Posts Tagged ‘#music theory’

Take Away One Lyrics and Music

Posted: July 21, 2023 in #poetry, MUSIC, Music Theory, My Tunes
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I wrote lyrics for Take Away One based on the idea of removing a particular note from a 4-note-chord. This leaves you with a specific 3-note-chord. Hence the name of the song and also the foundation for the original poem. I had to add a verse to the poem converting them to lyrics because for a few weeks one band member or the other could’t make a scheduled music jam. Often three members would drop out one by one leaving me as the only bandmate that made it for the jam! Sometimes we travel and jam in person, but more often we use a program for on-line musicians and connect from our homes. That is how we survived the Covid-19 lock-down.

You will notice the difference right away. This is another example of a song that came together really fast because it was based on a mathematical theme or idea. The chord pairs were based on the idea above, but the progression was completely random. The arrangement was pretty basic so it wrote itself. Once I had the title it was easy to think of examples in life where things get taken away. You’re probably doing it right now.

If you get writers block, try starting from a different point. I’ve never had writers block in my 50 years of writing and recording songs, so maybe I’m on to something.

I had fun with the ending and the arrangement has a few twists as usual. Enjoy Take Away One.

Music for “Take Away One”

Posted: July 14, 2023 in Music Theory, My Tunes
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I posted a poem called “Take Away One” recently. I knew this one was a song in the making so I started working on writing music around the theme. I tell my friends that I ‘feel’ music theory more than I know or understand it. Sometimes I look at the patterns and rhythms, often I get fascinated by melodies that twist within the chords. Often I get distracted by simple mathmetical relationships in music – ’cause that’s what it is.

There are many tonal relationships between chords in any arrangement. For background, two notes played simultaneously is an interval. With three or more individual notes you can form a chord. The more notes within the chord the greater the potential for complex tones. Some combinations sound calm, delightful and inspiring. Other combinations are uncomfortable or have a lot of dissonence. Some are downright ugly by themselves if truth be told.

Not to get too deep here, because I can’t swim in these waters, but the arrangement uses the relationship when you have a 4 note chord (of any root note you prefer). Start with a G Major 7th chord as my example. It consistes of 4 individual notes: G (the root here by definition of the chord name), B, D and F#.

If you Take Away One – the G in this example as root note of the chord – you have a 3 note chord called B Minor. The arrangement consists of alternating between pairs of Major 7th chords and their relative minor 2nd chord. (or is it its 2nd relative minor?). Then I pick another random pair of Major 7th/2nd Minor chords and continue. Hence the name of the song.

I am working on the melody line and recording the vocals but here is the instrumental version of “Take Away One“.

Modals and Music Theory

Posted: March 6, 2019 in Music Theory
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On another note (LOL), I have been interested in Modals for a while.  I think they benefit lead players more but I do find them interesting and useful.  Recently I was looking at a YouTube channel where the post by David Bennett Piano answered the question, “are there any pop songs that use the Locrian scale?”.  The Locrian modal uses a flatted 5th, which flies in the face of popular music and their rather vanilla use of scales and progressions. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6JBsOzOFaQ
The post was interesting and informative, but I bring this up because of the ONE example he could find.  Granted, he stretched the definition of “pop”, but his reference was one of my all time favorite vocalists and artists.  Bjork, formally with “The Sugar Cubes” is up there with Peter Gabriel for me.  I think she is a true musical genius.  Maybe because she does not limit herself to the confines of commercial music, and indeed, much of her material  – especially her videos – is really out there.  So am I.   Anyway,  could not resist spreading this reference around.   Army Of Me:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeAZ9DQZFz8

David Bennett is Patreon member (as am I) and is worth supporting.

Music’s Universal Language – Mathematics!

Posted: June 8, 2015 in Music Theory
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Once we simplify the 12 notes and we are now able to find any Major scale very quickly  (if you only did the exercise to find the other Major scales a few times you would see this is really easy….) and we can continue to explore the Major scales for other Keys.  This is the foundation of the musical theory pyramid.  It is important to understand how we get to the Safe Seven.  No, you do not have to memorize every note in every scale, although ultimately that will help a lot.  For now, try digging in and go over the Major scale for each of the 12 notes a few times.  As you play the new Major scales, sing (or hum!) the Do Re Me song along with the notes you are playing.  (tip for the day; as you hum each scale from the new starting note, you are changing keys!)

When we look back at the Safe Seven article, I showed a simple connection that I will repeat here:

C    D     E     F     G     A     B     C

1     2     3     4     5     6     7     1

There is a lot of math in music and music theory.  But instead of confusing things and making you change from your creative hat to your thinking hat, I find the math connection actually simplifies the confusion.  It allows me to see the connection the various notes have.  Personally, I HEAR and FEEL music more than I THINK it through.  I have friends that can convert and spit out scales, keys and modes as easily as some of us use Pandora, Spotify or I-Tunes to change a song.  I am really amazed at their skills, but that is something I am not all that good at.  But you will see how easy it is to understand the art and the science by following these posts.
If we look at the Safe Seven for each Major scale, we can make an easy conversion (or universal language) for describing note or chord progressions for ANY Major key.  I know, I keep on harping on the Major scales, but the others will be really easy once we have this understood and comfortable with the Mystery of the 12 and the Safe Seven, so let’s keep going.  For those of you new to this blog, I have no formal training and I am self taught.   I can assure you I am no genius.  If I can get this, so can you.  I just hope to make it a bit easier for you if you are just diving in or curious about how this fits together.

Knowing now that we call the first note the Root, and the same note higher or lower on the keyboard are called Octaves, we will begin a simple conversion;  Root = 1.  Each note in the Safe Seven can be represented this way by assigning it a value of 1-7.  We just assigned Root = 1, so moving up is easy.  In the example above, C is the Root so C = 1 and continuing the scale, D = 2, E = 3, F = 4, G = 5, A = 6, B = 7 and the octave is again the Root or 1.   Each Major scale can be represented the same way.  Use the Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half system to find the Safe Seven and then assign each to their corresponding number and we can stop talking about note names!  As we get more into chord structure and progressions, this will also come into perspective.  But let’s not get stretched too far.  Play with these exercises a few times a day and we will build our solid musical foundation quickly.  I will also go into the names of the notes as they change keys and this can be confusing to many until you see the method to the madness.