Breaking Your Music Down To Make It Simpler! What you should get from this technique: After this session, you should be able to take any standard chord progression, (that you’ve created) and turn it into something a little more intricate and a little more interesting. Anybody (after a bit of practice) can just hammer away at a few chords, but it can sometimes be a little boring to just strum away, or bang away. Also, the problem with just banging away at a bunch of chords, is that it lacks dynamics, and can sound a little boring and repetitive. With this technique, it allows you to add more space, variety, and colour to your music. So what do we do? Ok, let’s begin by taking a simple, random chord progression. Let’s pick Am, Em, Am, and F. We can easily just play these chords as they come, but we want to make something a little more interesting here! Something I use a lot, and have used to very good effect, is breaking the chord down, and taking one of the notes out so you’re ONLY playing two notes from the chord. I’ll demonstrate how I would do it on this chord progression. As we’ve already discussed, each chord is normally made using a minimum of three notes. A root (1), a 3 rd, and a 5 th. Again, we could elaborate here and make it a lot more complex, but for the purposes of this course we don’t need to. Let’s look at each chord in turn, and I’ll show you how I’ve broken it down (you can hear how I’ve done this on the audio that is coming soon). Am: This chord consists of the notes A (1), C (3), and E (5). So instead of taking the whole chord, we’ll remove the 5 th, and just play the A, and the C like so:
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Transcript
Breaking Your Music Down To Make It Simpler!
What you should get from this technique:
After this session, you should be able to take any standard chord progression, (that
you’ve created) and turn it into something a little more intricate and a little more
interesting. Anybody (after a bit of practice) can just hammer away at a few chords,
but it can sometimes be a little boring to just strum away, or bang away. Also, the
problem with just banging away at a bunch of chords, is that it lacks dynamics, and
can sound a little boring and repetitive. With this technique, it allows you to add more
space, variety, and colour to your music.
So what do we do?
Ok, let’s begin by taking a simple, random chord progression.
Let’s pick Am, Em, Am, and F.
We can easily just play these chords as they come, but we want to make something a
little more interesting here! Something I use a lot, and have used to very good effect,
is breaking the chord down, and taking one of the notes out so you’re ONLY playing
two notes from the chord. I’ll demonstrate how I would do it on this chord
progression.
As we’ve already discussed, each chord is normally made using a minimum of three
notes. A root (1), a 3 rd, and a 5 th. Again, we could elaborate here and make it a lot
more complex, but for the purposes of this course we don’t need to. Let’s look at each
chord in turn, and I’ll show you how I’ve broken it down (you can hear how I’ve done
this on the audio that is coming soon).
Am: This chord consists of the notes A (1), C (3), and E (5). So instead of taking the
whole chord, we’ll remove the 5 th, and just play the A, and the C like so:
Then we’ll take the next chord, which is the Em. The notes in the Em chord are (you
should already know this by now, I hope you do), E (root), G (3 rd), and B (5 th).
Again we’re going to lose the 5 th, and just play the E, and the G. Here it is again:
Back to the Am, however this time, we don’t want to have the same sound as the
previous Am chord, because we’re trying to keep the sound varied at this point. So
what are we going to do? We’re going to play an inversion (an inversion is simply a
different order using the same notes) of the chord.
So we’ll use the same two notes, A, and C, however, to keep things from getting
boring, this time we’ll play the C as the lower note, and the A as the higher note like
so:
And now we finish on the F Major. Just for continuity, we’ll again play the root note
and the third, so in this example, we’ll play the F and the A. To make it sound even
more varied, we’re going to play out of the octave here, like we did in the E minor
example. So the F is lower, and the A is higher.
Now if you play that, you’ll see how different it sounds to just strumming or playing
full chords, and how it opens the sound up and creates more space. This is even more
valuable when playing in larger groups, as full chords being hammered all the time
can muddy the sound of the band/group.
Let’s have another go. This time we’re going to use the same technique, but we want
as little movement as possible. We’re going to find the notes that correspond in each
chord, and try and keep them going throughout the variation.
We’ll use the chord sequence D, G, C, and G. Let’s examine the chords in a little
more detail.
The notes contained within a D Major chord are as follows:
D F# A
The notes contained within a G Major chord are as follows:
G B D
Notice that the D note is found in both D Major and the G Major, so we’re going to
keep that note going on BOTH chords.
