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Messages - Lydian

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511
WIPs / Re: how can i improve this chord progression.
« on: January 09, 2016, 01:04:08 pm »
I enjoyed messing around with your chord progression. I made it a bit more complex which may have been a bad thing but oh well I enjoyed it. It's hard to give feedback on chord progressions considering that they're largely a matter of taste. I've added some harmonic minor and a tiny bit of contrary motion in the bass which isn't really suited for dance music but thats okay because this was just for shits and giggles.

As far as feedback goes you might wanna try four note chords instead of three note chords to add in a bit more color and weight. It's a good chord progression in the sense that I know what you're going for. It's not to common which is nice I suppose but at the same time not extraordinarily unique.


512
It seems like a good tool for beginners who don't have a complete grasp of diatonic chord progressions and roman numeral notation.

It does however look like it's highly limiting if you're planning to rely on it as your primary source for creating chord progressions. The reason why is because a I-IV-V chord can be played in many different inversions and while this doesn't necessarily change the roman numerals it DOES change the sound and the voice leading. All the chords in the overview video are in your basic root position which sounds incredibly formulaic and boring. There is no voice leading at all whatsoever or use of inversions.

When the bassline gets added in the video it is once again simply following the root position of every chord. This is limiting your ability to create melodic basslines because you don't need to have just one note playing per chord.

It also doesn't take into account (at least from the video I saw) more advanced composition concepts such as modal interchange, modulations, counterpoint and undiatonic chord progressions. It's impossible to create counterpoint using all root chords.

Overall I would say use it as a tool to get familiar with very basic diatonic chord progressions. Once you're done playing with it and are ready to move on I would ditch it ASAP.

513
Before producing I played guitar for about four years. Playing the guitar for four years didn't necessarily make me a better producer but what it DID do was it trained my ears and gave me a solid foundation of common chords, arpeggios, and scales. This combined with the religious study of music theory makes it easy to hear music very logically in numbers. Coming up with interesting lead solos is also a pretty fluid process since it's easy to think of what a guitar player would do.

After I started producing I eventually learned to play drums, bass, vocals, piano and how to DJ. Learning the piano was incredibly beneficial because it made it easier to sketch out interesting chord progressions. Meanwhile learning the bass to me seemed to be the least beneficial since for the most part it just follows the root of the chord. This is of course a huge generalization and can be expanded on if you decide to start incorporating lots of inversions into your music. I can easily see how learning the bass can help a producer learn how to make their baselines much more melodic instead of using static root notes. Playing drums on the other hand can help you learn how to program more realistic sounding grooves due to the amount of detail that you pay attention to when it comes to the dynamics of things such as the hi hat. Also, learning drum fills are pretty useful when it comes to transitions in between sections. Vocals were also incredibly beneficial when it comes to communicating with other vocalists and coaching them during the recording process. You begin to discover that there lots of different ways to sing the same word in regards to vowel pronunciation and vocal timbre. You can sing a word in a breathy tone, distorted tone, belted tone, or even using your head voice. Finally learning how to DJ is one of the best things you can do if you're trying to improve your arrangements. When you learn how to DJ you learn to analyze song sections and blend them between two tracks in a way that sounds pleasing. You begin to get a feel for the energy of tracks and the effect that adding/removing certain musical elements have on the dance floor. You also start to learn that after so many bars theres almost always an element that is either added or removed.

Do instruments help you become a better producer?

Yes. Only to a certain extent however. Learning an instrument will make you a better composer due to the nature of dealing with pure notes. Especially when it comes to the piano and guitar as a result of the polyphonic nature of these instruments. Learning guitar gives you a solid foundation on different types of phrasings such as staccato, legato, bends, slides and etc... This comes in handy when you're programming any type of lead sound. If you can get the notes to sound good on a piano or guitar then chances are they will sound good when you transfer the arrangement to EDM or whatever genre you're making.

What learning an instrument will NOT help you do is become a better audio engineer. It will not help you become a better electronic music arranger (with the exception of learning to DJ) since the sounds used in electronic music are generally synthesizers and not acoustic instruments. It will not help you when it comes to learning how to make the PHAT n DIRTY bass sound in your favorite track. It will especially not help you when it comes to making music that is more focused on sound design like dubstep.

Bottom line... if you wanna improve the MUSIC side of your composing then learning an instrument is a great idea. If you're looking to improve the technicalities of your productions (sound design, mixing, mastering, arrangement) you should look elsewhere.

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