Music Tutorial Part 1 By The Awakened I needed a break from C++ tutorials, so I figured I'd write about something I'm a little more proficient with: music. The method I'm going to teach you isn't exactly "standard", but it definately gets you on track as soon as possible. I know many people might want to use a tracker or sequencer, but don't know much about music theory and whatnot. Hopefully, I can help you out. I highly recommend learning an instrument, and guitar and piano are among the more "all-encompassing" instruments, meaning that most of the stuff taught here can be applied to either of those instruments. For the theory that I teach, I'm not exactly a conservatory student, although I know quite a bit. I'm not 100% on the staff and "official names" for certain things, but when it comes to scales and chords (which, in my opinion, is where it really counts), I'm fairly proficient. I've met people in my school who've been playing piano for a few years longer than I have at guitar (they've been taught by the Conservatory, and I'm pretty much self taught), and I ask something like "what's the relative mixolydian of G?", and they immediately go cry in a corner. Something that might take me 10 or 15 seconds to figure out, and they have no idea. Anyway, enough of me speaking highly of myself. ;) Let's get going. 1. Notes In western music, we have 12 notes. They are: A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab. Then it repeats. A, A#/Bb... # means "sharp", b means "flat". Notice the ones with flat and sharp signs. They're the same note, but you can refer to them in two different ways. A# and Bb are the same note. Also notice that some notes don't have flats and sharps. B doesn't have a sharp, and C doesn't have a flat. Same with E and F. Now, most contemporary music doesn't use all these notes in one melody. Instead, we use patterns of notes called scales. The most common scale is the major scale. Starting with C, it looks like this: C, D, E, F, G, A, B (and repeat) Wow. That's cool. Compare it to the 12 notes above, and you'll see there's a pattern. It starts on C, then it goes up in different "intervals." When it jumps by two notes, (like say, A to B), it's called a "whole step." If it's only one note (for example, A to A#), then it's called a "half step." The intervals of the major scale are as follows: Whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. The half steps are in between E and F, and B and C. That's why it's easiest to remember the C major scale, since the half steps and whole steps are already built into the western 12 note system. 2. Keys When someone refers to the "key" of the music, they're referring to what the main note that the song uses and keeps "returning to", and what scale is being used. As we saw above, the most basic scale is the major scale, and the simplest key to have the major scale in is C (simply because there's no sharps or flats to deal with). But having many different songs in the same key gets boring. Let's look at the major scale in a few different keys. Remember, we use the whole-whole-half-etc pattern. In E: E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# In A#: A#, C, D, D#, F, G, A Try figuring out a couple more for yourself. Easy enough? Good. 3. Diatonic Scales A diatonic scale is a seven note scale. The most common is the major scale. Scales are notated as follows. Let's take the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 1 is your root, 2 is the second, 3 is third, etc. So C is the root, D is the second, E is the third, and so on. Now, the major scale is your all out, super happy, bouncy bubbly scale. But how about some other patterns of notes? How about some more scales? If you're thinking "oh crap, he's gonna give me some more long patterns to memorize!!!", then calm down. Let's look at the C major scale again. C, D, E, F, G, A, B What if I kept that pattern, but I started on a different note of the seven note scale? D, E, F, G, A, B, C Ooh! Sounds interesting, kinda rockin'. How about another one? E, F, B, A, B, C, D Hmm... kind of mysterious... interesting, could make some pretty heavy riffs. It doesn't have to be done on the C major scale (duh), you can do it to other keys as well. E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# can become F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#, E (I just shifted up by one note of the original scale) These are called the "modes" of the major scale. In C major, C is the "root mode". There are names for the other modes too: 1 - Ionian (Major) 2 - Dorian 3 - Phrygian 4 - Lydian 5 - Mixolydian 6 - Aeolean (Minor) 7 - Locrian These are Greek names. I know it's a bit much to take in all at once, but let me try to explain the overall sound and feeling of each one: Ionian - Happy, triumphant. Most happy pop songs are in the Ionian mode. Dorian - Laid back, cool, rockin'. Phrygian - Slightly mysterious, sad. Lydian - Happy, but mysterious. It smiles at you with it's eyebrow raised... Mixolydian - Happy, but not quite as happy as the Ionian mode. More rockin'. Aeolean - Minor scale. Sad, emotional. Locrian - Mysterious and angry. So the one I did above with the C major scale was: D, E, F, G, A, B, C That's D dorian. If I started on E, it would be E phrygian. And this can be done in any key, as long as you know what notes are in the major scale. Easy enough? Sweet. 4. Intervals and Harmony Playing up and down the scale can get boring, if you're only playing the notes in sequence. This is where intervals come in. An interval is the "distance" between two notes. I've put how many half steps away from the root the interval is. 0 - Root 1 - Minor Second 2 - Major Second 3 - Minor Third 4 - Major Third 5 - Perfect Fourth 6 - Augmented Fourth/Diminished Fifth 7 - Perfect Fifth 8 - Minor Sixth 9 - Major Sixth 10 - Minor Seventh 11 - Major Seventh 12 - Octave Note that this isn't necessarily relative to the key you're playing in. It's relative to any note. Two notes that are an octave apart are the same note, just one whole register higher. Notice something. We've got something called a "perfect fifth", yet it's 7 half steps away. Why? Because in the diatonic scale, it's five steps away. See, every mode of the diatonic scale is made up of different sequences of these intervals. When you begin to compose your own stuff, you can hear how each interval sounds in a scale, and step outside the scale when you want to, and make it sound cool. Harmony is two or more notes played at the same time. You can play these intervals at the same time, and depending on what intervals you play, they can sound pleasant, or gut-wrenching. :) If you look at a scale, the harmony is "built in" for you. Just play two or more notes of a scale at the same time and you've got harmony. Sometimes it sounds good, sometimes it doesn't. How will you know when they sound good? Let's look at arpeggios. 