Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 2
Lesson 40 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 2
Lesson 40 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Lesson Info
40. Create a Song from a Chord Progression - Part 2
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 2
But doing this, there's space for the bass to be heard and for the kick drum, see this is why the offbeat's really, really useful. Doesn't need to be this long, I can make it shorter, the drum beat kind of a long drum beat and this kind of electronic EDM star music a lot of the time the drum beats very repetitive that we can add on a clap. I don't know, snare and some high hats turn loop on for using Ableton Live so we can just drag it out like so, so I'm adding some uh rim shots here just to make it a bit more exciting. Add a bit of kind of percussive elements. We can break it down and just have a kick just now. So this time it's slightly different. I color it differently and bring it back. But without the progressive elements. So arrangements important. But this is kind of the, a lot of the way I write around codes. Um So we've got the, the first section where it modulates later, the second section it modulates earlier. So the sneaky bits you might not realize, but I've uh I colored ...
it up So, you know, it's the, the blues, the blue bit and the of yellowy gray is the other bit. Let's call the drums as well. And then I'm gonna have the drums actually, I'm gonna have it vice versa. So, I mean, by this is I'm going to have the percussion, the Collapse, but not the snare. Then I'm gonna bring it all in. So just a little bit of arrangement just for you just to understand arrangement is important. So we're gonna start actually without this and bring it in like so then bring back this section. So this section if you recall is the later modulation. The first section is the first modulation. OK. So this is just built around these chords really, really simple drumbeat space for everything to be heard. Bring the codes in, add some melodies. Remember about the modulation of the melodies cos we're in a different key. Now, you really have to think about the notes when you're adding the referent. So this kind of yellow gray section has if you recall an F sharp and the blue section has an F natural. So changes key easy earlier. So remember that basically we've got an F sharp the first bit, the second bit we haven't but where the F sharp changes is important. So the blue one, the F sharp changes earlier. Well, there isn't F sharp. So the key changes on bar three and the gray one, the key changes on bar four. So, it's just something to think about when you're writing this in. Do you remember the gray gray one? Well, the first bit doesn't matter because we haven't got the chords so we can play anything. The key really a bit strange. But what I like to do a lot of time is think of something really simple. Repeat it and then change and modulate the notes as you go along. That, that wasn't very good, but it's just experimentation. So what I'm gonna do is record some stuff in there, chop out the bits that I like and then move the notes to fit in key from there. So I like that. Do do, do, do, do so maybe I could use that now just the first bit. And really that fits in all the keys, this fits in the key of D major fits in the key of C major and G major. Let's just check. So I'm just really just playing around some notes in the cord. So we've got an A which fits a G which fits in AC. So let's just match this up. That's the thing uh when you use an able to live and logic pro command Q. Yeah, isn't quantized. It's quit. So just remember that. So I'm playing AC here. So let's just check. So we've got a 5. CF five. Bye. So it's good to check the notes. We have got a B there and AC I thought that sounded a little and she said, no, that's so c in the F sharp, that kind of clashes a bit cos when we play AC and the F sharp is an augmented fourth, which isn't a very nice interval. So I might change that. So let's change that to A C# doesn't quite sound right to me. Um, these are the ones I kind of want to avoid. So you could always just have this and then the second time because we've got this little key change, I can always sneak in the uh the C instead of the day, but the D works. It's just about knowing what the cords are and also training your ear. It's a combination of the two and we've got the third chord, just check, check these notes fit. So we have AAA G and ad. So this third one from here we have an A ad and a G. Yeah, that's fine. A ad and a G. So the F sharp is a minor third of the D which fits perfect. And even if we do this key change early here, let's just check. So we have the ad G and here F sharp which is a major third which fits the Yeah, so we can use this R over the key changes and it'll fit fine, which is really nice. So initially people won't probably realize there's some modulation going on. They just think, oh, this is a nice song. Unless you're a musician, you probably wouldn't realize this. So, let's hear this back. This is for the modulation. I'm not too sure in this precaution. I think it's a bit a bit rubbish. Let's get rid of that. So, uh I think it's just pointless personally. So, yeah, this is just um really easy way of building a round of chord progression. The difference between this and the drum beat is, I think where I do it, I build like this. I'm thinking more about the chords and the notes and the chords and modulations and sneaky tricks of the chords rather than the beat. But what you really want to do is combine them both. Think about the drum beat, think about the chords. So really, really simple. I just moved some of these riffs around just there wasn't riff the whole time. Cos it might get a bit boring and repetitive. It comes in now and again, not always at the same point, it puts a little on their toes a bit. Could do the same with the drums. You could chop it up and move it around. Same with the chords. It doesn't have to always stay in one place. The notes don't always have to be the same. The chords don't always have to be the same. You could just repeat certain parts of it over and over again. For example, like this. So we can have that second chord repeating doesn't have to be the same all the time. This is really arrangement, but this kind of comes in music theory as well. It is important to know just to stir it up a bit. So we've got the same ref going but the cores are different then we release. So we had that tension built up from the second cord. So it's building, building release just little tricks like this. But you won't really know this straight away, Just like experimenting, trying new things. Don't be afraid to try stuff that doesn't necessarily fit in key. You can try new ideas like modulation is a good way to kind of add a few little sneaky notes that you wouldn't necessarily have thought of. But this is really just built around a chord progression had built up. I thought about modulation. I thought about the notes in the chord and writing the melody, the riff and the bassline, the baseline can stay the same, but the chords can modulate and change. Staying with same with the riff, the riff can stay the same as long as you use certain notes as long as you're smart at what you're doing and it's about arrangement, chopping stuff up effects and that kind of thing as well. So I hope you find this useful. This was completely on the fly. Also, I didn't plan this out. I thought it'd be good for you to see how I write music around a core progression. And yeah, certain mistakes certain techniques and the flow that I use when creating music this way. Next, we're gonna look at writing music starting from a melody, which is another way, another useful way of creating music. So thank you for watching this. I hope you found it useful. It's not strictly music theory, but there's still a lot of theory elements around writing and kind of working out what you can do and which direction you can take your music. So, thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next lecture.
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Electronic Music Production