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I have a basic knowledge of music theory but when reading your post and in that reapeting what I know, with some extra information, definitely gets me a deeper understanding. thank you kaiori.

Debaser1 wrote:My theory has always been 'doesnt matter how skilled you are, if it sounds good, youre a genius', but i genuinely think that even just a little bit of thoery runs a long way.
To be honest, it's not even theory, it's instinctiveness and knowing your instrument. Me and a few friends meet up every so often to have a jam (guitar), and they all say that I end up looking as the best player. But we all know I'm technically the least skilled guitarist of the three, it's just that they're rooted in learning things to the book, and getting 'technique' correct. My musical theory is based on improvisation, knowing what notes sound good in a scale, knowing what the intervals are between notes etc etc. I do think that the subtle difference between, as Kaiori describes "classroom" theory, and "practical" theory is key. There's a psychologist called Sternberg who proposed a theory of intelligence which involved being 'street-smart', and all the stick-in-the-mud psych's disregarded it, but now, its looked upon as a more sound theory. Kinda applies here, its one thing having ace 'classroom' theory, but if you cant APPLY it, then it's merely mathematics with squiggles and lines.

I'll leave you with a quote from Josh Homme (QOTSA). "It is impossible to play a wrong note, ever note sounds correct in a scale, it is merely how you resolve it that determines how good it sounds".

So lets say you're jamming with your mate and he's playing a chord progression containing Em, G and Am in the key of Em and you decide to play the harmonic minor scale. Do you just improvise over that scale playing the notes that you know sound well together, or do you take into account what chords are being played in order to determine what notes to play?

And I know that knowing intervals is good for transcribing music by ear, but how does your knowledge on them help you during improvisation?

Debaser1 wrote:My theory has always been 'doesnt matter how skilled you are, if it sounds good, youre a genius', but i genuinely think that even just a little bit of thoery runs a long way.
To be honest, it's not even theory, it's instinctiveness and knowing your instrument. Me and a few friends meet up every so often to have a jam (guitar), and they all say that I end up looking as the best player. But we all know I'm technically the least skilled guitarist of the three, it's just that they're rooted in learning things to the book, and getting 'technique' correct. My musical theory is based on improvisation, knowing what notes sound good in a scale, knowing what the intervals are between notes etc etc. I do think that the subtle difference between, as Kaiori describes "classroom" theory, and "practical" theory is key. There's a psychologist called Sternberg who proposed a theory of intelligence which involved being 'street-smart', and all the stick-in-the-mud psych's disregarded it, but now, its looked upon as a more sound theory. Kinda applies here, its one thing having ace 'classroom' theory, but if you cant APPLY it, then it's merely mathematics with squiggles and lines.

I'll leave you with a quote from Josh Homme (QOTSA). "It is impossible to play a wrong note, ever note sounds correct in a scale, it is merely how you resolve it that determines how good it sounds".

Your right that knowing "practical theory" is better than "classroom theory". Though this is a little silly, because you make it seem to be saying that your friends know technique but they don't know theory which you do know. Technique =/ theory. Theory is knowing intervals, scales, chords and progressions. Its actually pretty easy to learn, but the difficult part which they train you in a classroom is ear training, I guess this is what you call instinct. I feel like its a combination of both the mathematical classroom theory, and the ability of your ear and mussel memory on your instrument that make you a good musician.

Good quote too.

Duffman wrote: So lets say you're jamming with your mate and he's playing a chord progression containing Em, G and Am in the key of Em and you decide to play the harmonic minor scale. Do you just improvise over that scale playing the notes that you know sound well together, or do you take into account what chords are being played in order to determine what notes to play?

And I know that knowing intervals is good for transcribing music by ear, but how does your knowledge on them help you during improvisation?

Well there are 2 ways of looking at soling over a progression. You can look at all the chords and what key they fit into and use the corresponding scale. Or you can look at each chord individually and use a different scale.

Really though you can just play what ever scale sounds good. And that progression is so simple I feel like you can just play what you want. But I would probably play some e minor, harmonic minor, pentatonic, maybe dorian.

With more complicated progressions you should look at each chord though as that will make your solo sound the best. Like if you have Dm7/b5, G7 to Cm7. you would play D locrian G, mixolidian, C minor.

And if you can hear intervals you have a lot more control over how your soloing sounds.

thankx for reply

tritones sound good in dubstep

Ayatollah wrote:i use either the white keys or the black keys cos then it sounds good

wub wrote:You need to create a sense of dread. The longer the note, the greater the dread.

This is the reason I keep coming back to this forum.

amphibian wrote:were you a choir boy?

zerbaman wrote:

Ayatollah wrote:i use either the white keys or the black keys cos then it sounds good

wub wrote:You need to create a sense of dread. The longer the note, the greater the dread.

