thing as the first one, a Major 7th chord, in this case the F Major 7th. Here we have a Major 3rd, a Minor 3rd and then a Minor 3rd so that means this G dominant seven. Here we have a Minor 3rd, a major 3rd and a Minor 3rd. So it's like these two guys, so it's A Minor 7th and here we have a Minor 3rd, then a Minor 3rd and then a Major 3rd which makes this a Half-Diminished. Or a Minor 7th chord that we've got the fifth and we lower a half-step okay. So, this is generically the diatonic chords of a major tonality. So if you're making a song that's in a major key, you can find the chords that belong there. So for example, the first degree the first it's always going to be Major 7th the second, Minor 7th, Minor 7th, Major 7th, Dominant 7th, Minor 7th and Half-Diminished. All right, so this will help you to make songs that fit in a Major scale. You'll find this type of chords everywhere from like dead mouse to like Bach. Now give it a shot, try to make like a F sharp Major scale and then find other chords, and then find the chord qualities. Analyze the steps and half steps, and see if they match these ones, it should match, okay? So, do a one or two scales just so you get the practice of doing that, and so you memorize which degree have each chord. Okay? Now, the next video we're going to talk about how courts function in terms of tension and resolution, so that will be fun because we can put this to use. Okay? In the musical way. So, make sure you're sharp on what we've just talked about, okay? All right, Chao. 28. How These Chords Function (Tension and Resolution): Hey guys. Now that you know which chords belong in a major tonality, let's learn how these chords function in terms of tension and resolution, which is ultimately what makes music be more emotionally expressive. We're going to group all the chords we learned in the previous lessons. So, these chords here that will fall in major tonality and let's group them into three categories: tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. Tonic chords are the chords we found on the degrees one, three, and six. So one. Sorry one, three and six. All right. So, let's group those guys together. One, three and six. All right. These chords feel like a resolution. They are relaxed chords, not very tense. They tend the music sound like it arrived somewhere, ideal to start and finish songs and phrases. Subdominant chords are the chords found on degrees two, three and seven. So, two is the one that's starts on D right CD. So, two and then four. So, C D E F. So the one that is starting is F and then seven, the one that start on the last note of the scale which is the B. This chords are called subdominant chords. These chords feel like they are going somewhere but not in a hurry. They are not ideal to end the song with since the listener will be expecting to go somewhere after these chords are played. So, let's listen how they sound. As opposed to. So here, we have a resolution and here we have moving but not too tense. Then the last chord is alone in its only category and it's called a dominant chord. So, this is the dominant 7 chord we're talking about dominant chords. There is just one of a kind in this measure scale, is the fifth degree. This chord has an urgency feeling to it. It creates tension that needs to be resolved. In many cases, this chord is going be resolved in the tonic chord. So, this chord will probably go to one of discords here. Generically speaking, it doesn't have to but in a lot of traditional music that's how it works. Now, on the next video, now that we know that this is resolution, this is going somewhere but not too tense and this is super tense, needs to go somewhere immediately. Now that we know this and this by the way applies for any major scale, the next video will be exploring diatonic major chords in songs. So, we're going to see how the songs are made of played with this chords to create tension resolution. We'll keep it in C Major so you can relate to this lesson. So, see you next video. Chao. 29. Exploring Songs Made with Diatonic Major Chords: Hey guys, so now that we know the diatonic major chords, and we also know how to group them into resolution kind of tension, but not really and super tension, now we can analyze some songs and see how composers have used this theory in order to make memorable songs. Songs that we all know. So, let's start very basic. So, do you guys know the song? So, all I did is I just put the chords here of happy birthday and the melody. In C major so we can compare. So, let's have a look on this chord here, the first one. This chord is a C Major seventh, why? Because we have a major third, minor third, and then major third. So, I'm not going to spend time analyzing the Chords because I assume you know how these chords are made, and why are they here. So, I'm going to spend the time we have here talking about which chords they are. So, this is the one chord because we are in C, so C is one. So, this is a major seventh chord, and then the other type of chords we have is this one in G. So, G is the fifth degree, and the fifth degree we know is the dominant seven chord. So this is the G7 or G dominant seven chord. Then we have C again, then we have F. So we know that F is F major seventh chord is the fourth degree of C, and then we have G and C again. So, happy birthday to you only has three songs. Only has three chords, and these chords are: one is a tonic chord, so remember here we have C, so it is a tonic chord. Then G is the dominant chord, and then F here is the sub-dominant chord. So, basically all happy birthday is doing is, resolution, tension, a lot of tension, back to resolution. Resolution and then halfway in between, and then more tension leading to resolution. So, now that we have that in mind, let's hear again. So, did you see how this song is so memorable and it sticks in your head, and used as one of each group? So, keep doing that, keep getting simple songs, write them down, and analyze them like this, and you will learn a lot of interesting thing. Now let's see this other song here, do you guys know the song here? All right. So, I did the same thing, I just wrote the chords, and wrote the melody and in C major, so we can compare, and here we have C, once again so that's the tonic major seven chord, then we had a G chord here, so let me open here because then I think it shows the note, G, C, G. So, dominant chord, then we back to C, and then we have a D minor seven, and then G and C again. So, let's say D minor seven. What was that? D minor seven was a sub-dominant chord, so on happy birthday, we have C and G, and we had the other chord was an F. Mary had a little lamb, it was same thing C and G, but instead of the F, it was a D. But is still in this group here, so you see how this song was kind of constructed in the same way as happy birthday? If you're not listening for the harmony, you might think these songs are completely different, but in essence, in terms of chord structure, in tonality terms, they are very similar. So, once again it goes like resolution, and then tension, then back to resolution, then more resolution, resolution, resolution then going somewhere but not really, and then tons of a tension, and then back to resolution. So now that we know how this works, let's listen to it once again. Now let's analyze a proper song. So I pick the Adele, Someone Like You. I did the same thing here, I wrote the chords, I wrote the melody, and I wrote the baseline. So, let's listen to it. All right. So, first thing we're going to do let's mute the melody, see how the chords just keep repeating. So, these chords just repeats here, and repeat here and repeat here. So, let's just have a look more closely into one set of repetitions. The song I had only this part the chorus, only have four chords. So the chords are. So, I'm going to get the base line, and I'm going to put an octave op so we can easily see what the chords are. So, I'm going to select the baseline and go up an octave, and then I'm going zoom in here. So we have C E G C. So, this is a C major triad. So here we have G D G B. So, this is G Major triad right here. Here we have A minor triad, because we have A then we have A C and then if you put this E up here, this is a minor triad right. The last chord we have is an F if you put this guy up here, this is an F. So, the reason some notes are flipped, is because there is this thing called inversions of a chord that we're going to talk about later. For now, I'm put all the chords here in its original positions, the ones we studied so far, and would sound like this the way we know them so far. All right. So, notice just triads for now, okay? Really simple stuff. Let's analyze the song so here we have C, which is tonic one, G which is five, which is dominant thread. Then we have A, A minor, if we look to our analysis here, A minor was here. It was also a tonic chord. So that means that we have tonic, and then dominant, and then tonic, and then you went to a F. F is also here, it's also here, it's a sub-dominant chord. So once again, Adele's song had exactly the same chord structure as happy birthday, and Mary had a little lamb. He had a tonic, he had a dominant, he had another tonic, and he had a sub-dominant. Same thing as Mary had a little lamb. It had a tonic, it had a dominant, it had a sub-dominant, and then he had a tonic again. So, the song Adele song also had the same chord structure as marry had a little lamb. So, here we have tonic, we have dominant, and then here we have sub-dominant the D minor seventh, and then dominant and tonic. So, long story short, we had tonic, sub-dominant, dominant, tonic, and here we had tonic, dominant, tonic, sub-dominant. So, different orders of the same groups of chords being used. So that should tell us something. So, feel free to explore all of these dynamics, all these the songs you can learn a lot from it. 30. Sketching Songs: Hey guys. Let's stick with C Major for now. Remember that changing keys in the midi sequencer is just a matter of selecting everything at once and moving either up or down. So for now, let's just stick with C Major and then later on you can make your tracks in any tonality you want. Let me give you an example of how easily you can make a song once you know the scale and the tonality your song is going to be based on. Here I would like to mention the importance of start using a piano sketch to improve your skills as a composer. Once you compose the chords and the melody and possibly the bassline, everything else can come from that much easier. Once you have the piano sketch with the melody, bass and the