Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 3
Lesson 37 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 3
Lesson 37 from: Music Theory for Electronic ProducersTomas George
Lesson Info
37. Create a Song from a Drum Beat - Part 3
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 Drum Beat - Part 3
OK. All we have to do is drag this over. A might invert the, stick it up an octave. So it doesn't clash too much. And then nice little cheeky trick you can uh do sometimes it's we know that a minor and C has two of the same notes for the triad, but there's a G7 A so we can just do it like this, drag it over. OK. Copy and paste this or hold down alt and then we can just add on the Ar pu. This isn't a tutorial about Ableton Live. So if you're using say logic pro there's also a midi ar pu on there. So just stick on the Arpege. Now thats here. Thats so the tempos all over the place here. Sy, let's just go in and fix this tempo. Oh Yeah. Sometimes when you're writing and you will do stuff by accident, it will just mess things up. But you can always just fix it. A lot of this is just trial and error that you can just Yeah, make it sound good. You're never gonna write a perfect song straight away even now. I always make a lot of mistakes. But sometimes mistakes can be a good thing. So there w...
e go. We've cut the tempo set on 12. T just gonna play around with the Arpeggio a little bit. OK. We've got that going. Add a bit of distortion if you want. Like I said, this isn't the able to like tutorial. Just think a bit of distortion will be nice. So I'm gonna add this in the synthesizer, increase the reverb bit of delight. And now we can add a riff on top of this. We've got the main rhythm section done. We've got an Arpeggio just to kind of give a bit full. Finding the right sounds important too are obviously furious, but it's a combination of getting the right notes knowing what you're writing and find some cool interesting sounds, that kind of thing. So I just played that in on my midi keyboard just gonna go through now and chop this up, move it around and in able to live. If you hold on command J, it will consolidate it just turns it into one track. So let's hear this. The first note to me didn't sound quite right. That's because I was playing the fourth. So if we have a look this fourth night and if we're in the key or the cord of a minor, the fourth will work. But I think the fifth will sound nicer. So let's just listen to this back also with that note to me, I can find a better note than this, but I've got kind of a basic pattern now. Love. It's about the ice. Sounds nice. Try the G which is the seventh. So a lot of it is trial and error. You're not gonna get it perfect the first time I like this little pattern I did here, this little run. So I'm just gonna repeat this, but I don't like the ending. Let's find the right note as well. E so we've got the E which is the fifth of Amona and then G which is the seventh kind of a leading note. And that passes into the A which is the root. But when we swap to the sea, this is the uh third of sea, the fifth of sea than the six of C. So it's a bit of a different effect when we go to say we've got the day which is the ninth or the second, then we've got C which is the root still not sure about this first night. So, so let's hear this back. So this is the kind of thing I'm after, I think this will do for now this e I'm gonna copy this wreck. Obviously, I'm gonna quantize desktops in time and that was the thing. I didn't like it. I want the rift to be on kind of a stronger landing note and now it lands on where the snare and the cord hit. So it sounds a bit stronger. Now, they're again, I want this landing on the third. So if we go back to the drumbeat, we know in the third, there's this snare and if we go to the base there's a lot of space. But if we go to the keys to find the key part third has this cord as well as the cord played. So we have kind of a stronger pulse now. So let's try this, I'm gonna try a bit of a roll in effect on here as well. See if we can get something a bit more, bit more rhythmical. Now, this kind of shuffling effect. So we get a bit more of a riff out of this. So let's hear this back. So a lot of it's about finding the right notes and I like to put in a kind of shuffle effect on it as well. Then we can do the same with these parts here. Let's just copy this over. Adds a bit more of a shuffle kind of jittery sound to the ref which I personally like. So let's copy this rhythm here. So it's on the end of one or the and so it's, and here and then here, let's, it's an experiment really. And I'm gonna kind of do the same, but just remember it, it starts on the D and goes down to the C. So I'm gonna copy this pattern. It starts in the D and goes down to the sea. I'm gonna copy this pattern as well. I didn't really like the first one being doubled. Let's let's copy that over notes on the uh and so that if we, I'm using my ear to just remember what notes what, but you can just look over as well. One of the, it's the same. So copy this over. OK. We can also add a harmony as well to our melody if we want. So we know the first chord s and Amana just try this. I like this. So we've got the C and the E going so we've got the minor third harmony over the A minor which works and we go so d so we could try, wouldn't try the B that clashes quite a bit. You could try the J. So we've got this a again, try the CG try ad, then we've got this a, let's try ac again. Do you get, I mean, sorry, I actually try a try a so I'm just creating harmonies. These are notes that fit in the scale also, but they're also, I'm just training my, well, I'm just playing around and kind of going by ear and seeing what I think I sound right. So it's a combination of the both. So we've got a here so we can put this down to uh c but I want the top note to be the melody and then the harmony to be below. So this note is ad so we could go to a an A, we're actually gonna try G because we changed to ac cord. This is ac cord also. So let's try this C to a ag keep it going, copy this harmony over. So this harmony has ac ad and an E which fits in both C major and a minor perfectly fine. So it's from this note here, this is about the harmony. I'm gonna bring the harmony back here and then it repeats around. So it's a bit of variation really. So it's about creating something that's memorable, but also something that's a little bit different. OK. So now I'm gonna add a few effects up, not the drum rack. There we go. So I'm gonna add a few effects to effects to the ref so open up serum synth, you don't get this with Ableton Live. Unfortunately, it's the one you have to buy separately, but it is pretty awesome. Like I said, this isn't the Ableton Live tutorial, but this is important for your music theory too. If you wanna make electronic music, sometimes you're not gonna get this right straight away. So then I'm gonna add on another mini track. So it's just uh duplicate this. So command d able to live and then could they put this up an octave and not play the harmony? Just play the top notes, then choose another synthesizer, another sound just to layer it up. So octave is a great way to a great way to layer any synthesizer and it's really easy as well. But this is basically what I do. This is how I great music a lot of the time. Or we'll just start from the drumbeat, locking in the rhythm section. Putting this up an octave now can mess with the pans as well. So put it left and right speaker, we'll try a different effect, different sound. And after this, it's all about arrangement so I could take out the base part there. I could add in the base part here. They could add the drums in as well. Turn off the loop. So we've got the drums and the bass in there. We could have it with, uh, no keys to start with. Bring the keys in here, just chop up the riff. Don't have the whole riff in yet. So at the start, we could just play part of the riff.
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