This is the reason I keep coming back to this forum.

im glad you found my protip helpful

just go wobwobwubwubwubWAHWAHWAHyooooooyWAHWAHWAHyooooooy

Classic dubstep is one of the least theory intensive genres out there. Don't sweat it. Just make sure most everything is in the Same key, think of some minimal haunting riff in your head and just find the notes and use it as a lead. IMO when it comes to that classic pace, space & bass, theory takes a major backseat to rhythm & sound design.

But if you're insistent, yeah go harmonic minor or the other close minor (can't remember, on the phone). Chromatic stuff works great as well, especially if you're changing keys.

AllNightDayDream wrote: theory takes a major backseat to rhythm & sound design.

brianisdead wrote:

Duffman wrote: So lets say you're jamming with your mate and he's playing a chord progression containing Em, G and Am in the key of Em and you decide to play the harmonic minor scale. Do you just improvise over that scale playing the notes that you know sound well together, or do you take into account what chords are being played in order to determine what notes to play?

And I know that knowing intervals is good for transcribing music by ear, but how does your knowledge on them help you during improvisation?

Well there are 2 ways of looking at soling over a progression. You can look at all the chords and what key they fit into and use the corresponding scale. Or you can look at each chord individually and use a different scale.

Really though you can just play what ever scale sounds good. And that progression is so simple I feel like you can just play what you want. But I would probably play some e minor, harmonic minor, pentatonic, maybe dorian.

With more complicated progressions you should look at each chord though as that will make your solo sound the best. Like if you have Dm7/b5, G7 to Cm7. you would play D locrian G, mixolidian, C minor.

And if you can hear intervals you have a lot more control over how your soloing sounds.

I'm sorry but that's gibberish. If you're taking each chord played as its own piece and switching up your key in response to each chord its got a really high possibility of sounding really jarring as you'll possibly be hitting notes in the different scales tied to the key of the root of the current chord that don't exist in the key of the overall progression (which the jam should have if the musicians have anything to go by). If you're not hitting those notes then your essentially playing modes of the overall key anyway. Its kind of hard to explain what i mean in writing, but try it out. Doing what you said will sound off and if as you've mentioned it sounds great, then stuff isn't adding up really.

It half feels like you've just thrown together a load of clever sounding musical theory jargon in-order to try and prove your point. I'm not saying you're not a good musician, i don't know you, your possibly a fairly decent guitarist, i'm purely saying this because it strikes me as odd that if you knew theory to the degree you're attempting to portray you'd know that what you stated as a way to approach improvisation would fail miserably in a real environment.

sorry for the nooby question, but when you say you have a melody that in a scale C minor for example. does that mean that you are playing notes only from that scale but in a different order?

a Minor scale is different from a Major scale. The key is the tonic of a given scale. C is a key, C Minor is the minor scale in the key of C. C Major is the major scale in the key of C.

So no you're not playing only notes from a given scale but in a different order, you're playing different notes. Scales are defined by the sequence of tone and/or semitone jumps from the key note up to the same note an octave higher.

The C major scale (also known as the Ionian Mode, which is a scale running from the first degree of a (major) scale. C Major is the Ionian mode of the key of C) is easiest, its just all the white keys from C to C an octave higher on a keyboard.

The (natural) Minor scale (also known as the Aeolian mode, The Aeolian mode is a scale drawn from the 6th degree of a scale) is very similar to the Major scale, most of the notes are the same except for a flattened (or diminished) 3rd, 6th and 7th. which in the case of C would be C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat, B flat, C.

Scales in and of themselves are always known (and written/learned) in a progressively ascending or descending order. Playing the notes in a different order would technically be known as a melody written in the key of whatever the tonic (the first note) of the scale is.

Hope this has cleared a few things up for you.

Turnipish Thoughts wrote:a Minor scale is different from a Major scale. The key is the tonic of a given scale. C is a key, C Minor is the minor scale in the key of C. C Major is the major scale in the key of C.

So no you're not playing only notes from a given scale but in a different order, you're playing different notes. Scales are defined by the sequence of tone and/or semitone jumps from the key note up to the same note an octave higher.

The C major scale (also known as the Ionian Mode, which is a scale running from the first degree of a (major) scale. C Major is the Ionian mode of the key of C) is easiest, its just all the white keys from C to C an octave higher on a keyboard.

The (natural) Minor scale (also known as the Aeolian mode, The Aeolian mode is a scale drawn from the 6th degree of a scale) is very similar to the Major scale, most of the notes are the same except for a flattened (or diminished) 3rd, 6th and 7th. which in the case of C would be C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat, B flat, C.

Scales in and of themselves are always known (and written/learned) in a progressively ascending or descending order. Playing the notes in a different order would technically be known as a melody written in the key of whatever the tonic (the first note) of the scale is.

