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I'm a little confused about chord progressions. What do i use them for other than pads and such? if i choose, to say I IV V as my chord progression, should all the instruments of the song be based around that progression? Does that also apply to monotonic instruments such as the bassline?

use ur ears son

its w.e sounds right

RWDD wrote:I'm a little confused about chord progressions. What do i use them for other than pads and such?

Well, you can use them for all non monotonic instruments

RWDD wrote:if i choose, to say I IV V as my chord progression, should all the instruments of the song be based around that progression? Does that also apply to monotonic instruments such as the bassline?

Guess your track would make more sense that way, but no, just keep everything in scale.

You don't have to. And you definitely don't have to keep your lines in one scale.

look up the 11 major scale modes and their diatonic triads. Then check out the harmonic minor and melodic minor modes (all heptatonic). Then some pentatonic scales, and whatever else you fancy. That's a good start to working with some interesting harmonic and linear passages. I have notices a lot of times bass lines sound good when they stay static below a moving chord progression (pedal tone).

The very basic idea is that all of your notes - melody or pad - should fit into the scale of whatever chord you're currently on. Thing is, if you follow that rigidly, your tunes will sound like nursery rhymes. You really just have to use your ears and do what sounds good. For example, dubstep - particularly the more stripped-back stuff - makes heavy use of sub-bass in a totally different key to the melody. I think you'd have to be pretty shit hot with your music theory before you could really analyse why melodies that *should* sound totally wrong actually sound amazing. (Maybe it's simpler than that - we just like dissonance?)

(BTW, it still makes me laugh that "I-IV-V" remains the go-to standard for "popular chord progression to use as an example", as if songwriting hadn't moved on since La Bamba...)

first, rhythms are really, really important, especially in dubstep. then, you want to pay attention to how your intervals sound, vertically and horizontally. chords are made out of stacked intervals, you know!

Ideally everything would fit within the harmony of your chords. Doesn't necessarily mean just the root, 3^ and 5^, you can add in whatever extensions you like for melody. But the more extensions you play and the less core chord notes you play, the less coherent your melody is going to be with your chords and underlying harmony. If you had a line playing only the 2^, 4^, and 6^ of a chord, they're not going to reinforce each other very well and your harmony will be less stable. If it was also playing the 1^, 3^, and 5^ especially on strong beats with the extensions falling in between, then it's going to sound more like an extended jazz chord instead of just blatantly playing outside of the harmony.

So it just comes down to creative decision on how much you want to melody to play inside or outside the harmony and the resultant amount of harmonic stability that gives you.

I hope to one day understand the contents of this thread.

if we're only talking dubstep, i wouldn't worry about complicated theory.

write a simple bassline. then load up a pad sound and start it on the 5th-- see how it sounds. same w/ the 4th, 3rd, 6th--- i'd work in that order so you get a sense of how the different intervals interact. To a large extent, that's about as involved as dubstep harmony goes.

for some fun w/ chords, load up a patch that's already got chords in the oscillators, or build one in a 3-osc synth that's got 1 osc set to zero, 1 set to +3semi and 1 set to +7semi-- you'll have a minor triad there. play around w/ chords on the various keys of your scale and see how it strikes ya. a minor triad across all notes of the scale won't really follow standard convention... but that's the fun.

If you don't know what the 5th/4th/3rd etc are-- google. tons of info out there.

remember also that you can have a chord split between different parts. You don't just have to load up a pad and play a chord on it: you can have a bassline playing one note, a string playing another note, and a lead playing a third, which between them all make up a chord.

To be honest, whilst I would love to know some music theory, I enjoy just plonking shit out on a keyboard, and it seems to do just fine. I don't know if a large knowledge of music theory would kind of destroy that childish excitement.

Doesn't for me. You still have full freedom to explore, you just have better tools to pull it back on track if it starts getting crazy. If anything I find I'm able to afford myself more freedom to play some experimental thing because I know I'll be able to fit everything else in with it.

I've talked to some people though that are adamant that theory kills any creativity and imposes too many rules, etc.
I would compare it to being able to see the grid you're drawing on. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to snap to it, in fact it makes it easier to avoid

SunkLo wrote:Doesn't for me. You still have full freedom to explore, you just have better tools to pull it back on track if it starts getting crazy. If anything I find I'm able to afford myself more freedom to play some experimental thing because I know I'll be able to fit everything else in with it.

I've talked to some people though that are adamant that theory kills any creativity and imposes too many rules, etc.
I would compare it to being able to see the grid you're drawing on. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to snap to it, in fact it makes it easier to avoid

I find the same for me. It's really just a language. It's helps you be able to re-create those happy accidents without having to fish around for it.

hayze99 wrote:To be honest, whilst I would love to know some music theory, I enjoy just plonking shit out on a keyboard, and it seems to do just fine. I don't know if a large knowledge of music theory would kind of destroy that childish excitement.

Nah, it doesn't, sometimes I sit and do the same thing, more often than not I only use the theory when I'm feeling uncreative and I can't get something by randomly plonking away and using my ears. It's kind of like a big safety cushion to fall back on.

Obviously its cool to break the rules sometimes...but isnt it musical proper to have bass and melody and other elements follow the same chord progression? Isn't this typical in say rock or pop music or when jamming with friends?

yamaz wrote:Obviously its cool to break the rules sometimes...but isnt it musical proper to have bass and melody and other elements follow the same chord progression? Isn't this typical in say rock or pop music or when jamming with friends?

Yes, it will generally sound more pleasing to the ear, just don't fall into the trap of it sounding generic.

That is why I will posit this: Think about your harmonic structures spread out over the entire arrangement. Your bassline can hold things down and you can have notes and chords spread out over several instruments weaving in and out. I'm not sure if I can explain this well right now, but think about a band. You have the bass player doing one thing, the guitarist and piano doing another, the horns sitting on top and hopefully it won't sound like a big jumbled mess if the arrangement's tight and the musicians are all working together.

EZ

Musical instruments playing different notes form 'chords' together as well, so two different instruments playing different chords can form one new chord as well. It's not as easy as 'they gotta be the same chords'. It's foolproof, but it's an easy way out (which is fine, since for as long as it sounds good, it's good).

I just do whatever sounds 'right' to me.

Right on, that makes sense and I have done that before compositionally in a couple songs.

Anyway it seems like I just get kinda stuck at the drums/bassline and maybe some other background noise or a melody and not know where to go. or often I'll get a melody I like but cannot find the drums around it as its in some fucked up time sig.