Transcripts
1. Introduction: I'm not talking about that
huge music theory books written for piano,
guitar, et cetera. This course is only for aspiring electronic
music producers. This course will teach you what notes are safe to go with, what notes you don't
need to use while making melodies to get
perfect structure. The scale, chords, melodies, it covers all aspects
of music theory, except things that are not
necessary to get started. You need no prior knowledge. This course is worth watching
if you know your dog. So what are you waiting for?
What is this course now? Only at skillshare.com.
2. Why do we need Music Theory?: Music theory is the
most unrated word in the world of music. But I wonder we even need this. Well, I'm here to
answer your question. That music theory is the key
to make the perfect music. It's not like that
you can't make good music without
knowing music theory, but it is like you need music theory to make
the perfect music. And from the perfect music, I mean the perfect scale, the perfect key, the
perfect emotions, and the perfect melodies. And how to do this, this is
what music theory teaches us. So now from that being said, you will be able to make
the perfect music with the perfect use of music
theory. So let's begin.
3. The Notes: You are ready to make
the perfect music with use of music theory, let's dive into the first
topic of our course, that is the notes. So the Western music typically
uses 12 notes, C, D, E, F, G, A and B plus five flats and equivalent
sharps in between. Now, where are these notes in our piano role? Say
we click over here. I'll go to view and we'll go to keylabels and
click on all nodes, so it will show up all nodes. And as you can see, we're
given a C, D, E, F, G, A, B, but where are the sharps and flats?
Let's discuss about them. But first, let's discuss about the seven main nodes
in music theory. The seven main nodes are C, D, E, F, G, A and B. There are also some dependent
nodes in Music three. For example, these all
black nodes over here. We give name to them according to the adjacent
nodes around them. So for this node being
adjacent to C four, we gave the name CA four to it. Similarly, this node
being adjacent to D four, we give the name D s four
to it. What are the flats? For example, this node
is adjacent to D four, so we call it D flat four. Similarly, as this node
is adjacent to E four, we call it E flat four. As you can see, C sharp four
is equal to D flat four. Similarly, Ds four is
equal to E flat four. So these were the
dependent nodes. As you can see in
the piano tiles, we have C four over here and
we have C five over here. So why these are repeating. So basically, these
repeating nodes are called the Octave, C four and C five.
These are the octave. Now, if we click C
four on our keyboard, you will see base
node hitting up. If I click CF on our keyboard, you will see some higher side. So these are basically octaves, and difference
between these octaves are of 12 nodes, as you can see. Between each note,
there are 100 signs. Now, how this all is
related to music theory. Let's discuss about
that in next video.
4. Moving in Piano Roll: Now this episode will be
very short because I'm explaining the very basic
thing in music theory. But actually, you need to have before learning everything. The first is half step and the second is whole strap.
Now, what are they? Let's explain. Let me
zoom a little bit, and let's zoom it over here. There is C four note over here. Just click here. And we
have a note over here. As you can see, there are many adjacent
nodes around there. But if we click the
note right next to it, regardless of black
or white note, it will be a half step up. And from this thing, you
can get to know that one note up is equal
to one half step up. If we take it one note up again, then this is two half step up. If I take it one note up again, then this is three half step up. If someone said me to
go two half step below, then we'll click one. Two. And this is
two half step down. So this is what half step is. Now we're going to talk
about the whole step. So what whole step is so
there is a basic formula, you need to remember that two whole step equal
to one half step. So if someone said me to
go one whole step up, so I will go two half step up. So, one, two, and there we
have it one half step up. If someone said me to
go three whole step up, so I will go six half step up. Two, three, four, five, six. And this is exactly
three whole step up. Similarly, we can do
this in opposite way. If someone said we
to go, let's say, three whole step down, two, three, four, five, six. And there we have it. So this is a concept of whole
step and half step, but how we can
implement this all as to our chords and melodies. Let's discuss about
this in our next video.