chords, you can assign those pitch those, media nodes, to synthesizers to field recordings that you pitch into samplers to make, the sounds you need or you can record the vocalist, or you can use any crazy plugins you want. The idea here is to produce the song you hear inside your head first and nature Led the production process of equalizing, sound designing, all that stuff to dictate what your song is going to sound like in the end. I just want to make a disclaimer here that there are many ways to make music, and we should respect all of the possible ways. Using theory to extract melodies from inside your head and execute them, as opposed to just play around with the software or recordings you made and see what happens, is just one of the one mean and approaches of how to make music that exists out there. Learn this method I'm teaching but keep your head open to anything that can work for you in terms of music making. Now, give it a shot and try to apply this theory. Try to make a piano sketch the same way I did Happy Birthday. I did piano sketch of Mary Had a Little Lamb, I did Adele's Someone Like You. So, we have here the malady and we have here the chords and we have here the bassline, try to do that. Choose the song that you like a known song, a song that your mom would recognize, a song that's very effective, and learn the cords from, go online and type the name of the song and chords, find out the chords write them down, try to find the melody, the bassline and keep doing sketches like this. Choose easy songs in the beginning like Mary Had a Little Lamb, this child songs first because they're very easy. Then you can build up to some more, to more interesting stuff. After you're done share this piano sketch with your peers and you will get some feedback. You can spend more time on the piano sketch and then once you have a very strong idea in terms of melody, chords and bassline, then you can go ahead and start producing it with Cs, Q's and sound design and plugins, that will make your production way faster. Before you start the assignment, make sure to check out the link on the additional resources below. That video in there, will show you that certain diatonic chords are so strong together that dozens of songs end up using the same chords. Not, because people just copy from each other, but because our 12th Pitch Palette works, discuss, just work great with each other. So, I hope you get excited about this and you learn the ways of conventional diatonic chords and major tonalities and have fun with it. It will certainly make your production stronger. Now, in the next unit we're going to learn the diatonic minor chords. This is especially interesting for everybody that likes electronic dance music, because 90 percent of electronic dance music are made in a minor tonality. So, hope you're looking forward. I'll see you next unit. Unit four Chao. 31. Finding the Diatonic Minor Chords: Hey guys. What if you want to make a song in a minor tonality. Let me show you the difference between major and minor tonalities in a way that's very simple to understand by ear. Happy Birthday To You is in a major key. Let's listen to it. Now, if the same song is played in a minor tonality, it becomes like this. Let's start by writing a minor scale. All the white keys. We don't need the a to repeat. Okay? Now, actually, instead of walking with A minor. Let's work with C minor, because that way we can compare it to the major scale. All you have to do is select all the notes and go up to C. Now we have C minor scale, okay? Natural minor, C natural minor. Now, we're going to do the same thing as we did with the other scale. We're going to stack up all these notes vertically in each chord, okay? Let's do this C, D here, E flat, then we have an F, then we have a A, then we have a A flat, then we have a B, okay. D and then we have a D flat, then it have an F, then we have a G. Have a G flat, A flat, then we have a B flat. If you asking yourself, how do I know this? Well, I just know this, because I memorized it and that's going to happen to you once you use this scales enough but for now you can just look here. Right? We have D, what is the next note? F, what's the next note? G. What's the next note? What's the next note? Then you keep going and what's the next note after this? Is C, right? We go C and it keep going until you repeats after C is D. After D is D sharp. It's going to repeat. Just show you once again. What's the next note? Look horizontally. It's this one, so you put it vertically. Horizontally is this one, you put it vertically, horizontally is this one, you put it vertically. horizontally the next one is C, you put a C there, and then D, E flat and so on, right. Until it repeats again. Let's keep doing this. Flat, and then F, and then g, and here we have C, D, E flat, F, G and A flat. Okay. Then the next one will repeats, okay? Now, the same thing as we did with the major, we want to see every, we want to make intervals of thirds. We want to skip every other note, the middle one. For example, let's keep this, delete that. Keep, delete. Keep, delete. Keep delete. Keep delete. Keep delete. Now, this is a little bit more complicated because remember, we have three minor scales and, before, I told you guys I was going to explain why we have three minor scales as opposed to just one. The reason we have natural harmonic and melodic is because if we just analyze this chords here the way they are right now, we're going to find exactly the same chords we found for the major tonality just in a different order. That wouldn't be of much help to change the mood of things to make a minor as opposed to major. In order to make this function and gravitate together minor sound, we need to sometimes find these chords from the harmonic scale and sometimes find this chords from the melodic scale. If you guys well remember, I'm going to do a side notes here, okay? If you guys remember when we had a C. I'm just going to write a minor scale here. When we had a minor scale, let's go an A that's easy to see, all we did to make this harmonic was to raise the seven step and should make a melodic, we raise the seven and the six step. Okay? Now, if you put this back to C. We see here that these two notes can variate, okay? In the scale of C minor or C harmonic minor or C Melodic Minor, you can have this variations. So, sometimes we're going to see G sharps or A flats. Sometimes you're going to see A naturals and sometimes we going to see B flats or A sharps and sometimes we're going to see B naturals. Be aware that at points when we start analyzing this chords here, this chords here, sometimes all the G sharps can be As or not, or sometimes all the B's or B flats, A sharps can be B's or not. Depending of what tradition and convention says. That's why we studying music theory to learn about these conventions, okay? Now, let's analyze. The first chord here, which is minor third, and then major third, and then minor third. This is a minor seventh chord. The second chord, we're familiar with. This chord is a minor third, a minor third, and a major third. This is half diminish. The third chord we are also familiar with, which we have a major third. Then we have a minor third and then we have a Major third, so this is the major seventh chord. This chord we're also familiar with which is minor third, and then major third, and then minor third. So, this is a minor seventh chord. This chord here, we're also familiar with, and here's where we're going to have a little change. These notes, do you remember when I said that A sharp could change into B sometimes. So, yeah. We're going to bump this half-step. We're going to use as if it was the harmonic minor. After we do this, this chord here, we're familiar with, its major third. Then we have a minor third, and then we have a minor third. This chord is called Dominant seven, the seven chord. This other chord here, we're also familiar with and is the same thing as the third chord which is major third, minor third and then Major third, which is a major seventh chord. Finally, our last chord, we actually going to do another change. Same thing as we did here we bump this note up, we're going to bump this note to a B as well as if was from the harmonic minor scale as opposed to the natural one. Here, we're going to have a minor third, and then a minor third, and then another minor third. This is a diminished chord, fully diminished chord. For the first chords, we have minor seventh, then we have half diminished, then we have major seventh. Then we have minor seventh. Then we have seventh, like dominant chord, then we have major seventh. Then we have a fully diminished seventh chord. These chords are great, learn them, they all belong together in this order and we can use them to make great music. In the next video, I'll show you how to group this chords intention resolutions and then the video after that, we're going to analyze some songs and see how other composers use those sounds before. Ciao. 32. How These Chords Function (Tension and Resolution): Hey guys. The same way the minor sound, the minor tonality has then mysterious feeling to it, the way it works in terms of tension resolution, it's not so clear like the major tonality that has this chords tonic subdominant, dominant. In a minor tonality, they are more, some chords can function in both ways or different ways depending how you use. So, I'm going to make here that demonology looser, and let's just group chords into; less movement, which would be resolution chords. And media movement, which is chords they have some tension, but not a lot. And lots of movements, which are of chords that has a lot of tension and are very tense and move a lot. So, keep it in mind that none of this is, it's very strict. These are general guidelines, so we can understand how to analyze order songs. And so we have somewhere to start from when we are composing dealing with these chords. Okay. So, let's see here. In the first category, less movement resolution type of chords, we're going to have degrees one and four. Okay. So, let's see how they sound. Which is a minor seventh chord. And also another minor seventh chord. Nice. So I'm going to move this guy's at a doorway, and going through one and four together. Okay. Now, second category medium movement, some tension chords. They are two, three and six. So, two this guy here, two. And then three, which is this guy here. And then six which was this guy. Okay. So, what are the qualities we have here? We have a half diminished. We have a major seventh chord. And you have another major seventh chord. Okay. So, let's see