The Secret to What Chords Work - Putting Tunes and Chords Together

hello everybody how's your life in lockdown going I tell you I'm so busy I just haven't had a second to sit down and write some music it's ridiculous I've got to spend some quality time watching the grass grow they're dead you saw that didn't you did it then there's all these leaves to polish I mean they're not gonna push themselves are they I have to give the dogs their elementary toy for beginners lesson and look I can tell you having done your homework and it's not that I'm angry I'm just very very disappointed I have to count every bubble in a glass of fizzy water four thousand nine hundred and eighty six four thousand nine hundred and eighty seven for that one two three now come on make an effort make an effort Salwa TD sarwat d sabaidee my and then after all that if I'm really lucky I get half an hour to write something like this okay everybody so given I'm so short of time so much to do so little time to do it sort of and I thought what we do today is one thing which does crop up quite a lot people have asked quite a lot a bit about how will you get your cords and your melody to sort of meld together as though they're meant to be you know a lifelong partnership and this is it's a huge question and therefore I'm just gonna sort of scratch the surface but I should say that almost anybody who sits down and says I will now give you the ten most important rules about the writing tunes and putting them together with cause is destined to fail because every rule you come up with there's gonna be a hundred and fifty exceptions so let's look at these more like guidelines okay what I would say is that what what they're really useful for is fixing things when they've gone wrong and you should sort of just keep them in the back of your mind when you're trying to write but if things don't sound right then it's time to have a little look and see if these guidelines might help you at all so look what I'm going to do this is piano tech people always ask what's opportunity so piano tech is one of the piano to use emotional piano from sound down as the other those are the two main ones so while we are look look that doesn't sound like it at all where's it gone that's not it either there it is okay right as a rule of thumb if you have a chord here's a chord of C major obviously what not obviously maybe and you are free to use any of the notes from the chord the very simple but it is very very restricted so chord of C chord of F you can't go through life just using the notes for the chord or every tune would sound well frankly like that like you've just sort of dropped in to kind of some kind of preschool hell and so moving on and you can have the joining up notes as well as long as you know that's up Ling as long as you don't feature them so for example if we've got a porta C major you've got C E and G you can have the D in the F so you can go okay so call to see using those passing notes in there onto an F going on a GF B a G so you can have all those those are all fine and the ones you wants to really avoid and I use the word avoid very very cautiously because you again every time I say you can't have that somebody to go could I just quote the example of deep purple's in okay I get it okay but if you're sitting there going why does my do not sound a kneeboard the answer is look carefully first of all at things which are a semitone or a half step away from a chord note so if you've got a supporter C C sharp mm-hmm d sharp or E flat now there's an example okay so look ah well that sounds terrible it sounds terrible like that when you play that f-sharp against a quarter see but if you put it as a sort of a bi chord where you're putting C a chord of D major on top of a chord of C suddenly it sounds lovely so for every rule there's about 450 exceptions but semitone clashes mmm can be a bit dodgy now if this is the kind of thing you found useful then obviously please remember to subscribe to the channel and click the little notification things and then you'll be forewarned when we do live things and when we do more videos and stuff like that and if you have a question post it in the comments underneath so we've got we're in our quarter see what about that one what about that eh I tend to feel it the sixth tends to pull you onto a new cord so but those in the UK will recognize that is we got a famous those of you not in the UK there's a famous soap opera called EastEnders and the tune goes okay now where would you Dan goes it's Gucci it's been around for about 58 million years so how we can harmonize this that's fine because we got joined up notes right AMF clearly is pulling you to a new chord so we're gonna go to court for in the key of C which is F major now I could now I could stay on effing I could go and then go back to C but what's probably better is is to move on to court - which is D minor now what that sounds horrible going just straight what I think he does if I remember is to do that which is to go to the first inversion of si si or you'll put in the e in the base then you can go to here is a really example a good example of something else the chord goes to F but the cut a tune is really revolving around these jeans so what it's making is an F 9th there's the Destin eyes you could I can feel the comets flying in people no it's not really real it's I know I know there's any way you try and describe a call there's 600 million alternatives and these but the the point though to come out of this is your melody note adds sometimes extended harmonies to your your bass triad so you can have an F there and if your melody notes there then that is effectively an F F 9 then it resolves onto called 5 and then you're back to the beginning June which launched a thousand careers or whatever anyway um so those are just those are the sort of rules of thumb guidelines call them what you will if your tune is sounding a bit then take a deep breath go and have a cup of tea always helps come back and then think hmm semitone clash is probably not the best thing in the world maybe I can work but also it's a matter of not being kind of real kind of meat and two veg real black and water but everything's got to be one four five good now there's always a more interesting way [Music] sometimes it can be a little bit unnecessary okay look I said we're gonna write a piece of music and that isn't a piece of music that is just faffing about so let us let us sleep in I've got some Spitfire labs loaded up Spitfire labs are fantastic they're free they are a great contribution to the world of you know sampling and and all that kind of malarkey because there's some really really really good sounds in there and what have I got loader has got some drums and hats there's a little sort of bass sound so drums good oh yeah whoa sounds like I've got a bit of reverb on there Oh have I mentioned obviously I didn't I do a course called how to write music how to write music is my online course that takes you through every step of the process how to get going chord progressions tune writing developing and arranging your music six hours of exclusive video tutorials a course text packed with tips and a supportive online community get more out of your music and sign up today moving along we got little dulcimer I use this one all