5. Major Scale: So from this video lesson, we will go more deep
into the music theory, and you will learn
about the scales. Basically, there are two types of scale that are widely used. The first type of scale
is a major scale. The second type of
scale is a minor scale. We will discuss about minor
scale in later section, but right now, let's talk
about the major scale. Let us first do an experiment, and what the experiment
is all about is actually touching only the
white keys on our keyboard, going from the C node. Let's click this. As you can see, I've clicked
only the white keys on our keyboard and the thing I formed over here is
a group of nodes, which is also known
as a C major scale. Now why it is a C major scale?
Let's discuss about that. The first reason is because
it start with C and the second reason is actually it follows a formula
of a major scale. But what is that formula?
Let's discuss about that. And for instance, let me just take it over here and let me clon C note once again and let me follow the formula that
is flashing on your screen. But first, let me
tell you one thing. Debu means whole step
and H means half step. So now we can go. The
first thing there is a tblu which
means a whole step. The next thing is,
again, a whole step. Then there is a half step, then there's a whole step, then again and whole step, then again and whole step. And lastly, it's a half step. As you can see, this group of nodes and this group
of nodes are the same. That's why they form
a C major scale. Now, you should understood
why it is a C major scale. It is a C scale because
it starts with C, and it is a major scale because it follows the major formula. Similarly, there is one
thing more you can notice. If I just take it one semitone, or you can say one half step up. You will see this scale changed into some C sharp major scale. It also have some white
notes, by the way. If I take it one half step
up once again, you can see. Now, this scale has been
changed to a D major scale. So it changes the key, it changes the root note, it changes the base note, but it doesn't change
the form factor. That is, it is a major scale. Now, why this formula
is important to you and how you can use
this in your music? Let's discuss about
that in our next video.
6. Major Chord and Melodies: I've got a Dmajor
scale over here, but white is a Dmajor scale. If you don't know, watch
the previous video. But if you already know
white is a Dmajor scale, we can now begin to explore
the chords in this lecture. But before talking
about the chords, let's discuss what are they? So there are basically two or more nodes played together on the piano in a melodic way
that it sounds very beautiful. And how we create
that beautiful chord is by using a formula. Basically, there are
two types of chord. The first type of chord
is a major chord. The second type of
chord is a minor chord. For example, let's take
a D node over here, and this is a root note or
you can say the base node. So for drawing a D major chord, we have to use the
formula four, three. So how do you implement
this right now? So what you need to do is
just count the half steps. So one, two, three, four. And here you have the
second note of the chord. To find the third
note of the cchord, you have to go
three half step up. One, two, three. And the cord I have formed
here is called a Dvagechord. Let's play this. Let's take
this aside for a second, and let me draw you
a D minor chord. The formula of D
minor chord is three, four. So how do you draw this? Let's take a D node over here and let's go
one, two, three, and let's go four, half
step up from this, one, two, three, four. And here we have
a D minor chord. And this was a D major chord. As you can notice,
both the upper note and the lower note are the same. What makes the difference in the sound is only
the middle node. So from this knowledge,
you got to the point if a chord follows a 34 pattern, it is a minor chord like this. And if a cord follows
a 43 pattern, it is a major chord like
this. So that's okay. We now know about the major
chord and the minor chord. But why we should use scale. So the reason behind using
scale is very simple, that if we draw a
melody or a chord, using only the notes
that are in our scale, our melody or chord will
never sound off tune, will never sound off scale. So that's why we need
to use the scale, which means every note we
play in a melody or a chord, the note needs to be
on a specific scale. And if it's not in
a specific scale, then it will sound
appeal. Let me show you. So let me select this
small portion over here and let me just
press random notes. I'm not looking at this scale, just pressing the random notes. Let me play this.
As you can see, it sounds super bad. But if I fix some notes
over here, for example, this note is not in our scale, so let's put it one
half step down. And this note also
is not on our scale, so let's put one half step up. Now let's listen to this again. As you can see, this is
the magic of using scale. But if you are
thinking like scale is only one octave thing,
then you are wrong. We can of course copy this
scale to another octave, but make sure the root
notes stays the same. Now let's try to draw some
chords or maybe some melodies. Let's draw something at least. So I'm going to draw
some chords over here, but I will only use the notes provided in my scale.