how they sound. Okay. Now, let's see the last category, lot's of movement, and lots of tension. Okay. These are the fifth. And the seventh chords. Okay. They are, both sort of dominant. So, you see that the minor tonality we have two chords in this category, as opposed to just one like the, major tonality. Okay. So, memorize that, be familiar with this sub-grouping of the chords, and then when you feel comfortable with, let's go to the next video where we're going to explore some songs, that use this chords and see how, people or composers use this to make great music. Chao. 33. Exploring Songs Made with Diatonic Minor Chords: Hey, guys. So, here is where we're going to explore songs made within the minor tonality using that tonic minor chords, and see how other composers use the knowledge we just learn to create great songs. So, I just did the piano sketch for this song. It's the theme of the Godfather, the movie. Let's analyze the chords. So, we have the melody here, and here we have the chords. This is the C minor. So, C minor. So, if we see here, that means on our resolution side of things. Then we have F minor. It's also here, resolution part of it. So, after that, we go back to C minor, and then back to F minor, back to C minor. Then we have G. So, the G7, it's here. Also this chord here, a relaxed type of sound. It can sometimes function here too. For lot of minor chord progressions, this chord will belong in this group actually, and sometimes will be here. I told you, the minor tonality, it works in a bunch of different ways. So, here we see the Godfather once again and going 1414151. Same thing as some of the major tunes did, but with a minor chords instead. Before here is a minor seventh chord, so we can even add the seventh here. Or this chord, we could even add the seventh here so it would sound like this. Let's add this seventh here. Let's see how it sounds. Most importantly, did you see how this chords all came from the same scale of C minor and its variations? Just by using that, he made a great song. This is a cool way to practice. I heard the song in a movie came here, found out the chords and the melody and wrote it down, so now I know how it's made. So, this is going to improve my composition skills. Next time I'm going to compose a song in a minor tonality. If you can't learn by ear, just go online and type. I'm sure if you type Godfather chords, you'll find these chords, and then you just put in the key that you want. You can write it down whatever key you find, and then just select everything and move around. So, this song here is Mode Selector's Berlin. Is from CD Monkeytown. So, here, I did the piano sketch of.. The song is in E minor. So, to make things easy, I'm going to put these in C minor so we can compare it to the other songs. So I'm just going to select everything, and then move it down to C. So, in C, it sounds like this. Here, let's analyze. So, we have C minor. So, here we have a minor third and a major third, and then we go through. This chord is just inverted. So, if we get the top notes and put it down an octave is a G minor. C is a G here and minor third up to there, and then A-sharp to D is a major third. So, this is a minor chord. So, G to C, this is a five minor. It's supposed to be dominant, it's minor. So, here. When we built the chord on G here, you see? we had a natural B. But remember that the C scale, the C natural scale, he had a B-flat. We changed this to B natural in order to make this chord dominant. So, the composer of this piece just chose not to move that. This is an example of how you can play both ways with the seventh and the six degrees of the minor scale. So, let's go back here. So, we have one and we have five. Then, after that, we went to E-flat on the base. So, if we just bump these notes down, we see here E-flat major. So, from here to here we have a major third, and from here to here we have a minor third. So E-flat, let's see here where is our E-flat chord. E-flat. So D-sharp, E-flat, same notes. So, this chord here is where we had a kind of tension, but not really. So, that's we have here. So, we went from one to five, to three. Then, the final chord is we have A-flat here in the base. So, we have A-flat, C, E-flat. So, that's a major third here, and a minor third. Let's see our A-flat chord here. A-flat is right. A-flat right here because it's a G-sharp, A-flat is the an harmonic. A-flat and G-sharp, same thing. So, here we have it. A-flat, C, E-flat, and here we have A-flat, C, and A-flat and harmonics, but same thing. You see? So, you see that all the chords of this song belong to a minor tonality. So, whoever did this song knew where they were doing. They placed these chords here because they knew was coming from a particularly scale. So, you see how interesting can be like once you master this, you can do a lot with it, a lot, a lot. Keep in mind, the only thing that's tricky about this is the seventh and the sixth degree, which in this case of C minor is the B, can be a B-flat or natural B, and also the G-sharp can be a G-sharp and it can be also a natural A in all chords. For example here, we could also try this chord and this chord, because all the B's and all the G-sharps here can be altered because you would be implying in the harmonic scale or the melodic scale or the natural scale. So, you have even more possibilities than the major tonality. I hope this was inspiring and I hope you find songs on your own, easy songs and do this piano sketches. Spend time studying music as opposed to just making music. Try to learn the chords from others songs and what belongs where, and I guarantee in the future you're going to save time. Next video, we'll talk about how to make a piano sketch using the minor tonality, and I'll give you a little challenge. Ciao! 34. Chord Knowledge and Songwriting: Hey, guys. Let me show you how you should do a piano a sketch of a song in a minor tonality. You can start from where you study it and then come up something really original. So, remember the mode selectors song we analyze in the previous class, it sounded something like this. Okay, so I'm just going to copy that clip here, and I change the color. I am going to delete everything besides the first chord. I also like the groove they had it. So, we have so far. Okay, I'm going to repeat this and also I like a seventh chord here. So, remember that we have this chords to pick and choose from. The chords from the minor tonality. So, at this point, you should have memorized all those and know your way around those. If you didn't, try to do that sooner the better because then everything else will just be easier. So, here, I'm going to go into the second chord. So, the D chord is a half-diminished chord. So, I'm just going to go here and make my D, which will be D, minor third, minor third and major third. So, I'm going to go like this, and then immediately I'm going to fall to G, which is the dominant. So, it's a major third and the minor third, minor third. Then, I'm going to go back to C, but I'm going to go back to these ones here. Let's see what I have so far. I like that tee ta. I'm going to linger this chord here and just repeats again before it keeps going. Then, I'm going to go to, let's see. Let's try E-flat. A, sorry A-flat or G-sharp major. So, something like this. Then, I'm going to repeat this. Then, I'm going to go to the fourth which is a F minor, let's see. Maybe just go here, and then. So, I like drum and bass. So, my sketch is going to be at 160 BPM and I'm going to add a little loop here just to get things going. Later on, if I want to turn this into a real production, I will delete the loop and do my own groove, my own samples, my own drums, and change it this piano notes into basses, pads, chords, leads, vocals and whatever. But, for now, let's just have things going here, let's see how it sounds at that speed. All right. So, now, I'm going to do a bass. So, now, that I know the chords, I know where to be. Then, maybe just to. So, doing a piano sketch will allow you to walk on the essence of the music from way longer and then worry about production later. That way, once you have a good musical thing going on, you can turn that into a million different styles, you know how a good song can be done in a million different versions. So, before you jump into your production, if make sure you have a good song or good material here, you can produce in a much stronger way. Also, keep it in mind that all my examples is one or two or three or four bars long, but you could literally do a whole sketch like you could do an entire song instead of just four bars. You don't have to, but I'm just limited here because of time, but feel free to explore with the piano chords and melodies as long as you want, any way you want and then have fun with it. Okay, so now it's your turn to apply this theory. Make a song just using the piano mini or piano sketch, that use chords and melodies and share on the forum, on the class, so your friends can give you feedback, your peers here they're also watching this class, can give you some feedback. Have fun and make sure to export the minor tonality because it's a very interesting sound. So, just to wrap it up. On this last class, you learned all the basic chords, major, minor, diminished, augmented, triads, major seventh, dominant seventh, minor seventh, half-diminished, and diminished tetrachords. You also learn all the basic chord symbols and how to read them. You also learned which chords belong in a major personality and which chords belong in a minor tonality. You'll also learn how to apply the theory to make songs and to see how other songs were made. So, your main project will be to have these two piano sketches, one of a major tonality and one in a minor tonality. Make sure your piano sketch has chords, melody and bass. Okay? All right, have fun. See you on lesson three. 