Now we come to the C Major and G Major chords. The notes within C Major are:
C E G
And to remind us again, in G, we have:
G B D
So this time, let’s keep the G going as in this example:
C Major:
G Major:
This time, we did it slightly differently, and used the G note on TOP instead of on the
bottom. This is an easy way of making your life easier, by minimising the amount of
movement you have to do on your instrument.
So by using this technique, it should now have become clear how you can take a
simple (or complex) chord progression, and turn it into something with a little more
space, colour, texture, and variety.
By finding which notes correspond to different chords, it makes it easy to find various
positions to play in, and also means you can economise the amount of work you need
to do in order to create a nice sounding sequence.
What we’ve covered:
We’ve covered taking a chord, and breaking it down to add more space to the sound.
Also, taking a whole chord progression and doing the same, and even making sure we
play different inversions when chords are repeated, to ensure a variety of sound (and
to keep it interesting).
Exercises:
Take either a chord progression you know well, or one that you’ve written
yourself, and A) Look at what notes correspond within each chord, and B)
break it down and simplify it.
Do the same above exercise with a whole song, and link up all the parts to
create a totally different sound, incorporating verses, choruses, and other parts.
Make sure the sound is smooth, with transitions between sections that are easy
on the ear.
Writing Harmonies to make your Melodies
Come Alive
What you should get from this section:
After this section, you should be able to create simple harmonies for your melodies
and vocal lines, and make sure they don’t clash with the rest of the band.
Harmonising sounds like a complicated term, but it simply means playing more than
one note at a time. A chord contains harmony, so if you’ve been playing chords,
you’ve automatically been doing it already!
But how do we USE harmony to enrich a melody or vocal line?
Well that all depends on what you want. Some people like really beautiful, sweet
harmonies, whilst others like nasty harmonies that clash and create a discordant
sound. As a rule:
Major Harmonies will create a happier type sound
Minor harmonies will create a sadder type of sound
Diminished harmonies sound more discordant
On a personal note, my favourite harmonies are minor 3rds, perfect 4ths, and minor
and Major 6ths. My ear tends to like more melancholy types of music, but I also love
Mozart who wrote some pretty happy tunes!!
How to create a harmony:
Here’s a step-by-step process you can use to create a harmony for any melody you
wish to use.
Write your melody out on manuscript paper, and/or record it
On another stave, write out the melody again but a third higher. So if, for
example, you started the original piece on G, start the second stave on B.
Notice that although I went a third HIGHER, I placed the harmony underneath,
as if I placed it higher it would then become more dominant than the original
melody. There are no rules here, but for now I would stay within the same key
signature and not add any sharps or flats.
Repeat the exercise, but write out the melody a fourth higher than the original.
So for example, if you started the melody on A in the original stave, write it out
but start on D.
Write out the same melody, but start a sixth higher than the
original. So in this example, we’ll start on F
Play each harmony over the original melody
Mark which passages you like the sound of or dislike the sound of from each
one.
Mix up the three new harmonies until you have a new, finished, combination
harmony you really like.
Write this one out, and this becomes your new harmony.
You can use this method for vocal lines, piano lines, guitars, strings... you name it.
You can do his with any harmony you like, and you DON’T have to stay within the
key, but at the beginning, it’s a good idea to keep within the key until you’re a bit
more confident, and you’re happy with the harmonies you’re creating.
A mistake a lot of people make when they’re starting to create harmonies, is
harmonising EVERY note in the melody or phrase. You definitely don’t have to do
this. Many pieces of music will have a really simple harmony going in the bass or mid
range, while a more frantic melody line goes over the top. Let’s take a look at how we
can do this. We’ll use the same melody line, but we’ll just simplify it so it’s a lot less
“busy”.
Here is the original melody with a harmony placed underneath.
Please bear in mind that these are ONLY examples and you can use any harmony you
like. If you want to write an entire harmony consisting of nothing but diminished
fifths, then go for it. It will probably sound a bit weird, but as a musician, that’s
perfectly up to you.
What you’ve learned:
How to take a melody and create as many harmonies as you like from it
How to pick which harmonies sound best and how to integrate them to create a
finished harmony.
Harmonic Overtones
Have you ever wondered why different instruments have completely different sounds,
even when playing THE EXACT SAME NOTE?
It's mainly because of "Harmonic Overtones".
Basically, the pitch we hear comes from vibration. So if for example we use the note
"A" vibrating at 440 Hz, it will ALSO vibrate at frequencies above that, at multiples
of 440 Hz (eg 880 Hz, 1320 Hz,
1740 Hz).
These frequencies will have different strengths of vibration according to the type of
instrument playing, so as an example, a trumpet may vibrate more strongly at 880 Hz,
and a piano may vibrate more
strongly at 1320 Hz.