So let's begin. One thing you can do
with your cords to make it more emotional
is that just select the middle note of
your cord and take them one octave up. So
we have this thing. But if you think
that was cheating, then definitely it wasn't because I just placed
the note one Octava, but I didn't change
the key of a note. We can also draw some
melody over here. Let's copy this one octave up as well so we can add some
higher melody over here. Let's see what we can draw, but make sure use only the
notes provided in scale. As you can see, I have drawn this melody in front of you all, and it doesn't sound off key or you can say
off tune at all, because I followed
only the notes that are provided in my scale. That is our major scale, but it's not the end of our class because there
is one more type of scale we need to
discover that is the most emotional and
widely used scale. That is the minor scale. So let's discuss
about that in one
7. Minor Scale: The previous video,
we made this melody. But isn't it too happy? I mean, of course, we can use these chords and melodies
in our happy song. But what if if you have
something emotional, something very deep, and something really,
really, very sad. So what you need to
have is a minor scale. Now, what is the formula
of minor scale and what is actually a minor scale?
Let's discuss about that. So let's do an
experiment similar to what we have done in
our previous lectures. So instead of going with C note and touching
only the white keys, in this lecture, we're
going to go with A note and we will touch only the
white keys. So let's do it. As you can see, I again formed a group of nodes or
you can say a scale, but this scale isn't
a major scale. This scale is called
A minor scale. And why this is A minor scale
because it starts with A, and it follows a formula
which is of the minor scale. But what's the formula of the minor scale? Let's
discuss about that. So let's for a second,
let's take it aside, and let's hit a node at A. Now, the formula is
flashing on your screen, and you already know what W
and H are in the formula. So let's follow the formula. So the first thing
in our formula, we have a whole step
then half step, then whole step, then
again, whole step, then a half step,
then a whole step, and then lastly,
again, a whole step. As you can see, these two group of nodes are exactly the same, and this is actually
our A minor scale. As you already know, major scale is used to create
some happy vibes. Similarly, minor scale
is used to create sad vibes or we can say emotional vibes or we
can say deep vibes. Let's erase this for a second, and let's draw some
melody over here. I will just click some
random notes over here, but I'm going to
stick to my scale. As you can see, it
forms a sad vibe. I can explain you
better with chords, I think, silt raw
or A minor chord. And if I draw a major
chord right next to it, As you can see how
deep or emotional this A minor chord is
similar to the major scale, there is one thing
you can notice. If I just move these nodes one semitone or you can
say one half step up, it will create another
type of scale. Like right now, it's A
sharp four minor scale. If I take this one
half step up again, it creates B minor scale. If I take it one half step, again, it will create
C minor scale. You can also draw a
C major scale over here to just differentiate
between these two. As you can see, some
notes are exclusively on the minor scale and some notes are exclusively on
the major scale. That creates a difference. Now, how we can implement
this minor scale in our daily life and how we can use this to make
chords and melodies. Let's discuss about
that in our next video.
8. Minor Chords and Melodies: This video, we will
try to make chords and melodies in
our G minor scale. Let's waste no time,
and let's dive into it. But first, let's copy
this lower octave, so I can get an idea
for that as well. Let's copy higher
octave as well, so we can get idea
for that as well, and now we are ready
to make the chords. Let's begin. Let's
zoom a little bit, and let's drop a
chord over here. This is basically a GMR
chord and why this is GMR chord because it follows
the formula three, four. Let's draw on the chord. After the G minor chord, we have got a F major chord over here. Let's
draw another chord. After the F major chord, we have got the D shaft four major chord to
the F major chord. We have our chord
progressions ready. As you can see how
easy it is, right? Now we can draw some
melody over here as well. So let's draw some melody. For the melody, there is
one tip I can give you the attach the bar with the
root note of the chord, or you can say the base
note of the chord. So what's the bar? This
is basically the bar. As you can see, the
timing written, two, three, four, five, six.