35. Compound Meters: Duple, Triple and Quadruple: Hey guys. We already learned about simple meters such as duple, triple, and quadruple meters. That simply means that you can group the beats of your song in groups of two, three, or four. Each of these meters also called time signatures give music a particular feel. Most EDM have a simple quadruple meter and Waltz's, for example, have a triple meter. On this video, we're going to learn about compound meters. Compound meters or time signatures simply means that instead of dividing each beat by two in order to find this smaller note length, half note, quarter note, eighth note, we would divide each beat by three. Essentially, is the same thing as using triplets in the simple meter. But the difference is that when you use triplets, there's just that duple you use here and there to diversify the rhythms you're using. So, for example, let's say I make like a beat that has, and then I a duple. So, I have a quarter note, two eighth notes, a quarter note, and here I'm going to go to eighth note triplets, and I'm going to go. Let's see. Then I'm going to put a beat against it. We notice that only on this part we have triplets. All this and our beats, they are all in a simple meter grid. So, the triplets here just feel like a twist. It doesn't feel like the whole song is in a compound meter. So, let me show you a song that you can say this is a compound meter which is FML by Deadmaus, from the album, From Lack of a Better Name. You see when the bass drops, the song will feel in three subdivisions by three as opposed to subdivisions by four. Check it up. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. You can't count this in two. So, one, two. One, two. One, two. One, two. One two. One, two. The base is not doing that. All right. The drums. It's going one, two, one, two, one, two. But the base, It's going three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. So, you can say this is a compound meter. So, for example, if the song was in a simple meter, it would sound like tata tata tata tata or tatatata tatatata tatatata tatatata tatatata tatatata, because that's four or two subdivisions per beat. But Deadmaus' track FML had three as opposed to two. So it was one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, tatatata tatatata tatatata tatatata. Traditional theory shows duple, triple, and quadruple compound meters by 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8. FML can be interpreted as having a 12/8 meter, because it feels that beats are grouped into one bar of music, but also that each beat have an inner subdivision of three instead of two. The equivalence is a 2/4 with triplets it would sound like a 6/8. 3/4 simple meter with triplets would equal a 9/8 meter, and the 4/4 meter with triplets all the way would sound like a 12/8 meter. With that said, I don't recommend you to use compound meters on your music software to produce music to ride in there in 6/8 or whatever unless you really know what you're doing. You're better off just using simple meters and changing the midi grids to triplets, and that's probably what Deadmaus did to produce FML. When musicians deal with traditional notation, it makes sense to use compound meters to simplify the notation on the paper. But for our purposes, there is no much difference between 4/4 played with triplets and a 12/8 meter. Now it's your turn of learning by doing it. Explore the compound meters sound on your midi sequencer. By making our entire piano sketch, with the triplet grid turned on. For the whole time, just put the triplet grid and just stay with it and see if you get inspired in a different way. Against this piano sketch, have a loop going with a beat. So, you feel the three against two. The three of your piano sketch, against the two subdivision from whatever loop you're using. Then share your results with your peers on this class' forum. You'll get some good feedback and get more inspired to keep studying music theory and making more music. Ciao. 36. Syncopation : Hey, guys. Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, syncopation. It's just a really fun rhythmic device that you can use to give shuffles and grooves and different rhythm fills to your songs. Syncopation is the name for when the strong beat of a meter is displaced. So, instead of going one, two, three, four, maybe you go- you subdivide in odd ways and I'll show that in a little bit. Jazz and deep house are among the musical styles that have constant syncopation. Let's see an example here. I found this track, that actually is called 10 walls walking with elephants and it syncopates quite a lot. So check this out. The baseline syncopated. Listen to it. So here I just did a piano sketch of that song, just the bass against some simple beats. So we can see exactly what's going on in terms of syncopation. So I'll expand this here. All right. Let's listen to it. All right. So here the first thing we noticed is we only have two bass notes on the one so you see each bar, a bar is this big in this grid and we have these notes, and we have these notes, they're right on the beat. See here there's nothing on the beat. And see here there's nothing on the beat. So here we have two different groups. We have this side, the syncopate and then he restarts the rhythm on this side and syncopates again. So let's look here what is syncopation in- for our purposes on this grid. You see here that this song- these notes are supposed to fall in here. If these notes were on the beat, they would sound like this. Right. Listen how this would sound. Everything on the beat. Right. Let's listen to it. Again. You see everything is on the strong beats very predictable. So what he did is instead of being on the beat he displaced, you see here we have this column but all the notes are offsetted. If I highlight this thing and I move two to the side, you'll see how this is aligned. This is now aligned. This is aligned. But that's not what he had. He had it like that. So he just placed this rhythm from the strong beats instead of being here, It's right there. Instead of being here, it's right there. So let's see how it sounds syncopated. Right. So syncopation is the field that's offsetting the strong beat. Now let's look at an example, I used this piano sketch I made as an example in a previous class. It sounded like this. So now what I'm going to do is, I'm going to start offsetting just the chords, I'm going to leave the bass alone and the melody and I'm going to offset discords. So for now, Instead of changing the chords every strong beat, I'm going to make them slightly shorter. And I'm going to copy them as if they are, for lack of a better term, as if they are wrong. Like happening in a weird way. And then maybe here I'll go back to something less strong, maybe not. And then let's start offsetting, you see how it changes on the strong beat? We don't want that. So let's make this change you know in a offsetted way. You see how it's offsetted with the grid instead of being here it's there now. And then one more, and then just make this one out of the way. So you can replace this one, one more. And then, maybe at the very end we'll do something more conventional, so you see here we have a grid from here to here. So this is half, so this is conventional. So after these displacements here it's conventional. So there's only two places discords will sound like conventional which is right in the middle of the progression and just at the very end, so when it turns around E goes back to the strong beat. Okay. Let's see how it sounds now. Okay. Now what's weird is the bass line had to change only when- the notes of the bass line have to change when the cords change. So we're just going to make sure here these chords, the base lines are following the chords even though they are displaced, the baseline should be displaced as well. Okay. So now I think we're in good shape. Maybe I'll make this one here earlier. Let's hear. Okay. So let's compare this one with this one. To be even more clear. Let's mute the baseline. See the difference. Now it's your turn, make a piano sketch using ideas of syncopation and displace in the strong beat, and remember to share your results with your peers on the class forum. You will see there are other people are doing really interesting things with syncopation and you might get some useful feedback. Ciao. 37. Complex Meters: Hey guys, we are ready to learn that we can group beats into groups of two, three, or four, and that each beat can be further divided into two or three in order to find the smaller note lengths. Now we're going to move ahead and talk about complex meters. A lot of people call complex meters odd meters. I personally don't like this term because triple meters like three, four, it's still an odd number like three is our odd number, but nonetheless three-four is the simple meter, so let's call complex meters by it's proper name, complex meters. A complex meter simply mean that instead of grouping the beats either into two, three or four like the duple, triple and quadruple. Beats now are grouped into five or more beats. Note that eight beats and 16, they will just sound like four because two times four is eight and two times eight is 16. So, complex meters have odd numbers of beats greater than four. With the time I had to research, I could not find any electronic dance music track that had a complex meter. So, I will choose one of my songs. It's a remix of Take Ten. It's a Paul Desmond's jazz song, I did a remix for, and let me show you what I mean. This song instead of being divided by four quadruple meter, is divided by five. So, during the drum introduction I will count five and then I will stop when the music kicks in, and then see if you can hear five instead of four. One, two, three, four, five. DJs will hate you if you ask them should DJ attracts in a complex meter because the irregular grouping of beats will make the track crash with the usual 4/4 meters that other tracks will have, but give it a try. The way I see it, you should make music that you want to make and you should explore music. I'm sure that if you make a great tracks using complex meters, other people will get inspired and will also will start making complex meters tracks for electronic music or for all kinds of music. Then DJs will figure out how to mix between tracks with complex meters. So let me give you an example here. I did a quick piano sketch. So, this would be a little pianist catch in 4/4. Check this out. One, two, three, four. Now, I'm going into five. One, two, three, four, five. You see it is a good groove, people will dance to that in a heartbeat. So, feel free to explore. Now, learn by doing it. Try to make a piano sketch, a loop that has seven beats per bar. When you're done share with your peers on the class forum, and you might be surprised of how many cool, different grooves you can find if you only explore complex meters. Have fun! 38. Chromatic Scales: Hey guys. We're going to learn about the chromatic scale. This scale uses all the possible pitches we have in our 12th palate. Its intervallic relationship is simple. It's just endless successions of half-step. So, it starts repeating after 12 but that's what it is. It's 12 half steps in a row. So, it would look like this and then the next notes start repeating. So, it sounds like this or if you