There are MANY frequencies vibrating simultaneously. and the strength of these
vibrations determines the TIMBRE of the instrument.
This is why a piano doesn't sound like a trumpet (or an elephant
for that matter)
Basic Music Theory Explained
What you should get from this section:
In this section, I want to give you a basic understanding of musical theory, but without
overloading you with information. If you know your stuff as far as musical theory
goes, you’ll notice that I’ve left a lot out, and this has been done on purpose.
If you DO have a good understanding and grounding already, you will just be able to
work through the book a bit faster.
Nomenclature :
During the course, I’ll be referring to chord names and interval names, so it’s
important that you understand what we’re talking about. These are the chord names
we’ll be using:
Major Chord :
Any time you see a letter on it’s own for example “F” you know we mean F Major. I
also may write it as “F Maj”, so either of these requires you play the Major chord.
Minor Chord :
If you see a letter followed by a little m E.g. “Fm” then this relates to the minor chord.
Again, I might write “F min”, or “F minor”, and either of these will relate to a minor
chord.
There are literally hundreds of chords, and variations, but you won’t need most of
them in this course, and there are plenty of chord books and chord information on
various websites available, so I won’t cover them all here. The purpose of this course
is to help you to compose music, not learn every chord in existence.
Flats and Sharps:
A flat note uses the symbol (b) and a sharp note uses the symbol (#).
The Octave:
An octave is a musical term that covers a total of 11 notes, and spans from one note,
to the next note of the same name. The notes within the Western musical range are as
follows:
A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab,
After the Ab, we end up at the A again. All the notes you’ll ever play will be one of
these. You’ll notice that there are no sharps or flats between the notes B and C or E
and F. There ARE exceptions to this rule, but you won’t need to learn them here.
The Major Scale :
The major scale is a series of seven notes that follow a particular order. The order is as
follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
Root - Tone – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone – Tone – Semitone
This scale is the basis for all musical theory. You would probably recognise it from
your school days as:
Do – Re – Mi – Far – So – La – Ti – Do
The Minor Scale:
Each major key has a corresponding, relative minor key. The minor key will be in the
same key signature, and will contain the same notes as the major key. The only
difference between the two is that the minor key simply STARTS on a different note.
For example, in the key of C Major, the relevant, corresponding minor key is A
minor.
You can always find the relative minor key by counting up six notes from the root of
the Major key. So in the C Major example: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Hence the minor
key starts on the A.
The sequence of a minor scale is different, and goes like this:
Root – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone –Semitone – Tone - Tone
So if as an example we use the A minor scale which is the relative minor scale of C
Major, we have the following sequence of notes:
A B C D E F G A
If we were playing in F Major, the relative minor would again begin on the sixth note
in the key, which would be the D, and the sequence of notes would be:
D E F G A Bb C D
Key Signatures:
A semitone (or half step) is the smallest increment on a western musical instrument.
On a piano, it is represented by moving from one key to the next, and on a guitar, it is
represented by moving from one fret to the next.
As an example, on a piano, moving from middle C to the black key directly next to it
on the right, we would get a C# would be a semitone. Moving from middle C to the
next WHITE key on the right, which is the D, would be a tone from the middle C
(also known as two semitones or a whole step).
On a guitar, moving from the open A string to the first fret on the A string A# would
be a semitone, whilst moving from the open A string to the second fret B would be a
tone (two semitones).
So if we look at the C Major scale, it looks like this:
C (root note)
Then up a TONE to D
Then up a TONE to E
Then up a SEMITONE to F
Then up a TONE to G
Then up a TONE to A
Then up a TONE to B
And finally up a SEMITONE again to finish back on C.
All major keys follow this pattern, and you can start a Major scale on any note.
A couple of things to be aware of: Some notes have the same sound, but different
names depending on which KEY they are in. For example, an A# is the same note as a
Bb as if you move up ONE semitone from A it becomes A# and if you move down
ONE semitone from B it becomes a Bb. Again, you don’t need to worry too much
about this if it’s confusing you as we’re going to stick mainly to simple chords and
keys throughout this site.
Keys :
As a reference, here is a list of all the keys, the notes within them, and the chords
within the key!
C Major :
Notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
Key signature: (No key signature)
Chords within Key: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B diminished