So this is all the bar. So starting a melody from
root note of our chord in a bar helps a lot. So
let's try to do this. For example, this is
starting with Gne. So let's click the
G node over here. And now let's go
with your creativity and create what you
have in your mind. Then it is a F major chords. Let's go with F now. Next, there is a D
sharp major chords. Let's go with D sharp over here. Let's go with higher
octave D sharp because I'm containing
the melody, actually. I think these will be repeating. Now we can go with F again. Let's click F. Let's play it once. Let's finish the melody. Actually, it seems like
it's not finished yet. And according to what we have done in our previous lecture, we can, of course,
take the middle note of our good one Octava. So from the melody, I get the vibe of something
or kestrel going on. So, of course, you can
use the melody from here. I have no objections in it. Now, I will meet you
in our next video where I will discuss some relations between
the major scale and the minor scale. So that will be very, very important thing
in music theory. So let's move to the next video.
9. We got it all wrong!!: This video, we'll discuss
about beauty of music theory. You have already learned
that major scale and minor scale are
totally different thing. But in this video, I will break the rules and
I will show you how sometimes major scale
is equal to minor scale. Let's discuss about that. So let's zoom a little bit, and let's create a C
major scale over him. And as you all know, if we go from C and click only
the white notes, it will form a C major scale. So let's do that. And now
let's draw A minor scale. But here. So are you seeing
some pattern over here? Let me just copy it one
octave up once again for you. And as you can
see, C major scale is actually equal
to A minor scale. It's not in coincidence. It's actually the beauty
of music theory that every major scale has a
relative minor in music theory. Sometimes you can say that
a major scale can have a relative minor and a minor scale can have a relative major. There is a chart I'm
showing in my screen, which you can also download
from the PDF I've given in the project and discussion
tab, by the way do it later. Right now, from all
this knowledge, we can conclude
that a B minor song can also be said written
in a D major scale. Similarly, a D sharp song can also be sat to written
in a C minor scale. Again, similarly, a
C major scale song can also be sat to
written in A minor scale. And that's the beauty
of music theory. If you're creating
something happy, but the chords and the melodies are going
literally too happy. So you can do one thing. You
can use a relative minor. In this way, you will end up using something very
emotional and very deep and also interesting to the listeners of course.
But what do you think? Music theory only contains
two types of scale, a major scale and a minor scale. Well, it's not like that. Music theory actually contains even more than these two scales, and there is a whole lot
to cover in this course. So let's waste no time. Let's
move to the next video.
10. Many scales to Learn: Okay, so we've talked about major scale and a minor
scale, but from this lesson, we will talk about
many scales existing, such as harmonic minor scale, melodic minor scale, Arabic
scale, and many more. But first, let's see how
many scales our D have. I personally use FL today
and Ibalton so here it. So if I click on
this dropdown menu over here, go to view, go to scale hiating
as you can see, there we open a secret
section in FL Studio. On the left side, we can choose
the root note we are in, and on the right side, we can choose the type of
scale we are in. For example, let's go with E, and here we can choose the type of scale we want to go with, like a major scale,
like a major Pop scale, like a harmonic minor scale, like a melodic minor
scale, a natural minor, which is a basic minor scale, Arabic scale, blue scale, diminish scale, so there
are a lot of scales. As this is not possible for a normal human being to
learn all those scales, we use the scale highlighting
feature like here. So for example, I'm going with E. Let's go with Melodic Minor, which is very used scale
in trap kind of genre. So let me click some
notes over here, and you will see how
sad this scale is. Now let's take a listen to this. If I draw some
pattern over here, let's draw something over here. As you can see, it doesn't
sound any off tune, and it is well correct. Now let's move to Ableton. That's the other do I personally
used to make music on. Let me go to the piano Wolf. And here you can choose the type of scale
you want to go with. First, click on
this scale button, and then you can choose
the root node over here, for example, D,
and let's go with. And there are even more
scale than FL Studio. So we can go with
actually a minor scale, and here you can use the nodes
that are brown in color, but it actually depends on
the track color over here. So if I go to yellow
kind of stuff, so it's like yellow over here, and if I go to another thing, for example, let's add
a midi track over here. And if I change this
color to something like, maybe this color,
this weird color, now it changes to
that weird color. So you have to notice
that where you are in, and according to that, you are going to
choose the correct. So before ending this lesson, let's create a melody over here with E minor melodic scale. Let's create a melody over here. And you already know
that we have to use only the notes that
are highlighted, so let's go with them. Let's draw some chords first. We can take it up, of course. I formed a suspicious
kind of cord. We will talk about this later, but right now, let's
not use this cod. Let's change the tempo to 140. It sounds too happy, actually. Let's repeat these chords. And I'm having a trap
beat inside my mind, so let's try to
replicate that innuendo. Of course, we can make a better
melody than this, but for this course,
I think this was pretty good
attempt, I can say. So if you're thinking like
these chords are too boring, we're gonna fix it
in our next video, and we will talk about even more chords like
a seventh chord. What is the seventh chord?
