Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
Lesson 39 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
Lesson 39 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Lesson Info
39. Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
Lessons
Introduction
00:58 2Basic Music Theory Terms
08:07 3Keyboard Layout and Octaves
06:19 4Working out Major Scales
08:58 5Perfect 5ths
06:42 63rds - Part 1
08:05 73rds - Part 2
07:39 8Perfect 4ths
04:36Chords and Inversions - Part 1
10:05 10Chords and Inversions - Part 2
09:13 11Chord Progressions - Part 1
10:22 12Chord Progressions - Part 2
08:26 13Inversions
08:53 147th Chords
09:48 15Chord Extensions
08:09 16Suspended Chords
02:40 17The Circle of 5ths
04:30 18Minor Scales
08:09 19Chords in the Natural Minor scale
09:56 20Harmonic and Melodic Minor
09:30 21Write the Chords, then the Melody
09:03 22Write the Melody, then the Chords
18:01 23Arpeggios
08:00 24Writing Bass Parts
11:35 25Writing Bass Riffs and Adapting Melodies
14:10 26Song Analysis - Chords, Part 1
10:17 27Song Analysis - Chords, Part 2
05:58 28Song Analysis - Melody
08:55 29Song Analysis - Arrangement
07:30 30Song 2 Analysis - Arrangement
05:04 31Song 2 Analysis - Chords
08:55 32Song 2 Analysis - Melodies
06:34 33Song 3 Analysis - Chords
11:41 34Song 3 Analysis - Melodies and Arrangement
06:55 35Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 1
10:22 36Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 2
18:47 37Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 3
18:49 38Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 4
08:21 39Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
08:16 40Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 2
08:07 41Create a Song from a Melody - Part 1
07:27 42Create a Song from a Melody - Part 2
09:05 43Modes Intro
04:10 44Ionian
00:43 45Dorian
04:31 46Phrygian
02:09 47Lydian
01:35 48Mixolydian
02:13 49Aeolian
00:39 50Locrian
01:50 51Dorian Mode Example
09:12 52Pentatonic Scales
12:27Lesson Info
Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 1
OK. Now we're going to look at building a song from a chord progression. So we've gone through the music theory of working out the scales and the chords and things like that. But now it's really about writing the music and actually looking at a blank slate and writing music from talking to a lot of producers who are new to actually writing music. The blank slate is the most intimidating thing. So open up your digital audio workstation and nothing, there can be really scary for a lot of people. I'm using Ableton Live right now. We have the session view which is like this, then we have the arrangement view which might look more familiar to you. If you don't use Ableton Live, I will be using the arrangement view, but I often use the session view as well. However, this is not an Ableton Live tutorial if you want an Ableton Live tutorial, make sure you check out my complete Ableton live tutorial. But for this, it's gonna be about the theory, really explain what I've already put on the scree...
n. I've got an instrument called Chords which has this kind of eighth note feel. It's called a low frequency oscillator. I've basically created a pulsing sound. And so we're gonna be looking at the notes and then this pulsing sound will go on the notes and then I've got a few other keyboards here as well with the serum. This is gonna going to be my bass sound. So I'm gonna rename this base and then we're gonna have a riff, rename this riff and then drums. But previously I built a track from drums. Now I'm going to build a track from the chords. So, and that's kind of it really, it's of course, you can create it several ways enabled in life. Um You can do it in the session view like this, you can draw it in or you can do it in the arrangement view. What you can do as well is you can also copy and paste clips from the arrangement view to the session view and then you can kind of go between them both. Like I said, this isn't really the ableton live tutorial. Some of the stuff I'm going to talk about that will be specific to able to life, but I'm sure you can use them in other digital audio workstations too. So I'm gonna use the key of G major. So the first chord is gonna be a G, why not? So I haven't actually planned this. I thought it'd be better for me to just write music and explain as I go along rather than have the structured format you've had previously, which I think is great for learning from. But when someone's actually in the flow and doing it as they go along, you get to see their mistakes as well as what they're doing because it's not always perfect. Writing music stuff can go wrong. So I'm gonna use a G first of all then. So we've got this here. Let's make this a bit longer. Then I'm gonna drop from listening to that. I wanna drop this G to an F but keep these notes here. This could sound kind of strange. This technique of writing really does allow you to kind of create more intricate chords than writing from a beat. Writing from a beat. You're more thinking about the rhythm, but this way you're more thinking, well, I think you're more thinking about the chords and the harmony. So they have advantages and disadvantages. So let's hear this. So this is kind of a G slash F. So we're changing the base not to an F. That's kind of moody tension because we have this fourth here. I don't know if it works. Let's try it on E No D no, that didn't work. So let's go and try a different core progression. A lot of the time. It's just training your ear. You need to know the theory of what work. For example, I tried A F and I knew that wasn't in the key, but I just wanted to show you what music sounds like played in real time when it's not in key, knowing about your theory is super important. So let's try AD D major, which is the