Original Message 1/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  05:32 AM   -   I feel stupid...

stephenb

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Alright, time to swallow my pride and start asking some simple music theory questions. I've tried time and time again to learn, but lack of time and too much info not relevant to dance music always puts me off.

So take deep house/garage for example:

If I decide the key of a song, and want to make a bassline, what scale should I use - minor, major...what?

Should I bang out a bassline using the root and fifth notes? What rules do a simple bassline follow?

Once I know what key my song is in, how do I know what chords I can play with it?

Does house, or disco follow a chord progression?

I try not to let music theory ignorance get in my way, I'm still managing to churn out some nice house grooves, but time and time again it comes back to haunt me. So any theory tips relevant to making dance would be a welcome change. I just want some simple rules to point me in the right direction, I don't want to follow a dull formula, just lay down some rules that'd help or inspire me.

Hopefuly, any answers will benefit other people like myself who come from a dj'ing or more technical background.

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Message 2/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  05:34 AM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

SB

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Shit! What happened to all the white space?

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Message 3/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  02:51 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

daisuke

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Hi there,

I known it's pretty tough at first learning this things, since i figure out most of them by myself time ago. There may some innacurancies in the following stuff... but I'm pretty sure that I learned the basic ;)

I discover that... yes, there are rules, but they are not so much. Let's start.

When u have decided the key of a song you usually decide the minor / major stuff also, since the "minor" and "major" flavors lead to different notes in the scale. So for example if u decide that C is your key and "major" your flavor then you'll have the simple: C D E F G A B scale, instead if your choice is the "minor" one, well, you'll have the C D Eb F G Ab Gb scale (I didn't play this one... I hope it's correct).

As far as i known, the "minor" flavor is somewhat "sad"or "dark". After all, i think it's a personal choice, I think. If you are jamming around in, say, Dminor, and u find a nice riff your entire song should follow that scale.

Then... u've found that nice riff in that minor scale, right? Then the bassline should follow that scale also. Simple. Bassline however should follow the beats rather than your riffs... just listen to any decent track. Using the root and other notes of the chosen scale assure you to stay in tune with the rest of the song parts.

Chords. Again you chose the chords by playng only the notes in the scale. For example if your scale is C you can play the C major, A minor, D minor and so on.

There's ton of docs on the internet about chords... jum p to: http://www.harmony-central.com/ and take a look.

There's tip #1... stay on the scale!

bye.

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Message 4/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  06:57 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

sitar

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By using 4th and 5ths along with the tonic in basslines you probably won't go wrong. But your "bass player" will become bored if that's all that's played. 1, 4, 5 is pretty standard bassline stuff.

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Message 5/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  07:34 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

damballah

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Seems that in a lot of house stuff, they try to get the bassline funky and groovin' over that 4onthefloor drum pattern. Your bassline can follow a chord progression but more of them seem to dance around a single tonality. If you just bounce around I-V, you run the risk of it sounding like a Jane Fonda workout video (safe, but...). "What chords?" If you're doing a major key, just count the notes in that key 1 through 7. 1, 4 and 5 are Major; 2, 3 and 6 are minor; 7 is diminished (flatted fifth).

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Message 6/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  10:21 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

casparproject

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minor is C D Eb F G Ab B not the origanally indicated C D Eb F G Ab Gb

peaceout

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Message 7/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  10:30 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

casparproject

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Ok, the best way to do it is start with a bass line. let's say we're in Cminor and our bass line goes like this in eighth notes(-indicates a slur between notes) C-C up an octave C-C down to Ab Ab Ab G. The scale degrees here are 1 1 6 6 6 5. Now, lets start with figuring out what we can do with 1. Now, the standard thing to do is just do minor 1 chords over those 1s, but you can do a lot more. ie. modal mixture (using minor chords in a major key, or major chords in a minor one) are sometimes cool. I don't have kbd here, so if this progression sounds like shit, dont kill me. So for the first note, the bass is a lower C, so lets spell out a minor arpeggiation above that lower C.

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Message 8/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  10:31 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

caspar

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let just for the sake of argument, make that higer C the root of a major chord.

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Message 9/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  10:39 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

caspar

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ok, the keybd on this forum donrt seem to be workin, so here goes, i'll give you the chords in the full progression. C Eb G.....C E G.....Ab C F (for two of the eights......Ab D F..... G B D it should sound alright. this is pretty basic. the first chord is a minor 1 chord (I) the second chrd is a minor 1 chord (i) the third chrd is minor 4 chord in first inversion (this means that the bass note is actually the second note in the chord, this chord is notated as iv6) the fifth chord is a minor 2 chrd in second inversion (which means the bass note is actually the third note in the chord, this chord is indicated as ii6/4) then the last chord is a 5 chord, which is major whethor its in the major or minor mode.

Peaceout

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Message 10/22                 Date: 23-Feb-00  @  10:41 PM   -   RE: I feel stupid...

casparq

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sorry, what i indicated as the fifth chord was the fourth, sorry.

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