What is the ninth chord? What is seventh chord?
What is the ninth chord? And then what is the
diminished chord, what is suspended chord
and many of other chords. So let's talk about
that in our next video.
11. Making Interesting Chords: We have already
talked about many scales in previous lecture, but from this video lesson, we will talk more about the
cords and we will learn how you can make your chord sound more interesting
and soulful. So let's begin. So let me
draw a Dmnorchod over here, and it is a deminorod because
it follows the 34 pattern. If I take the middle
node one octave up, now, if you're saying it
is not a demerochod well, it is a Dimer chord, but it is a special type of
dimer chord known as D minor inverted chord because this F node
has been inverted. Before it was like this,
now it is like this. If I take this one up, it is still a Dmnochod. If I take this one down, I take this two octave down, it is still a dimerchod
if I take this up, it is still a dimer chord. It is still a Dimanchod. What I mean is you
can shift any note of a chord to make
an inverted chord, but the node should be the
same. For example, it's D. If I take this
down, it is till D, but the lower octave D. Now
we can make it actually more interesting by using seventh
and ninth note of a chord. Now what are they? I have enabled the scale
highlighting from here. If you don't know what
scale writing is, you can watch the
previous lecture. By the way, if we
count from D to this note taking only the
notes that are in our scale, right now, it's a D minus scale, we count this one, two,
three, four, five. We call this note as a
fifth note of our chord. Similarly, if I go up again, this is sixth, and
this is seventh. Here we have the seventh
note of our chord. It sounds interesting,
but we can make it more interesting
by using inversions. For example, let's take this up. Let's take this one up as well, and we have this very
beautiful chord. It is still a D minor
chord, but in this case, we call it D minor
seventh inverted chord. Now let's talk about
the ninth chord. And this is fifth. You
already know that. This is fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth, ninth. Here we have the ninth
note of the chord. Now, if you take this
one and this one up, it gives us D minor
ninth inverted chord. You can also use the seventh
note if you want to. Now let's try to make a chord progression using the seventh, ninth and inversions here
in Paneroll as an example. Let me go with D
minus scale because it's already selected
in scale highlighting. So we have the chord
progressions ready? Let's see where to put the
seventh note of a chord. So here I'm putting the
ninth note of chord. A Now, let's take this extra notes and the middle
note of our chord, also known as third note, let's put it up an octave. Here we have very cool and
soothing chord percussions. Let me go down an octave. Let me draw a cool melody over here so you can get the vibe. Let's see how it sounds.
So here it how it sounds. So this is how we can make
a simple D minor chord to a D minor inverted
seventh or ninth chord. In the next video, we
will learn more about cords and we will learn
different type of cord existing. So let's move to the next.
