Can someone really explain to me the 3-note rule?

[sn0wday]

So my biggest roadblock in production so far is getting different melodies to flow together, I can come up with some decent ones. But I'm never sure of what the GENERAL rules are. I know there is an exception to everything, so PLEASE do not tell me "just play whatever you want", cause I do that, but I'd like to be aware of the general guidelines/no-nos.

I've been hearing something about when you start out and are having difficulty with this, do the whole 3 note rule. Which as said in some tutorials "only use three notes in a melody". To me this sounds like a good jumping off point for me.

But what does that mean? Stay in one octave and play say, A, C, and D sharp only? Or does that mean I can jump up an octave and also play those same notes in that higher octave also?

What about if I have a sound in massive, with 3 osc, and it's pitched all over the place, load it into my DAW, and the said bass sound is way too high the octave I'm playing, should I play lower notes in a different octave? Cause there is no way it would match up because of the different pitching in massive, right?

Even if someone could send me to a something I could read about all this. Once again, I get that there are no rules, but I feel like I'm more free of rules if I at least understand what they are, and generally why they are true, so I can break/bend them in ways that I'm aware of what I'm doing. Knowledge is power!!

Thanks.

[jrisreal]

There is no 3 note rule

[Mad_EP]

There is no 3 note rule

^^

Srsly. There is no 3-note rule.

[wub]

Never heard of a three note rule...any tutorial telling you to only use a certain number of notes sounds downright retarded IMO.

[sn0wday]

Maybe it is stupid, I dunno, just sounded like a way to begin to learn how to really work things together.

But let's say there is a track played in C, the entire track is that key. Are all the notes in a certain octave, or are they all over? That C note/chord that is reoccurring, is it the same octave C chord or does it change?

I have little to no musical background in this, and pitch/key/notes have been really throwing me off. So many of the melodies i create won't flow together at all.

[jrisreal]

It could stay the same or change, depending on what you want to do. There are no rules.

[BombsandBottles]

I truly believe it's a bad habit to be spreading your OSC across octaves, you are just losing space in the mix for no reason. If you own an iPhone, there is a free app called Nota (or at least I think it's free). It's a great app to quickly learn some music theory and check your scales/chords etc.

[jrisreal]

^ Disagreed. There are plenty of musical purposes for changing octave...and musical purposes always outweigh the technical in my opinion.

[3za]

I use the 3 note rule all the time

[accordionfan]

i prefer the one note rule, myself

[Genevieve]

Say, there is a 3 note rule and you came up with a nice 3 note melody... but you've jumped an octave once or twice... then.. does it really matter if you "broke" the rule since the fucking point of it was to get you back to creating melodies.. which you did?

[Eat Bass]

yes you can jump octaves...as long as its in the same key/note it will all sound jelly.

[MassAphekt]

cs

[Mad_EP]

Why is this thread still going on?

within 2 or 3 replies - it was overwhelmingly confirmed there is no 3 note rule.

Lock & move on....

[tripwire22]

3 notes in all of this man there is a def a rule

[tripwire22]

double post

[Genevieve]

I don't think y'all get it. No one said that you HAVE2USE ONLY 3 OR ELSE YOU WILL DIEE!!! The '3 note rule', the way I picked it up from the original post, is just a tip to help people inspire to come up with melodies. And I can get that because by limiting the amount of notes you can use, you won't feel overwhelmed by the 80+ keys of a keyboard to come up with a melody. It wouldn't work for me, but I get the idea behind it.

No, you can use any note you like. But if you're experiencing a roadblock on melodies, who KNOWS, limiting yourself may do the trick.

[hasezwei]

well most music that comes out nowadays certainly sounds like such a rule exists.

though i always thought it was 4 notes. you know the typical 4 bars 4 notes thing with maybe some chords or arpeggios on top. horrible, just horrible.

and having every instrument play only 1 octave... jeez! no wonder modern music sounds like lego blocks

[samurai]

ok I don't know how much the OP knows about music theory but I think I might understand what he means by the "3 note rule".

let's say if you're in c minor and you play chord I for the first bar (the notes would be c, eflat and g), then the notes you would play over that chord would be any combination of c, eflat and g. the same applies when you move onto a different chord, your melody line consists only of the notes of the chord.

when you're learning the basics of music composition it is sometimes thought in this way, where you are thought to create melodies over your chord progression using only notes from the chords. then as you advance you start adding in passing notes, and blah blah blah.

this makes everything sound very nice and "proper" sounding.

to make it simpler. there are chord progression guides out there that give you a list of what chords go well into other chords. eg from I-IV-V-I. again there are some really established chord progressions out there that sound very correct and obey all these fancy laws of music theory which I don't understand. if you make a chord progression based on one of these charts, and then create a melody around (using the 3 note rule), you will probably end up with something which sounds very "correct", for lack of a better word.

I don't know if this is the 3 note rule the OP was referring to but it was something I was initially thought when I was learning about basic melody creation.

btw when I was learning all this stuff all the melodies I ended up writing were corny sounding as fuck (as you're forcing yourself to obey very strict rules, and the real skilled musicians know how to bend and break these). but they did sound nice and musical, as opposed to just being a random assortment of notes.

[JTreeZY]

Its funny for me the melodies come pretty easy it's designing sounds to do them justic tht i suck at