go down, let me just mute this one, if you go down, you could sound something like this. If you go down. Now if you go up and down, why not? Maybe I'll set the last one there. The chromatic scale is the piano version of a pitch dive of riser. We use it with the facts and white noise and synthesizers. This is how you do it with notes in the piano or in a keyboard, or you can incorporate these scales into your composition. It's very useful to compose music that sounds like runs, so it's stuff like this or if you want to go up and down for some reason. Chromatic scale is a lot of information so maybe you do a little bit with it and a little bit without it. Let me show you this little melody I just made here. It's just simple notes and then at the very end, I put a chromatic scale, so that type of thing. So, the idea is not to make a whole song with the chromatic scale but it's to use it tastefully here and there and to connect the notes. So, let's say I want to get these notes up there. Let's see how this would sound. So, it can be a very useful tool to know. Keep this device in mind for the next time we are doing a piano sketch. Try to incorporate a little of the chromatic run here and there and see if you enjoy how it sounds. Have fun! 39. Whole-Tone Scales: Hey guys? We're going to learn about the whole-tone scale. The whole-tone scale is similar to the chromatic scale in the sense that both are what we call symmetrical scales. So, why symmetrical? Because the chromatic scale, you just do a bunch of half steps in a row. So, it's symmetric. No matter where you divide it, this sequence, this scale, you'll find the same intervals. With the whole-tone, the same thing. But instead of half steps, it's going to be whole steps. So, let's just do this. Here, and then, instead of half step, whole step. Whole step, whole step, whole step, and then, we repeat it. This scale here. Let's see how this sounds, let me make this lower, so we can really hear. This scale had been associated with impressionism. An impressionist composers such as Debussy, and Ravel, this sounds very dreamy. So, as if like something is about to happen, and you play something like, as if somebody had an idea, or is something waiting to happen. Look. This scale, have not been very used by electronic music producers. So, consider using this scale, maybe you find a fresh sound, or some fresh color for electronic dance music tracks. I'll say the same thing about the whole-tone, as I mentioned for the chromatic scale. Keep this scale in mind, the next time you are doing a piano sketch. So, I just did the little piano sketch here, with the beats, and then a little melody could be something like, this is all the notes you heard, and all these notes here, they are all the whole-tone scale. It sounds weird, or different. So, keep this color in mind for the next time you're composing something, maybe it will be handy for you. Remember, that once you have a piano sketch that uses the whole-tone, post on the forum, on the skillshare forum so your peers can give you feedback, and you can see what other people are doing with the whole-tone scale. Have fun. 40. Diminished Scales: Hey guys, now I'll show you one of my favorite scales. This is also symmetric scale. The intervallic relationship is whole step, half step, whole step, half step, whole step, half step. So, let's do it, pretty straightforward. Let's see here. Whole step, half step, whole, half, whole, half, whole, half. Okay, let's see how it sounds. Okay, let's hear how this sounds against a diminished chord. Yes, so this is scale sounds very tense. Let me show you something interesting about this, this diminished scale. Inside of it, using the notes of the diminished scale, we can find a bunch of major and minor triads. So, for example, D, F and A. So, here, D, F and A. Remember, this minor triad, minor third, major third, right? Look if I get there's notes here, right? So, I'm going to put it here G-sharp, C and D-sharp. Remember this, major triad, major third, here, minor third there. So, let's find F, A, C right here, F, A, C. Remember this, this is a major triad, major third, minor third. So, there is a bunch of other triads in here and the interesting thing, is that once you play those routes in the base, you change the sound of the scale. So, let me show you these three, a D, G-sharp and F on the base and look at the difference. So, first D sounds like this. Now, look if it was G-sharp. Now, look if it was F. So, this scale forms in different shapes and different sounds and has a lot of information within it. So, keep it in mind a whole half-step and try to use in your piano sketches. I did a little piano sketch here on, I actually didn't do but I'm going to do it right here on the flyer okay? So, let's find the base note here and then. So, the scale, I memorized the notes of this scale but there is an A there, so, I'm only using notes of C diminished, okay? Then, as the song plays, I'm going to mute this note on and off so we see a variation, just so you don't have to write again, check this out. Or if I play some diminished chords on top of some of the minor and the major triads there in there, look at the sounds we get. This scale offers you endless possibilities. Like the other advanced scales I showed you, the whole tone, the chromatic scale, you don't have to make an entire song with the diminished scale, the diminished scale is something you put here and there to give it twists, to give tense flavor and then you move on. But nothing stops you from doing a whole song with the diminished scale, it's just going to be a dark one. Okay, so keep these sound in your toolbox and try to incorporate a little diminished scale even if it's a little run just like, whole, half, whole, half, whole, half. Even if it's just that here and there. Let this sound sink in, eventually, they'll be handy. Then, after you have a piano sketch, then you have a little diminished scaling there, you'd run the bass or on the melody, post it on the forum for your classmates to give you feedback and for you to see what other people are doing. Okay, have fun. Ciao. 41. Listening to a Diminished Scale in Context: Hey guys. Let me show you a little piano sketch I did just using C diminished scale. I could have done with a whole tone or a chromatic scale, but the diminished scale is the one that's richer, that has most things in it. So, it's easier to stick with it for whole song as opposed to the chromatic and the whole tone, but feel free to pick any of those and we're going to give you an example, and then we'll be your turn to do something like that. So, this is a little base line and then I have chords, and then have melodies, and then I have a loop as well, a drumming base loop, and it's all nodes of the C diminished scale okay? So, let's hear. So, it's a very rich scale and it gives you lots of things to do with it. So, give it a try of learning by doing it. Do a piano sketch using the chromatic, or the whole town, or diminish, or all of them, and a drum loop, and share on the class forum, and see what your friends think about. Maybe you find a gold-mining there. Hope you guys had fun with this advanced scales used in moderation or not, and have fun. 42. Note Possibilities: Major Chord Extensions: Hey guys. We are already familiar with the Major seventh data chord. Now, let me show you what extensions are and how can they be used in this type of chord. So, let's make a C Major seventh chord here which is C, and then we have a Major third, and then what's the next note we have? A Minor third and then what? Major third. Okay, so this is a C Major seventh chord. Now, let's keep stacking notes here in triads and see which notes we get. Okay. So, I don't know if you guys remember how to do this, but basically we just keep going with the scale, and then we delete every other note to see what we find. So, I'm just going to go down here and I'm going to keep writing these notes. So C, D, E, F. We are in the scale of C Major right? You guys remember that. So, keep writing these notes here, and the next note would be B, so we don't need it because we already have it. So, now we stop here so let's keep this one, and then skip this one, keep this one, skip this one, keep this one, skip this one. Now, when you look at the bigger picture, what happens is this. Let's see the notes we got C, E, G, B but then when we went above the data chord, and still keeping triads, we found notes we didn't have before like D, F and A. So, those extra notes here are called extensions. So, now I need to teach you guys which notes go well here and which notes don't. From these notes, this note is called the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. We already know that right? This note here is called the 9th and the ninth because if this seven, the next note here will be eight, and this will be the ninth. So, the distance between this and this guy here is a ninth. We didn't learn that on intervals, but it's not rocket science, it's just the next one. So, if this is ninth, this one here will be 10th. This one will be the 11th. If this one is the 11th, this will be 12 and this will be 13th. So, in Major, here's the information you need to know. On Major seventh chords, we don't want the 13th, and we also don't want the natural 11th. But if we make this 11th sharp, it works. I know F Sharp is not in the scale of C Major, but it works for reasons that are complicated to get into it, at this point we just memorized the extensions that work and the extensions that don't, you start using them in songs and then you can go look up this information why it happens like this, later on if you are interested or- you can just look up the ones that you are going to decide you keep using it and stuff like that. So, now let's hear the difference between this chord and this chord played with extensions and this chord played just a tetrachord okay? So, here's the difference, I have a little drum loop in there just to make a sound like music. Hear. Also this range is pretty high let's go down an octave. It sounds even better if I get the roots alone and just put the roots octave below and leave the chords as it is. Let's listen. So, it's a broader sound, so keep this color in mind for the next time you see a Major seventh chord. Anywhere you see a Major seventh chord, try to add the ninth, which is the D on top in the C Major for example, or the sharp 11th, and the sharp 11th is the same thing as the fourth note of the scale, or if you keep going ninth, 10th, 11th would be this does note, you just make it sharp. So, in the case of C is that sharp. All right, keep using these extensions on your piano sketches and I'll see you in the next video. 