fifth of G. So if we go major, minor, minor major major, we know it's the major. So got ad in the top already. So we can just extend this. Then we have, are you here and F down here, we can try another inversion. I wanna try something a bit different. And that's nice having the higher pattern. OK? And now let's extend this out, create a four bar phrase. A lot of the time, just stuff in four bar phrases. Actually, let's create an eight bar phrase att B phrase. Sorry, I might extend this to a four bar phrase, maybe even an eight bar phrase. But a lot of the time it's just about writing and playing it by ear and just enjoying what you're doing. But to get to that point, you do kind of need to know the theory. The theory does really, really help. OK. So to start with, we've got this, oh Where is that? I'm feeling low now that du du du du du du. So we need to stick to our theory, but also use our ear when we're writing ch progressions. So we can't, we can. But if you want to stick in the KFG, we can't use the F, there's no reason why we can't modulate So looking at the circle of fifths, if we go up 1/ from G, it's D so we can modulate into D or if we go backwards 1/4 down from G would be AC. So there's a few different options we can use here. So lets um I'm feeling that's modulate two D major. So we're gonna have the C# in here. This could be quite interesting cos we've got the CD down to a C#. So using, or you could look at this as we've always been in D, but we're starting on the, the fourth. So there's a few different ways you can look at this without knowing about music theory. It would be quite difficult. OK? So if we count up 12345, so A to C#, that's 1/ and then 1234. So this is a, a major. So now we've got a G major. A D major and a major and let's just uh extend this out. OK. And I'm gonna copy this over, but the second time round, I'm gonna add in a bit of a moody accord for the second time. So as this is go, going to be a bit different, I'm going to color it different. And this time, let's change this modulate the other way. Crazy stuff here back to C major. So let's change this from A S A major to an A minor. OK. So some interesting stuff, let's hear this and then put it back to here, we can consolidate this in, able to live. So basically put it as one track command and J so remember we've got G day a major GD A minus, we've got some modulation going. So if I wrote this around the drumbeat, I might not be thinking about the chords in detail like this. But as this is based around the chords, thinking more about what chords fit of what modulation. So there's some sneaky tricks going on here that a listener might not even realize, I might think. Oh, it sounds nice or interesting and back again. OK. There's some moody stuff going on there. We can also get the notes that are continuing to turn them into one note because we have this LFO low frequency oscillator. So the pulse continues. So we don't need to uh have separate notes there. So the base notes is the same. It's really a GD and a but then the harmony changes. So let's create a base part. Now, what we can do is just copy this over here, delete all these and just leave the bottom notes and put them down an octave. Now, this is down to octave and we've got pretty much the bass part. Obviously, it won't have that low frequency oscillator, that pulsing sound. I think that let's try a higher octave. Now, the lower octave was better just this sound isn't very good, but we can change that. So we'll create something a bit straighter because the um last lecture, it was more of a trap kind of hip hop feel. Now I'm gonna make this more of an EDM kind of dance feel. You notice there that isn't on the beat. So it's on the end of three. If you remember previously, one and two and three and four, I might just keep it straight really simple for this. So remember it wasn't a G and an A because we had the inversions. So if you remember it was a G ad, then AJ go back to the A up here. That's the thing about dragging these calls down. If you're using inversions, it's gonna sound different. To be honest. I think this bass sound is quite unsuitable. So you might have all the music for you. You might have the notes fitting, you might have something cool and interesting. But if the sound is bad, it's not gonna work. So let's try um Deep house base. That's better. OK. Turn the leon, we can do something from the bass part as well. It's called offbeat. So instead of having 1234, you go one and two and three and four. And so we're just playing it on the ends to create a more of a, a dancey feel. So this so far it's just based based around these chords. I've got the modulation. So we're starting in G major, then we go to D major. Then we go to a major. So very happy. And then we have the G major and the D major and the MC M I was thinking that we could even change this F sharp to an F the second time. So we could even do that. Let's say this. Now, it's modulating to the A major. Then we're modulating back to the G major. Then we modulated the c earlier. So there's a few options we could have or even we could have this later on in the song, we could change this to different modulation. There, there's loads of different options we can do and the base note will stay the same. This won't affect the base, which is great. There we go. I'm gonna add in a really simple drum beat. I drag over actually this bass note so I can see the rhythm. I don't have to do this. I know it's offbeats, but it's nice just to see what's going on. So not here. These aren't actually triggering anything. So I can just drag these down two C or G. Sorry, because the G ist triggering none of them. And then now I just know the base notes so I can kind of lock in a bit easier.
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