5. Arpeggios and Chords Arpeggios are simply a group of three or more notes that are spaced out a bit more than scales are, and played as individual notes (as opposed to chords, as we'll see in a bit here.) The most common and simple ones are 3 note ones (also known as triads), and out of the 3 note arpeggios, the most basic ones are Major, Minor, and Diminished. Major: Root, Major Third, Perfect Fifth Minor: Root, Minor Third, Perfect Fifth Diminished: Root, Minor Third, Diminished Fifth A C major arpeggio would look like: C, E, G Because E is a major third away from C, and G is a perfect fifth away from C. An A minor arpeggio would look like: A, C, E Because C is a minor third away from A, and E is a perfect fifth away from A. A B diminished arpeggio would look like: B, D, F Because D is a minor third away from B, and F is a diminished fifth away from B. How does all of this fit together? Well, with the way the diatonic scale is set up, different notes have different arpeggios associated with them. Taking a look at the C major scale again: C, D, E, F, G, A, B If we started with C, and made a 3 note arpeggio by going up by two notes, we'd get: C, E, G Major arpeggio, just like the above. Do the same with D: D, F, A It's a minor arpeggio. E: E, G, B Another minor arpeggio. "Okay, is there a pattern?" Yup. Before I show you, see if you can figure out, by yourself, the order of what types of arpeggios are in the major scale. And here's the pattern, with the C major scale as reference: C, D, E, F, G, A, B 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished Hopefully, as you begin to compose stuff, you'll look at these patterns and use them to your advantage. Chords are groups of three or more notes played simultaneously. Basically, they're like arpeggios, but the notes get played all at the same time. Chords tend to be the backbone of a lot of compositions. Only playing single notes gets really, really boring. There are many different kinds of chords/arpeggios. We'll get to other kinds in a later tutorial. 6. Harmony Revisited Probably the most commonly used and most pleasant harmony is created by playing a third above the note you're playing. So just like we did above, take whatever note you're on in the scale, and go two notes up. It's either a major or minor third. You can add the fifth on top of that too. 6. Chord/Key Notation So far, we've learned three types of chords: major, minor, and diminished. If you want to write out a chord progression out on paper, or you want to write what key a song is in, there's some "notation". The root note name by itself represents major. So if you came across: C, F, G You'd play C major, F major, and G major. Minor chords are written as the root note name, but with a lower case "m" in front. Diminished chords are written as the root note name followed by "dim". It can also be followed with the "degree" symbol, but to my knowledge, ASCII doesn't have the degree symbol. ;) So here's a sample chord progression: Am, C, Bdim, G We'd play A minor, then C major, then B diminished, then G major. You can also say "my composition is in the key of G" which means the key of the song is G major. Or "this song is in A minor" and it would be in the key of A minor. "But, what about the modes?!?" To be honest, I'm not too sure. I've never really heard a music teacher say "this is in the key of B dorian." For me though, I do say the name of the mode. 7. Timing Most music we listen to is in "4/4" timing. Count out loud "ONE, two, three, four", each one equally spaced out, with an emphasis on the "ONE". The first 4 in "4/4" means that there are four notes of whatever note duration is in the second number. In this case, the second number is a 4, so that means it's a quarter note. So there are 4 quarter notes for every measure, or bar, in 4/4 timing. In 4/4, a whole note is worth the whole measure. A half note is worth half the measure, quarter note is worth a quarter, eighth note worth an eighth, etc etc. Typically, we don't go beyond sixty-fourth note, since it's pretty impractical to write on a staff, and unless you have an extremely slow piece (like 40 beats per minute), you don't need anything faster than that. At an average speed (like 120 beats per minute), 128th notes are... superhuman, heh. 8. Simple Chord Progressions The most common chord progression in western music is probably the "1-4-5". The numbers represent the scale degrees of the root note of each chord. In other words, if you were in C major: C major would be 1 F major would be 4 G major would be 5 Review the scale degrees and all that other stuff if you're confused. So if you did this over a 4 bar progression, it would be: C major, F major, G major, C major (repeat) Why does that sound good? It's the G major. The G is your 5th, and, for whatever reason, the human brain likes the tension it creates when you play the 5th and then the root. Simple as that. Here a minor progression: 1, 7, 6, 7 In E minor, it looks like this: Em, D, C, D That's a common progression in many types of music. Experiment, and come up with your own. Use the diminished chord sparingly. 9. Creating Melodies over Chord Progressions Really, I can't tell you how to make up a melody. I can give you a few guidelines, though: -Try not to make every note have the same duration. Mix it up a bit. -Take note of the intervals that you create with the chord you're playing over top of. -Landing on the root at the end of a long melody "resolves" everything. -Try adding harmony to your melodies. It doesn't have to last for the duration of the melody, you can just add little splashes of harmony. 10. Summing Up My God, I hope that made sense. If you have any questions, I'm on Pete's board. Next time, we'll get into other chords, other scales, odd time signatures, other melody writing techniques, and the staff. Good luck! -The Awakened