Hope this has cleared a few things up for you.

thank you but i am still a little bit confused. I use ableton and some one has made a patch of midi notes for it of all the different scales. So what you are saying is that you play notes only from that scale, and but always in increasing octave?

no, a scale is a series of semitone/tone steps beginning on a given note known as the 'tonic' of that scale. the note C is the tonic of the C Major/Minor scale. There is a series of steps beginning on C and ending on C an octave higher. The pattern then repeats.

Yes you play notes only from a given scale. For example if you are writing a melody in C Minor you wouldn't play E A or B because they are notes from the C Major scale, you would instead play E flat, A flat and B flat because they are the 'diminished' intervals that give the Minor scale its 'sad' feel.

A good example here is the difference between the first triad of the Major and Minor Scales. A chord consists of the First, Third and Fifth notes of a scale. In the C Major Scale the First note is C, the tonic, the Third note is 4 semitones above the tonic (In this case known as the major third), in this case E, the fifth note is 7 semitones from the tonic, in this case G.

In chord structures the distance between the Tonic and the fifth note of the scale is known as a prefect fifth because the tonal relationship between the tonic and the fifth (known as the 'dominant') has what is known as 'perfect consonance'. It just 'sounds right', there is basically a nice relationship between the two tonal vibrations.

The distance between The tonic and the third is what gives a chord its colour. Because we have so far the consonant relationship between the Tonic and the fifth, playing a major third or a minor third (Or, wether the third note of the scale is 4 semitones (a major third) or 3 semitones (a minor third) above the tonic) in-between these two outer notes of the chord defines wether it sounds 'happy or sad'.

In the case of a C chord, Playing E between C and G (I.E. adding a major third) will give it a 'happy' tone, Its of no coincidence the E is the Third note of the C Major scale. playing an E flat (I.E. adding a minor third) will give the chord a 'sad' tone, Its also of no coincidence that E flat is the third note of the C Minor scale.

The diminished third, sixth and seventh notes of the natural minor scale is what makes it a 'sad' version of the major scale.

The diminished notes add 'sadness' to the other wise 'happy' Major scale because they have a more dissonant relationship with the other harmonic frequencies of other dominant notes in the scale, like the Tonic, fourth and fifth.

If you wanted to write a sad melody you would use a minor scale. I'm kinda just rambling now, but i hope you get what it is i mean.

thank you for taking the time to type out these very lengthy answeres but i know whick notes are in which scales. my question is that if every body plays all their songs in scales its not going to be origional. unless scales are just used for pads and back ground synths.

The funny thing is things still sound original, even if a song is written purely from a specific scale in a specific key. Think of a scale as a 'pallet' from which you can draw 'colours'. All these colours inherently work together and collectively have a certain essence the picture you are painting will have by proxy given you use only these colours.

you don't just use scales as is, you draw mellodies from them, for example, write a bass melody in E minor, after this write a pad melody in E minor an octave higher. Now no matter what the specific melody is in either case, as long as both are in E minor, non of the notes in either melody is going to Jar and they are both going to 'sit' together. This is a very simple version of getting things 'in key'.

taking it further, you can do things like a key change, use Modes, use Modal Interchange, Pitch Axis (if you're really nifty). All these will add more character and uniqueness to the song. But the idea remains the same. All of the melodic content in the song will 'all' change key at the same time. The key it switches up to will define a very prominent mood change depending on the tonal relationship between the two keys (and or modes).

You could also use the 'Circle of fifths' to write a harmony for some high pads for example that are in a different key to the main melody, but using the circle of fifths, you know the harmonic key you are using has notes that all fit in with the specific key of the main melody so the latter will sit on top of the former but 'shifted' up or down a key, adding suspense or tension e.t.c.

Purely just using one scale on its own will obviously sound quite dull, which is why you have to understand the larger context within which scales alone sit, and understand the relationship scales have to music in general. They are not something in and of themselves but 1 tool of many that you really do have to use to write 'good' songs.

dubesteppe wrote:if every body plays all their songs in scales its not going to be origional.

tell that to jazz players, rock n rollers, classical composers, indian sitarists, gregorian monks, african singers, hell, almost every musician plays in scales. most people are ALWAYS in one scale or another. there are thousands if not tens of thousands of scales.

brianisdead wrote:Well there are 2 ways of looking at soling over a progression.

......

only 2 ways?


my only point.... you don't need any theory to make music, but you absolutely do need it to WRITE music, and to understand what the notes you're hearing actually mean.

Also, if you have any sense of rhythm, that's a cornerstone of theory right there, so i dunno anyone of us who's got NO theory. unless some lurkers are making atonal, arhythmic noise tracks bc they don't know what else to make