Need a helping hand to make sure you do it right, first time? Got some good advice to pass on, so no-one makes the same mistakes you did? This is your forum.
No I didn't think you got that impression, all is good
Actually, on the subject of old recordings, I think it would be cool if there was a thread that we could post our old recordings that we don't have any plans to fix. We all have 'em, old recordings done on old machines that we might not even have the tracks for anymore, just the "finished" waves or mp3s from a time long ago. Not necessarily to make fun of each other, I just think it would be interesting to put some up and listen to other's old recordings, and discussing what we did wrong at the time, and seeing just how far we've all come in the learning process. Hell, when I first started years ago, I wasn't even panning! Then when I discovered panning, I wasn't sure where things went, so I have some recordings where the high hats are so far left or right they feel like they're outside in the driveway!
You also might get someone to say "wow, you should re-record that, it's a killer idea", which would give us motivation to do something we otherwise would not have.
I don't know, sounds like a fun idea. I don't want to start one though without some feedback on what people think of the idea.
Last edited by JohnnyAmato on Mon Feb 27, 2017 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Thanx Bob. I actually understood most of that. I'm going to pick up my guitar later and go through the chords while reading your post. I'm sure I'm going to learn something.
JohnnyAmato wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 12:38 am
No I didn't think you got that impression, all is good
Actually, on the subject of old recordings, I think it would be cool if there was a thread that we could post our old recordings that we don't have any plans to fix. We all have 'em, old recordings done on old machines that we might not even have the tracks for anymore, just the "finished" waves or mp3s from a time long ago. Not necessarily to make fun of each other, I just think it would be interesting to put some up and listen to other's old recordings, and discussing what we did wrong at the time, and seeing just how far we've all come in the learning process. Hell, when I first started years ago, I wasn't even panning! Then when I discovered panning, I wasn't sure where things went, so I have some recordings where the high hats are so far left or right the feel like they're outside in the driveway!
You also might get someone to say "wow, you should re-record that, it's a killer idea", which would give us motivation to do something we otherwise would not have.
I don't know, sounds like a fun idea. I don't want to start one though without some feedback on what people think of the idea.
That would be cool. I have a few pretty old MP3's that even I haven't listened to in over 10 years. Actually, that's how I found this tune. I thought of it and put it on for the first time in years and said "Shit, this could have been really good if it was recorded better".
Actually, on the subject of old recordings, I think it would be cool if there was a thread that we could post our old recordings that we don't have any plans to fix.
that sounds like a good idea. I'd like to post old stuff and listen to ya'lls
Although truth be told, I never fix any of my new recordings either.
rammer24 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 12:44 am
Thanx Bob. I actually understood most of that. I'm going to pick up my guitar later and go through the chords while reading your post. I'm sure I'm going to learn something.
good .... I've actually updated it to clarify a couple of things so you might want to run thru it one more time.
I have some stuff, somewhere, from my psychobilly days of recording stuff in a garage with mics hanging from the rafters. It sounds about how you'd expect.
Since we only heard the 4 chords and not the whole song...this may be off base...but it's the C#m that chaps my ass in that progression.
Just going with the 4 chords...and that lead B note...I would take it to an E instead of C#m, but again, the C#m might be more "right" depending on the rest of your song.
The E actually sounds really nice there. They both work, but the E seems to "resolve" it more. Since it's the same 4 chords in the verse, I'm now going to try the C#m7 (Sorry, I forgot to mention that for the D# and C#, I take my pinky off and make them minor 7ths.)
But anyway, I'll probably try something like going to the C#m for the first 3 times, and then ending the 4th pattern with the E. It also probably depends on what chord the chorus starts in, and I can't remember right now, I'll have to re-learn this song as if it's a cover.
Lt Bob came up with exactly the same as I did - the Major 7th. One of my favourite chords.
When I was a kid learning the cello - my gran told me she used to play piano and you never played two notes a semi-tone apart - it was BAD, and I believed her. Disonance - yuk. Then when I was in my teens I heard the intro to the David Bowie track Changes. That was I think my introduction to music that deliberately broke the rule. Since then I've come across the technique over and over again. Very often the 'clash' gets resolved the next beat or so.
You can mix the location the clash is within a chord by moving the top or bottom note up or down an octave, anything you like if it works, and it doesn;t really break any music rules apart from the very basic (and often incorrect) ones given to students. You also get these clashes where you play a sustained note and then change chords over it - often the lowest one or maybe a bass note or pattern. Most processes have rigid rules that might just add in a few extra ones as people following them progress, but music has beginners rules that when you start to get it, you start to break with full permission from your betters. If you played the Major 7th in beginners music lessons, they'd tell you that was a mistake. In music the real test is listening. Very often you come up with something that sounds good - and then like this topic, you then start to analyse what you did, decide that although it shouldn't work, it does, and you expand your own version of the rules. Like the guitarists who suddenly discover you don't actually have to play every string in a chord, and sometimes it sounds better with TWO Bs, and no G at all. On the piano, the Elton John trick of a Major 3rd in the bass - as in a C Major chord, but with an E in his left hand. The Ed Shearan does it recently on the guitar - with a D chord, using the thumb on the low F sharp to do the low Major 3rd!
