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I am working on a project for a while now, It's purpose was learning music production but after 6 mounts I decided to finally finish it ('cuz me and people around me started to like it)... It's nothing special and I sounds kinda empty and maybe simple but I got 48bars filled up Lead, Drums, Percussion, Atmosphere, Effects and Basses for the drop at 140bpm.
I was planing to work with a friend that plays piano ('cuz I suck when it comes making melodies ) but he is a lazy jackass and he would rather play Dota 2 than make music... So I am more of a drum loops and sound desing guy.
The time is come to fill the intro with chords and arrange the drop and I'm having trouble with that. So If anyone has free time (I do 'cuz summer break comes in 2 weeks) and wants to produce please pm me, add to skype, comment... whatever. Do the same if you want to hear the unfinished track.

so you want someone to finish writing and producing your tune? People are either going to be helpful or really rude to you haha. Im no good at that shit too, seeing as you said your more of a sound design guy perhaps you could create an interesting soundscape in the intro in the place of the chords, that sometimes sounds great.

Sinestepper wrote:so you want someone to finish writing and producing your tune? People are either going to be helpful or really rude to you haha. Im no good at that shit too, seeing as you said your more of a sound design guy perhaps you could create an interesting soundscape in the intro in the place of the chords, that sometimes sounds great.

I don't want someone to finish my tune.. If I end up working on it with someone else it's not MY tune anymore.

well then post in the collaboration thread thing then i guess.

Sinestepper wrote:well then post in the collaboration thread thing then i guess.

where is that?

Some advice... from someone who has been producing for over 7 years. I don't want to brag I just want you to listen. If melodys are not one of your strengths I would advise making loads of melodic tunes. Don't worry of they are crap, just keep banging them out. It's about what you learn. Every little thing you learn is another gun in your arsenal so one day you can drop bombs on the dance floor.

6 mounts is a bit ridiculous for one tune. I'm told most pros will spend 3-4 days on one project, give or take. When I first started I would spend about 4 hours on a track but over time everything got more and more complex.

Where are your from?

bassbum wrote:Some advice... from someone who has been producing for over 7 years. I don't want to brag I just want you to listen. If melodys are not one of your strengths I would advise making loads of melodic tunes. Don't worry of they are crap, just keep banging them out. It's about what you learn. Every little thing you learn is another gun in your arsenal so one day you can drop bombs on the dance floor.

6 mounts is a bit ridiculous for one tune. I'm told most pros will spend 3-4 days on one project, give or take. When I first started I would spend about 4 hours on a track but over time everything got more and more complex.

Where are your from?

First of all thanks for the advice. Second it's not really melodies that much, it's that I have no ideas how to make chords since I never went to music school or take piano lessons.
6 mounts ago I started producing, and while learning I was doing it. I can't make a tune for few days if I have no knowledge...
I'm from Serbia, small country in Europe...

bassbum wrote:Some advice... from someone who has been producing for over 7 years. I don't want to brag I just want you to listen. If melodys are not one of your strengths I would advise making loads of melodic tunes. Don't worry of they are crap, just keep banging them out. It's about what you learn. Every little thing you learn is another gun in your arsenal so one day you can drop bombs on the dance floor.

I've been playing guitar for 8 years and producing for 2+, and I'm just now understanding how to make a good melody with lots of layers that actually work together.

Start with something simple. Take a basic piano chord, say C maj (c-e-g) and play anything in the C major scale (c-d-e-f-g-a-b) over it. That's a very simple way of getting Ito melodies and harmonies. Just play around with that for a while.

Icetickle wrote:

bassbum wrote:Some advice... from someone who has been producing for over 7 years. I don't want to brag I just want you to listen. If melodys are not one of your strengths I would advise making loads of melodic tunes. Don't worry of they are crap, just keep banging them out. It's about what you learn. Every little thing you learn is another gun in your arsenal so one day you can drop bombs on the dance floor.

6 mounts is a bit ridiculous for one tune. I'm told most pros will spend 3-4 days on one project, give or take. When I first started I would spend about 4 hours on a track but over time everything got more and more complex.

Where are your from?

First of all thanks for the advice. Second it's not really melodies that much, it's that I have no ideas how to make chords since I never went to music school or take piano lessons.
6 mounts ago I started producing, and while learning I was doing it. I can't make a tune for few days if I have no knowledge...
I'm from Serbia, small country in Europe...

All I had when I first stared was the few music lesson I had at school and a few weeks of guitar lessons. If you know what a triad is you're set IMO.

bassbum wrote:

Icetickle wrote:

bassbum wrote:Some advice... from someone who has been producing for over 7 years. I don't want to brag I just want you to listen. If melodys are not one of your strengths I would advise making loads of melodic tunes. Don't worry of they are crap, just keep banging them out. It's about what you learn. Every little thing you learn is another gun in your arsenal so one day you can drop bombs on the dance floor.

6 mounts is a bit ridiculous for one tune. I'm told most pros will spend 3-4 days on one project, give or take. When I first started I would spend about 4 hours on a track but over time everything got more and more complex.