the time I really like it strings which one is it I don't know which they got there is it such strings to strings long it has a nice funky little interface it's a very different interface actually it doesn't look like anything else but you know there's good stuff in here you can do all kinds of good good things so I'm Austin Otto can also pick out a chick I can pick out harmonies as well look because it's effectively picking out a chord progression okay let's say we stick with that so there is a basic chord progression in there if I quantize this to sixteenths is it all going to go horribly wrong yeah so what I'm using here is where things have gone wrong I'm just nudging I'm nudging by not bar quantize there we go undo right so I want to go that one nagy forward whatever sequence or door or whatever you're using oh yeah look how badly wrong this is all gone when you get out of shape would it not be quick to play it in a gang guy yes it would actually but now I've committed now I'm committed Oh Lord's our mercy one okay and then we'll loop [Music] not very clean spend another hour on no couldn't spend an hour doing that what are you talking about guys spend them in another five minutes but it would be a tedious five minutes and you deserve more than tedium right let's pick out this baseline [Music] what have I got going so in terms of the tune I've got eg so that seems to pick out a a C chord then I go up to the a minor then down to an F major so all that so I'm going to go let's go back to the base so let the C do its thing now in comes a down to F finally don't see nice and simple and again [Music] and then I'll repeat that again okay that'll do right now I'm going to play a hi-hat slightly on the office so it's got a little offbeat thing going for [Music] okay now a lot of the time when you play stuff in the first time around thick rubbish then it kicked by the time you've played one loop you've sort of got your iron and it oh yeah okay that works so we can put these gonna have some hats starting earlier I quite like that bit loud you can see where it's gone too now can't you I like the kind of [Music] [Music] that is not half bad I mean I'm talking about the kit that drums lab kit is really not half bad now I want this it's kind of like uh some old geezer playing with my age by the way just chill okay so that is a perfectly nice little vibe going on there so now we're going to do the tune the other way around we're going to do two tune too so I've got a okay so we got a minor F and C it's a 4 chord loop it's only three chords but you hold the bottom one for two circuits so it goes one two three four one two three four two three four word so everything falls into four four bar loops even if there's only three chords I rather like I think this is all right simple time-saving trick do not what is the point of sitting there for four bars when you only need to sit there for one if you do this over and over and over and over and over again you will come to regret that [Music] that's all right okay but you gotta count okay I liking this I don't feel any need to change it wait a bit pants at the end but no it's it's kind of what's the point of a soft piano if you play it like that guy I mean look all those red bars are ridiculous amounts of velocity because there's no way don't get excited just live with it fixing this end one with [Music] how about a little string occasion in here as well [Music] it needs to do something slightly different to what the piano's day I'm sort of thinking of playing the right hand the left hand separately subtle again a minor F and C major now we're gonna bring the left hand in [Music] now some some suspensions [Music] okay I like that I'm now going to add a left hand so string left and I'm not going to play anymore you probably couldn't see it actually i'm but i was using quite a lot of mod will this little friend down here to adjust the volume as I was going through I don't want to lots of controllers trying to control the same instrument at the same time otherwise it'll go cool and it's horrid there we go that's as close look coherent explanation you're going to get this afternoon this morning this evening tonight delete as applicable [Music] now it's going to ramp up a bit [Music] lots of consecutive fits in there I know I know I love them [Music] okay it's done what it's suddenly done guy decides he's finished something don't be ridiculous yeah it looks like it it's bit of tidying up to do not much there is quite a lot to do with the the mix because the mix is all it is not there's nothing um look I'm not gonna maybe I'll do what I won't mix it properly I'll just add a bit of reverb but then may because a number of oh it didn't insert ah retrospect okay look I forgot to record that one with any luck if you go to retrospective recording if you are a Cubase user and you press insert linear recording yes get-out-of-jail-free that's how it works okay save your work save your work save the way okay now um all I'm gonna do is add some reverb in I think to one or two of these tracks here we go and I've already set up some now what we've got two different types of reverb we got and I'll actually maybe I'll do a video on mixing because that'd probably be simple [Music] oh my goodness too much no not actually very good we don't need it we need it on the strings need it on the piano [Music] okay those strings down a bit and it drums [Music] face up a bit where the bass song oh it any settles twice Oh whoop advice God circles what what kind of musician says then it loops and it okay that's better [Music] not sure about that e and they're mine [Music] that's it it's done they go with surprising boldness and a change of personality because I normally will get this is the new economical car me it is finished enjoy it ladies and gentlemen um so I think that's all I've got on this so that is the gist of it and in the surrounding you one or two things to think about when it comes to chords and tunes and how you get the to test on a meld together they're in a perfect Oh doing the hand washy thing perfect perfect harmony term but as I say don't don't sit here and try and write tunes and do chord progressions by rules because that will just kill the human spirit let it go and if it doesn't work then try and use rules to fix it or if something's wrong use rules to fix it you need to sort of ingest these things so that they become part of your just way of improvising so it's not a conscious thing and then you get the spontaneity without the kind of algebra that goes with some traditional four-part harmony which anyway that's it for now I hope you've enjoyed it stay safe and I'll see you very soon if you enjoyed this I should remind you you should be subscribing obviously anyway see you very soon you

Channel: Guy Michelmore

Views: 172,703

Rating: 4.9481497 out of 5

Keywords: thinkspace, education, music, film, scoring, games, television, composition, composer, guy michelmore, guy, michelmore, thinkspace education, Music Education, How to write music, music theory, music theory in 30 minutes, music theory piano, music theory chords, chord progressions piano, Cubase 10.5, music theory chords progressions, Pianoteq, Spitfire Labs

Id: ycg2AQ9DMA4

Length: 26min 6sec (1566 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020