I think everyone who has even average music listening skills know what works and what doesn't. I bet when you wrote that song, you never even gave the actual chord any thought at all - it just sounded 'right'.
Years ago, when I was in charge of examining music technology in the UK, we tried to make students do a mix of pop and classical via a MIDI produced sequencer project. The pop one wasn't done badly, but loads of ex-traditional music teachers were being forced into technology. A favourite way for people to do really badly (considering they were beginners in both music and technology) was to give them stuff that sounded wrong, before they even sequenced it! Stravinski - Rite of Spring. If you put the notes into a sequencer 100% correct - it sounds terribly wrong, unless you can work out which of the notes should be the supporting ones and which ones the critical primary ones. Most average kids could hardly get note accuracy right (they got marked for that) so with thousands of notes, many sounding wrong, but right and many sounding right, but actually being accuracy errors - that piece of music failed badly. The examiners couldn't work out if a really cringe moment was poor accuracy or not without getting a score and actually trying to find the cause of the clash and then determining if it was right and deliberate or wrong and a mistake. Some kids even decided that some of the horrible bits must be printing errors and put them right!
That piece of music is just madness - but played my a real orchestra actually is very exciting, but as to rules? I don't think some of those chords even have names!
rammer24 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:19 am
(Sorry, I forgot to mention that for the D# and C#, I take my pinky off and make them minor 7ths.)
Yeah, I sort of worked that out...
You're right though. Trust your gut. It sounded fine, theory be damned.
I get some really interesting chord sounds on variously tuned acoustics when there's a semi-tone between two notes on adjacent strings when perhaps, strictly speaking, you'd expect a tone. It's not discordant, it's something else that I don't quite have a name for.
I don't think the theory of it matters at all - it sounds cool as it is.
You could do a few things to make it seem like it conforms more to a single key, but it will leave you with an ugly diminished chord - try it though - you might like it. I quite like diminished chords sometimes.
If you play this as a B Mixolydian (standard major chord), Dm diminished, (route, flat 5th, minor 3rd and a 7th/9th) C Lydian (standard A Chord) and C# Aeolian (natural C# Minor). i.e as Johnny said you're in the key of B Flat so the B Flat major scales and C# minor scales will work over this.
The one that makes this sound interesting (and I like it!) is using a D# natural minor instead of diminished chord. This gives the effect of both your B Major and A Major sounding "lydian". What you're doing is pretty quirky, but you might need to be a little careful as the D#5th note in the chord (G#) might sound a bit out of tune if you play that note in any other part of the sequence.
Gerg - its not Mixolydians I like, its Phrygians - I like the flat 9ths.
Rami - I was teaching Greg this for ages and I'll forward you the notes if you like - Greg, seemed genuninely frightened that if he started using it too much he'd start wearing nail varnish and popping down to his local hair dresser for a perm, then popping into the shop to pick up spandex pants on the way home. I think he did find it useful for the basics of working out what relative major/minor scale to use.
But I agree with Greg - its next to fucking useless for writing a "song" but if you're stuck in a rut and can't quite find what works and are stumped with why you're stuggling to generate ideas it can be useful. i.e. don't use it to generate ideas, but use it to analyse the ideas you already have to help you build on them easily. It won't generate ideas for you but could speed up the process.
Gerg - its not Mixolydians I like, its Phrygians - I like the flat 9ths.
Rami - I was teaching Greg this for ages and I'll forward you the notes if you like - Greg, seemed genuninely frightened that if he started using it too much he'd start wearing nail varnish and popping down to his local hair dresser for a perm, then popping into the shop to pick up spandex pants on the way home. I think he did find it useful for the basics of working out what relative major/minor scale to use.
Lol. That's true. Your teaching tool is brilliant and it does indeed work. But it's also a roadmap to sounding like a metal dork.
Greg_L wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:28 am
Lol. That's true. Your teaching tool is brilliant and it does indeed work. But it's also a roadmap to sounding like a metal dork.
haha, its not if you don't want to - you're just irrationally worried about metal - I think you have a thing about minor 6ths - when you hear them you think: A lot of Randy Rhoads lines end with that minor 6th, so I can see why you think that.
The riff for No Choice and Suck You In (the one with the Swedish bloke singing) are both written using this stuff, so it can also be used for
Greg_L wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:01 am
I don't even know what a minor 6th is.
Its that note in the minor scale which isn't in the minor pentatonic scale that makes you sound like Randy Rhoads. If you were in E Minor played a C note, thats a minor 6th. A decendiing lead run that ends on the minor 6ths is very RR style thing to do.
Thanx for all the help, guys. This was actually quite enlightening.
Rob A. You're right. At the time, I didn't give it a thought. Had I written this now, I probably would have over-analyzed it and changed something to make it "correct".
But I now uderstand the difference between obvious dissonance and just a passing note in a descending chord progression.
A lot of Randy Rhoads lines end with that minor 6th, so I can see why you think that.