12. Sus, Dim, Aug: In the previous video, we
made this chord progression. And in this video, we will
learn diminished chord. We will learn suspended chords. We will learn argumented chords. If you want to learn what
are they, stay tuned. In this video, we will learn
different type of cords. So we will learn about
this type of chord. As you can see, it generates
feeling of suspense and can be used in man
suspense kind of thing. In trap drill kind of beads, it is widely used
this type of chord, and this type of cord is called a diminished cod because it's
very tiny when diminished, you know, if I take this up, this is an argumented cords where we see the pattern
like three nodes here, three nodes here in between.
You can say four, four. There is another type of chord. So here is our basic
F minor chord. If I take this just
one note down. Or if I take this up, maintaining this one node
difference in between. It is called suspended chords, and as you can see, you are
very familiar with this. If I just group this with a seventh chord, we
form this thing. That's all for our chords. Now let's use it
in practical way. Let me use another
scale for that. Maybe let's go
with minor melody. It is widely used in trap
genre Ival told you. Let's go to F. F minor chord. This is a diminished cod. Again, a diminished chord. And then a major chord.
Let's try to put this up, but first let's draw some
seventh note over here. So first, we have
here F minor chord, then we have E diminished chord. Then we have C argumented chord, then we have a C major chord, and here is how it sounds. Let me draw a melody
over here as well. Uh Uh Uh A So here I've drawn some horror
kind of chord percussions. If you want, you can also use this melody in
your own track. I have no objections in that. Now in the next video,
I will talk more about the scores and I will
end the scores over here. You have learned many
thing in the scores, but in the next video, you will learn even more
things and we will learn some extras kind of
thing in our next video. So let's move to our next video.
13. Realistic Melodies? Okay!: So we have already talked about many things in music theory, and this is end of this course. I mean, this is the end
video of this course. But this end video is really
very helpful because I'm giving you some extra kind of thing which you can
use in your music, and, of course, in your
chords and melodies. So the first thing is, so I've taken a C major
scale over here. The tempo is 120 BPM, and let's draw some chords over here. Let's make them short. Let's play them together. Let's take them lower octave, so we got some bass and
some really boomy sound. Let's create seventh note
for each chord over here. Let's take the seventh note and the middle note of our
chord one octave up, so we got this beautiful
chord progressions. Oh As you have already
listened to the chord pgions, this is very boring because
this is going straightforward like po po po po. And this is not how a
real pianist plays. He plays with velocity, he plays with a rhythm, and he doesn't play every
note at the same time. So we're going to figure out how a real pianist will play
these chords in a piano, and we will just recreate
that kind of texture. If you just take this here,
let's see what happens. As you can see, this
kind of tone changed. Let me just go here
and copy this here. Let's see what
happens now. As you can see, some rhythm going on. And let's try to create
some rhythm over here, like, with the chords only. Or we can use some other notes because
these are kind of repeating. So let's go with this
one. As you can see, now, we have created some
kind of rhythm in chords. These are not too
boring right now. Let's do something with
other chords as well. So just listen to this
beautiful rhythm, like how it's going on. Seems like a real pianist
playing this on a piano. Now we can, of course, add
some melodies over here, but we're going to create melodies according
to the chords, of course, according to
the rhythm of the chords. So let's see what we can
come up with right now. Et's play this. As you can see, the
rhythm is so realistic. If I wasn't showing
the screen to you, you will be thinking like a
real Pian is going on, right? We can add some more
things to this. We are following
only the root note, or you can say the base
note of the chord. So then it comes to be A, then it comes to be F, as F is here and then
a G. Let me play this. This is too low, so we're
going to take this up, but delete the main
note of the chord. So we got this. And, of course, we can just lower this
volume because we don't want it to just get
in front of you all guys. I just want it in
the background. And then select all the
melodies and chords, then press Alts for F study basically to just
strum it a little bit. Strumming is basically
shifting of the nodes, so all the nodes are not
playing at the same time. Just a little bit then ltr, which is just randomizing
the velocity, it will feel more realistic. And this is my choice
of actually keeping the velocities of
melody real low. As you can see, it's already
sounding very realistic. So this is the end
of the course. Maybe we'll meeting
in another course really soon till then. Bye bye.
Sudhanshu Singh Music, Make Music, that Inspires!