43. Note Possibilities: Minor 7th and Half-Diminished Chord Extensions: Hey guys. Let's learn which extensions sound good with the minor seventh chord and half-diminished chord, okay? So, a minor seventh chord, you guys are already familiar with, right? So, let's pick "A", the one we always use. So, "A", and then we have a minor third, and then we have a major third, and then we have a minor third, okay. So, "A" minor seventh. Now, let's keep going in thirds to find the extensions. So, you know all the white keys of the piano, until we repeat our next note. Sorry, we already repeated. No, that's right. Okay. So, our top note here was "G". So, let's keep that, let's keep the "G", delete the next one, keep this one, delete, keep, delete. Okay. So, on top of our original tetrachord, our minor seventh chord, we have this now being the ninth, the 11th, and the 13th. Okay. So, in a minor seventh chord, the extensions you want to use, or the ninth and the 11th. So, the 13th, we're going to delete because that's not very used. So, ninth, which is this, and 11th, just as they are natural. So, no sharps, no flats. So, let's see how it sounds. I'm going to duplicate this chord here. So, this one, just the original tetrachord, and this one with the extensions. Okay? I'm going to get the roots, the bass notes, and I'm going to make one octave lower, just to give us some space to hear the difference between these chords. Okay? Let's listen. Okay. Now, let's learn the half-diminished chord, which extensions fit, and which extensions do not fit? So, our half-diminished chord of choice is the seventh degree of a major scale. Remember, we had a half-diminished chord there, or the second degree of a minor scale. So, in either case, let's make all the white notes of the piano. So, let's start with "B". Then, let's make our half-diminished. So, we know the half-diminished have a minor third, then another minor third, and then a major third. Okay. So now, if we keep going to the extensions, so, let's keep putting notes until we get, until we don't need to repeat the "B". So, "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "A", and we don't need another "B". Okay. So, our top note here was "A". So, let's keep the "A", delete, keep, delete, Keep, delete, keep, delete. Okay. So, this note here is the ninth, 11th and 13th. Okay. For the half-diminished chords, the extensions are the same as for minor seventh chord. So, we don't want the 13th, and the ninth, and the ninth, and the 11th, we keep it. Okay. Now, pay attention to this, the root here is "B". So, let me just put this "B" here to give you an idea where the root is. Okay. A natural ninth, it has two half-steps, because if we go, let's say we make a "C" major scale here, and we put the "C" one octave below, from "C" to this "C", you have eight interval, and then here you have a ninth. So, from this "C" to this "D", it's a ninth. Okay. So, that means once you get this note an octave up, you need two half steps distance. Okay. Now, this note here, where do we go one octave below to match our root, when we go one octave up, we only have a half-step here. So, remember then the half-diminished chord, you need to make the ninth go one half-step up. This wouldn't be called the sharp ninth, it would be called the natural ninth, because the natural thing is for the, from this note to this note should have two half-steps. Okay. So, you can just memorize that, that the ninth of a half-diminished chord needs to be two half-steps away from the root, octave up. Okay. So, now here we have two half-steps, and then, if we didn't do that, and we had that, we had the natural "C" here, once if we had the natural "C", and now it went up with the root, you see, we only have a half-step. So, that's not good. That would sound weird. Okay. So, let's make sure to sharpen these notes. Okay. So, with that said, let's, hear the difference between let's make this octave lower. Okay. I'm going to make the root lower. Okay. Or, make octave up, or- Also, feel free to experiment with just one of the extensions are supposed to all of them at the same time so for example, You can even do melodies using the knowledge you have about extensions now. See you're highlighting the extensions here, and then, you know, for example, you know. So, this knowledge about tensions are going to come very handy for unit four when we talk about voice leading. So, for now, just learn this, on a half-diminished chord as well as the minor chord, we need the extensions ninth and 11th, both natural. Remember they are on the half-diminished. To make a natural of the ninth, you need to raise it a half-step. All right guys, see you in next class. When we're going to talk about the possible extensions of dominant seventh chords. Cheers. 44. Note Possibilities: Dominant 7th Chord Extensions: Hey guys. Dominant seven chords are the paradise of extensions. So, this type of chord can handle the biggest amount of extensions. We can have natural nines, flat nine, sharp nine, natural 11th, sharp 11th, and natural 13th, and flat 13th, but let's look at it up close, okay? So, in order to keep y notes of the piano, let's make the dominant chord of G, okay? So, you know how to make a dominant chord, which is major third and then minor third and minor third, okay? This dominant seven chord G dominant seven. Now, let's just keep going to find the extensions. So, we're just going to keep using the white keys of the piano until we get to F. The next node will be G, we don't want to repeat, okay? So, the top nodes here of our regional chord was F. So, now, let's keep this, delete. Keep, delete. Keep, delete. Keep, delete, okay? So, now, we have root, third, fifth, seventh. This will be the ninth, this will be the 11th, and this will be the 13th, okay? So, let me make it here. All right. So, let's hear how it sounds with everything. Okay. I'm going to put the G octave below, just so we get some distance. All right. So now, let's start altering. So, I told you guys that the ninth can go flat or can go sharp. The 11th can go sharp, and the 13th can go either flat or sharp. Okay? So, let's try one thing at a time. So, first, let's just try without these nodes here. Let's just try a flat nine. Really cool sound. Right? Now, look with the sharp nine. It's almost like surprise, the sharp nine. Okay? So, natural nine, okay, kind of boring but it can be useful. Now, let's have here the 11th, okay? Now, let's make the 11 sharp, right? Like surprise type of sound as well. Now, we can use the sharp 11 with the flat nine. Try to hear this note here. Sorry. Try to hear these notes. See, it's a lot of different callers at once. It can be very useful for some chord progressions. Now let's try the sharp 11th but with the sharp nine as well. It can sound pretty interesting too. Now, we can have the natural 13th here, or we can make this new to these guys, and then maybe have this flat. Or we can unmute this and have everything altered. Right? So, let me show you a use for this. So, for example, this, let's say going into a minor chord. So, let's go this G, C minor, okay? So, I'm just going to write a C minor here. So let's hear, and I'm going to put the extensions here that we already learned for C minor seven or minor seven, which is the nine, and then the 11th, okay? So, let's hear. Right. Now, look, if we put let's say flat nine and non of these are the ones. Cool, right? Or natural 13 and the flat nine and no 11. So, all the extensions are possible on the dominant seven chord. So, keep it in minds, natural nine, flat nine, sharp nine, eleven, sharp 11, thirteenth, and flat 13th. Try to incorporate some of those sounds on your next piano sketch, and have fun. 45. Inversions: Root, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Positions: Hey guys, welcome to unit four, Inversions and Rootless Chords. This is a very very important class. We're going to learn about inversions. We'll learn how to flip the chords we already know in order to make them flow into other chords better, to make them transition between chords more seamlessly. The idea is very simple, and apply for all types of chords, both triads and tetra chords. The idea is very simple. Let's have a chord here, we could have any chord. Okay. But let's make us C dominant seven. Okay. So, how do we make a C dominant seven, major third, minor third, minor third. Okay. C dominant seven. Now, I'm going to copy this chord four times. Okay. So, when the code is in its original position, when the notes that gives the chord it's name is at the bottom, we call this the root position. All right. Now, when we get the root and we shoot it one octave up, this is called the first inversion. So, note that the first inversion has the third of the chord at the bottom. Now, the next thing we do is here, and let's put the root up, but also let's put the third of the chord up. So now, we have the fifth of the chord on the bottom, and this is called the second inversion. All right. Then finally, we'll put the roots octave up. We'll also put the third, one octave up. We will also put the fifth one octave up. Okay. So now, we have the seventh at the bottom of the chord. When that happens, we call this the third inversion. Okay. Let's hear how it sounds. Did you hear, if is the same chord, we hear the same sounds. They function the same, they would work the same way in the song, but the notes adjusting different places. So, I'm going to let this loop run twice, and keep listening how the quality doesn't change. The only thing that changes is the color and the position of the notes. All right. On our next lesson, we'll learn about Rootless Chords. The following classes, we'll learn how to put these two concepts together, inversions and rootless chords into practice. So, hang in there, and I will show you within the next two classes how to put this to use. Okay. See you in the next video chapter. 