Where are your from?

First of all thanks for the advice. Second it's not really melodies that much, it's that I have no ideas how to make chords since I never went to music school or take piano lessons.
6 mounts ago I started producing, and while learning I was doing it. I can't make a tune for few days if I have no knowledge...
I'm from Serbia, small country in Europe...

All I had when I first stared was the few music lesson I had at school and a few weeks of guitar lessons. If you know what a triad is you're set IMO.

Soundcloud

The thing I'm working on is in F minor.. And I have no clue what is a triad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_%28music%29

I can make chords just by putting three notes at the same place like this? Not going out of the scale?

Icetickle wrote:I can make chords just by putting three notes at the same place like this? Not going out of the scale?

Yep. I started by just putting random notes in until its sounds good. In fact I still do that.

Chords are easy.

The F minor scale is F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭.

F minor triad would be the 1st (root), 3rd and 5th notes of that scale. Which would be F, A♭, C.

You can take any scale and apply the same theory to find out what the chord is. If you used a major scale instead, you would have a major chord.

This is really stopped down music theory, but it should get you going.

Crimsonghost wrote:Chords are easy.

The F minor scale is F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭.

F minor triad would be the 1st (root), 3rd and 5th notes of that scale. Which would be F, A♭, C.

You can take any scale and apply the same theory to find out what the chord is. If you used a major scale instead, you would have a major chord.

This is really stopped down music theory, but it should get you going.

Can I use more chords than f minor chord in my f minor song?
I appreciate your stopped down music theory! <3

Yes you can. You can use any chords you want, but ideally you want to use a musical progression. Pretty much a series of chords that sound good together.

So, the notes of scales also have numbers associated with them (roman numerals). I won't really get into that here. But a common progression would be i-VI-III-VII read as 1-6-3-7. Which means you play the 1st,6th,3rd, and 7th notes of the scale which you just turn into chords.

So play Fminor, D flat, A flat, E flat.

Like I said, that's just a common progression. Just play around with the order of the chords until you get something that sounds good.

Icetickle wrote:

Crimsonghost wrote:Chords are easy.

The F minor scale is F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭.

F minor triad would be the 1st (root), 3rd and 5th notes of that scale. Which would be F, A♭, C.

You can take any scale and apply the same theory to find out what the chord is. If you used a major scale instead, you would have a major chord.

This is really stopped down music theory, but it should get you going.

Can I use more chords than f minor chord in my f minor song?
I appreciate your stopped down music theory! <3

Yep, you can use F minor, G half diminished, Ab Major, Bb Minor, C Minor, Db Major, and Eb Dominant. All of these chords are built by picking a note from the F minor scale and building a chord on it by stacking thirds.

Your best bet is probably to pick up a theory book or look on youtube for videos on harmony and chord theory. Assuming you want to be a proper producer, you're gonna have to learn this eventually so you might as well commit and put in the work sooner rather than later.

Chords are not that hard after all... Thanks guys!

The best thing I did in terms of being more musical was to buy a cheap midi keyboard, you can bash away till your hearts content and you'll usually come up with something that sounds nice. It's a lot easier than trying to guess notes on a piano roll with a mouse.

Also, if you have a spare $40 , you can pick up Xfer Cthulhu. It's a chord generator/arppegiator. It won't teach you theory but it will show you how to build chords and what notes are in that chord. Which in my opinion, would be a great tool for helping you understand theory.

SunkLo wrote:

Icetickle wrote:

Crimsonghost wrote:Chords are easy.

The F minor scale is F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭.

F minor triad would be the 1st (root), 3rd and 5th notes of that scale. Which would be F, A♭, C.

You can take any scale and apply the same theory to find out what the chord is. If you used a major scale instead, you would have a major chord.

This is really stopped down music theory, but it should get you going.

Can I use more chords than f minor chord in my f minor song?
I appreciate your stopped down music theory! <3

Yep, you can use F minor, G half diminished, Ab Major, Bb Minor, C Minor, Db Major, and Eb Dominant. All of these chords are built by picking a note from the F minor scale and building a chord on it by stacking thirds.

Your best bet is probably to pick up a theory book or look on youtube for videos on harmony and chord theory. Assuming you want to be a proper producer, you're gonna have to learn this eventually so you might as well commit and put in the work sooner rather than later.

I've just started digging into music theory myself and still have shitloads to learn, but 'shouldnt' he write this kind of stuff in F harmonic minor?

And if i may hijack the thread, is there any good reading, dvds or whatever on theory for tieing different content like bass, harmony and melody together? I've been thinking about picking up some book on Counterpoint, but i am not sure of the pay off in relation to time invested. Any ideas, other than just experimenting about in my DAW?

He could, but that would change the E♭ to E #. Which IMO give a bit more dissonance. Personal preference really.

He could also write in A♭major which would be the relative major to F minor.

As far as boos, check out music theory for computer musicians. You can get it in amazon or if you have ipad/iPhone you can get it in there App Store.