46. Rootless Chords: Hey guys? We are here to talk about rootless chords. So, you know what a root is, right? So, when we have any chords, so, let's say here we have a C triad, okay? This, the bottom note is called the root, all right? So, we can also have bigger chords. So, if you have a C dominant, flat nine, sharp 11, flat 13 chord, right? Like a really big chord with extensions and everything. So, the idea here is very simple. The idea is if you play this chord, it will sound kind of mighty, kind of heavy, so let's listen. Right? So, let's go octave lower again. All right? So, when we start adding extensions and other things the chords get very dense. Remember the principle of musical density? So, in order to alleviate this and make this flow better, we can get the root of the chord and bump one octave lower, or even two octave lowers, Okay? So let's hear. Okay? That way the root is not influencing the colors of the rest of the notes. Now, if we deleted this root altogether, so I'm going to mute it. The chord will still work so listen to it. Now with the root. Now without it. The chord still functions. So, try to do these in some of your piano sketches. Try to have complex chords with extensions and everything but without the root so you see how can they feel less dense. Also, in order for a chord to maintain its function, all you need is the third and the seventh of the chord, okay? So, what I'm telling you is, if you leave the third and you leave the seventh, if you delete everything else, this chord will still sound the same. Look. That or taking off the root and the other notes. I mean obviously the chord sounds different but in terms of function, it's still the same. So remember, you can strip down chords all the way to only the third and the fifth, and you can dress up chords, putting the roots to the fifth, the seventh, the ninth, the 11th and everything according to the previous units where I told you which extensions work for each type of chord. So, let me give you an example, here, let's see here. Here, I have one note at the bottom, so this is a C Major seven chord, okay? So the root is far away from the chord and just the seventh chord, and we hearing this sort of sound. Now, the different sound there, I added here, an extension. I put the sharp 11, right? And I also added the ninth here, one octave below. Instead of putting the ninth up there, I just switched the octave lower. Keep that in mind you can always switch the octaves between the notes that form these chords, and it would still work, okay? So, look at the difference with the ninth and the 11th and without the ninth and the 11th. Right? Now, I just made the base line a little bit more interesting. So, when you first hear the beginning of the chords, you don't hear the roots, you see how you hear this and the root only joins in later. So, the other note on the base is going to a F Sharp, down here. Because on the chord, I added the sharp 11, which is F Sharp. F Sharp is right here, so I added this note in the base, and this helps for the colors of this chord, and all these different colors to work in different ways. For these colors to change all the time should make it interesting. So sounds like this with the single base. Changing the base a little bit, adding the extensions on the baseline. Then, all you need is, add some sort of beats, and you have a good thing going. So, remember this, you can take the root out, you can make the root go way below like two octaves, one octave below the chords, you can have the chords with extensions, or you can have the chords without anything besides the third and the seventh note. So, let's do an experiment here. I'm going to get this last version here, the drum and bass version, and I'm going to let it loop twice, the way it is. And then two more times where I'm going to delete the ninth, the 11th and also- the base I'll leave to make a groove. But, we only have now the third and the seventh, okay? So, two times with everything, and then I'm going to delete everything else besides the third, the seventh, the bass. So, it will sound like. So, this hopefully will help you to be very flexible with your chords. So, when something is not sounding good, maybe its too dense, you can remove some notes. Maybe it's too simple so you can add some notes, and you can always play having the root, not having the root, having extensions on the base, not having extensions on the base. So, remember that, and that will make a piano sketches way better, all right? So, next class we will talk about something really fun. We're going to combine the idea of intervals and rootless chords, and we're going to teach you the basic voice leading principle, that is, how to make one chord flow into the other chord better, and that is the last thing that's going to make a production really sound legit, okay? Ciao. 47. Basic Principles of Voice Leading: Hey guys, let's learn how to use the concepts of inversions and rootless chords in order to improve the way one chord flows into the next. We're going to learn the basic voice leading principle in order to transition between chords, okay, so check this out. This is the piano sketch I did of the song Help From The Beatles. So for those of you that don't know which song is that let me show you Help Beatles. So that's the song. So we just going to listen to the first four chords. So this is the piano sketch I made of that song, okay, let's listen to it. So the chords I looked up online and there was a B minor, G major, E major and then A major. Okay? So I just wrote the triads here the way I saw on the website and then I learned a melody by year but now there is a problem. Look, when we mute the melody. I'm going to mute the melody, the chords are like jumping from this chord jumps into this chord and then jumps up to this chord, it sounds weird. Like the chords are not flowing well. Listen for the chords without the melody. I don't know if you guys can tell but this is not good chord writing because this chord is jumping and jumping and jumping, it's just weird, okay. So the basic voice leading principle says, only move each note of the chord either a whole or a half step from the previous note and this doesn't need to be very restricted rule but kind of. So check this out what I mean. So we have this chord here, okay. So B minor. Now for the next chord to flow well this note is moving from this note to this note we are moving half step or a whole step or nothing. So we're moving nothing. So that's good. These notes from this note we're not moving anything so that's good but now look, this note is moving a lot. Like three half steps from there, four half-steps. So what we do just get this note and inverts. So let's do the first inversion we learned so we shoot the root up, now we have the third on the base and now look, this chord is going just half-step to this chord. So now this works much better let's listen to it, as opposed to, see here is much smoother, okay? Now let's see here, here while this note is going half step here, this note is going a whole step here that here so that's fine but this note is clearly out of it so let's get this notes and shoot one octave down. Okay? Well, when we did this now this chord is E seven and we have the fifth on the base so this is the second inversion okay? So now look at this is now moving, that's good, whole step is good, half-step it's good so this works, okay. So now let's see here, here we have, not moving that's good, here we have half-step, oh sorry we have a wholly step that's okay, and now let's move this guy. This guy also has a whole step but if we move this one it's going to be too far here okay so let's go back. Let's move this one octave up. All right, so we have whole step, not moving, half-step. So let's listen how this chord progression sounds now. Much much much much better. Now let's add the melody here and also let's do this. I told you guys that let's split the roots, so let's make the roots like on the lower octave so things sound more beefy sound better. So here the root is B. Okay, the reason I'm not going to just flip it down it's because we are going to be left with just two notes and we need the third and the seventh to preserve the integrity of the chord. But in this case we have no seventh because the song's made of triads okay. So in this case I'm just going to repeat the notes okay. So here the base lines are B and then here it's G right so because the first inversion so G and then this is E right, so we have the fifth from the base is also second inversion. Okay, so E right because the B is the fifth second inversion so it's E and then this chord here it's A, we have the third in the base so this is first inversion so third on the base, so the base is A, now I'm going to make these base notes big okay. Now let's listen to how this sounds and then yeah let's just listen how it sounds. This is way way better writing than what we had before okay, so keep this in mind, from now on when you write chords, either on your piano sketches or in your actual productions have the voice leading principles in mind don't jump between chords, keep them flowing smoothly instead. This information will make all your previous piano sketches and production sound better. As a quick assignment, go over your old productions, the ones you had saved and your old piano sketches and look at each of them and try to fix the chords the way I did here, if a note is really far away try to flip, pick a note and experiment with different octaves until everything gets kind of uniform, until everything is kind of moving in nice harmony. You know a lot of this came from choirs because imagine here you have one voice of the choir playing this note and here you have another voice of the choir playing this note and here you have another voice of the choir playing this note so the idea is the chords are vertical, they are notes stuck up like this but they also have to flow well horizontally okay like that and in order to make this happen either make the same notes repeat or half step or a whole step okay. All right, enjoy this new piece of information. Ciao. 48. Modulation: Hey guys. Here we are on our final unit. Congratulations, you came a long way and this unit will be fun. We'll talk about modulation, modal harmony, and common chord progressions. So, what is modulation? Modulation is simply the transitioning from one key or tonality to another. It makes music, especially repetitive music or any music, sound fresh once again. It also sounds epic. I'm going to show you a video that gives a very funny example of keys modulating. So, in each time the keys changed, they hit a button that says, key change, and that's when they're modulating. It's when it says, key change. So, let's see a few examples here. All right. So, let me show you another example now of something that's modulating within one song instead of changing all the time like this, Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror. All right. So, modulating is pretty cool. Heavy minds that classic pop modulations are either a whole step up or a half-step. There are some minor third modulations as well but be careful not to modulate to a key that's really far away from where you are. Just because if you do that, your original base, nodes, and your chords, and your melody, might get into some funky range that no longer sounds good. If people are singing, you need to be mindful if they can still sing in the new key, and there is always a way to make a modulation work. This can be a really good creative tool if you really know what you're doing. But for now, let's just stick with like a whole step modulation. A whole step up, that's pretty much all the modulations we heard here. How to modulate? Actually, it's not hard at all. What I did here is I just made a piano sketch of a Latin song I had in mind with the drum and base loop. So, let's listen to my piano sketch and then I'll add the drums. So, I'm going to add the drums now. Okay. So, in order to modulate is the easiest thing. Just select everything, duplicate and then your new staff just go up twice, one, two. So, that's a whole step up, two-half steps up. So, just to check here, see that the first nodes we have here is C, and the first nodes we have here, it's a sharp. So, you see if I go A#, one, two, I end up on C. So, we're going to hear everything in this key and then a whole step up like the modulations we heard at the Michael Jackson song. So, let's hear how it sounds. Cool. Now, another thing you can do to improve your modulation is just before this key changing to this key, you can switch the nodes just before a little bit. So, here, for example, instead of having these nodes, I'm just going to select these guys and I'm going to make these nodes here be in this key, the first key. But then, when you repeats, all these nodes here from top to bottom and also these nodes, all these nodes here from top to bottom are already going to go up as if he had modulated already, just a little bit before to give a cool effect. So, I'm going to go one, two, up. So now, these nodes are already in the second key. Let's see how it sounds. So, pay attention to just before it changes here. Let's see how it sounds. Cool? All right. So, now, give it a try. Do a little piano sketch that you have some modulation in there, one key going to the next. Try different, try a half-step, maybe try going down. Have fun with it. Ciao. 49. Modal Harmony: Hey guys. We spent a lot of time talking about tonality, and talking about which major, minor, and diminished, and half diminished chords would go well together, which chords came from the same keys, and talking about all of these conventions. Well, all these conventions came from centuries of musical development from Europe and other continents. A lot of it has been explored already in all kinds of music, electronic music, pop, jazz, rock, classical music, you name it, but Miles Davis then, it was before that, that I can recall of the kind of music I enjoyed, Miles Davis was the first modal songs I heard. It's kind of like if you adopt the punk attitudes toward Score Theory, you'll probably end up with a modal harmony just because like instead of grouping the chords that came from the same scale, and using tonality, and using all those theories we talked about before, what if you group the chords that have just the same intervalic structure? This means like just use minor seven chord, or just use half-diminished chord all the way through. This is what they call modal harmony. Deep House is full of modal harmonies, and so is Miles Davis. There is a period of Miles Davis that he use a lot of modal harmonies. So, modal harmony refers to building a harmonic field that's not tonal. Instead, the relation between chords are preserved as the composer uses the same kind of chord and just transposes it up-and-down. So, for example, let's see a Miles Davis example, and I'll show you when the same thing repeats just a little bit up, half-step up. So, this is called So What from Kind of Blue, and so on. Now, let's make a modal harmony. First, pick a kind of chord that inspires you and then make a pianist catch with it. So, here's something I did to show you guys an example. I just got this chord here, which is a B flat major seventh. Then, I did a melody and did the bass for it, and then what I did here when a zoom out, I just transpose the same chords half-step up, and then back half step down, and then up two half-steps. So, let me make sure I really did that. Yeah, that's exactly what I did. So, you're just going to go up half-step, then I'm going to go back down from where it was, and then I'm just going to go two half-steps up. So, let's listen to it how it sounds, and I have some percussions here to make it more fun. So, this is what modal harmony sounds like. All right. So, it's really easy to do actually because on a Midi grid especially, because you can just write any chord you like, let say G minor second inversion, and then I'm just going to copy twice, then I'm going to go half step up, and then back. So, this would just sound like. So, on Midi grid it's really easy to do that. So, I hope you had fun. Try to make a pianist catch using the modal concept, and share with your peers on the class forum. Ciao. 50. Common Chord Progressions: Hey, guys. This is our final lesson. Let's explore some of the common chord progressions. So, when we were studying major tonality, we analyze Adele's song, Someone Like You, remember that song? So, what's amazing about that chord progression is if you go here on YouTube and you type The Axis of Awesome, they were like this funny bands that showed that all these songs, like more than 40 songs, had the same exact chords. So, look at these, Black Eyed Peas - Where Is the Love, Lady Gaga - Paparazzi, U2 - With or Without You, Maroon Five, Beatles - Let It B, Bob Marley - No Woman No Cry, Spice Girls - 2 Become 1, Green Day - When I Come Around, Offspring, Beyonce, MGMT, Adele, and all these songs here have the same chords. They are based upon the same chord progression. So, this is a chord progression you will learn because you automatically learn like 40 songs. So, let me show you here how to make what's the secret or like what are the chord's structure. So, let's hear here. All right. So, all it is in the key of C. The first chord we have on the first degree is C, so C major. So, let's just use triads. So, here we have the first chord and then we go to the fifth. So, the fifth is G, G dominant seven or just G, if we're doing triads. Then, you go to the sixth degree, which is one after the G, so the five and then sixth, which is a A minor in the case of C major tonality. Then, we go to four and four is a major seven chord or just a major triad, if we're doing triads. So, in terms of, I'm going to say the numbers and then these are the chords you find if you build triads upon these scales. So, we have one, one, one, five, five, five, six, six, six, four. That's it. Cool. Other common chord progression is the blues. The blues is the basis of a lot of rock and roll. Also, there is electronic music with the blues, a lot of pop music. So, the blues is just other classic chord progression, the major blues. So, the blues is just made of dominant chords. Let's listen. All right. So, piece of cake, the blues. The blues, it's everything is dominant. So, if we start from let's say, C, we make a C dominant. So, C dominant, and then here on this midi, I'm doing inversions, and I'm doing extensions, and I'm doing rootless chords, and everything. So, on additional resources, I'll leave this midi there for you to download if you want to closely put this midi right here on your midi sequencer, and analyze which chords I'm using, and which extensions, and everything. Feel free to do so and also feel free to use this stuff if you want. In short, the blues is one, but dominant seven, so C, E, G, B-flat. Then, we go to the four, so C with one, two, three, four. So, the four B, F. So, one C, then four F, and then back to one C. One C dorminant and then we go back to the F. F dorminant and then we'll back to the C. Then, finally, we go to G dominant and then back to C, the 12-bar blues. So, the structure is right here. I'll play once more and I will write what the chords are. Here, you can see the bars, the 12-bar, so that way, you'll just learn this structure here. All right. So, another chord progression that's also the basis of a lot of music we know is the minor blues. So, the minor blues sounds like this. So, the minor and the major blues have a lot of variations, but this is the basic version. So, the way the minor blues works, so here, we're in A minor. So, we have A minor seven and I'm playing some extensions for now just the simple. So, we have A minor. Then, we go to the four, and we noted that the four is also minor chord, which is D minor seven, and then back to A. Then, back to D, D minor seven, D minor seven. Then, back to A minor seven, A minor seven. Then, now, we're going to go to two, but instead of being a half-diminished chord what the two chord should be, we'll make a dominant chord. So, we'll make, and then we make the five chord also dominance, and then we'll go back to one A minor seven. So, I'll play this again and show you here on the 12-bars how these chords are laid out. So, I hope you guys had fun. Explore the four chords from the Adele songs and all those songs that have the same chords. Explore the major and the minor blues. Then, after that, you start hearing this chord progressions everywhere, everywhere you hear million songs that have these bluesy part here, these scores from the minor blues over there or a bridge with this four songs from Adele song or you just start hearing these progressions everywhere. This will help you to listen to music, to identify chords and intervals. Once you have a lot of these sounds in your head, it's going to be much easier for you to be inspired, and for you to think of new sounds, and think about different things that are outside the box, and everything. All right guys. So, on lesson three, we learned compound meters, syncopations, complex meters, the chromatic, whole-tone, and diminished scales, chord extensions and the correct alterations each chord can "handle", chord inversions, modulations, and modal harmony. So, check it out the project step below and I left a fun assignment for you. Then, after that, good luck making music. Keep us posted. Keep posting here on Skillshare's forum the songs you create, the songs you're releasing or you're producing, the relation of the concepts we've been talking about. I'll come check on you guys once in a while, and see the forums, and see if I can help somehow with more information or feedback. It was a pleasure sharing out this information with you guys. Have a good one and lots of music for you. Chao.