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Old February 24, 2012, 10:30:48 AM
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hinorashi hinorashi is offline
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Default How to write a basic song ( an introduction to chords and music theory )

How to write a basic song

Introduction

This is an introduction for beginners. Assuming you will be making the music on the computer, I will not go over composing using a staff. This tutorial will help explain how to compose basic songs. I will use the piano roll to explain things. This has the advantage of more easily seeing tones before you. If you wish to advance your understanding of music, I'd definitely suggest learning sheet music.

A program capable of writing piano roll MIDI data should be used with this tutorial, so you can experiment with the concepts explained as you go along. I'd personally recommend checking out FL Studio since its piano roll helper features such as ghosting channel notes and scale detection would be very helpful to a beginner. As well, I've included a piano roll skin for FL Studio that I've created in this tutorial so you can tell what the key's name is at a glance. Simply copy this file into Artwork/Skins/Default of your FL Studio installation ( make sure to back up the old file! ) as its existing filename and make sure it's BMP. Since I sprited this, you can feel free to modify or palette swap it to your heart's content.



Now let's begin. First set up a channel for MIDI out and add a Fruity LSD in the mixer. Make sure the MIDI out corresponds with the Fruity LSD's port!

Scales

One of the first things you should decide upon is the key or scale of the piece. A scale is basically the notes which can be used for the piece. IT is one of the most important things, since everything will be based upon it in some way. Scales are almost always necessary to maintain harmony ( sounding good, I will explain this later ) since all of the notes "belong". Depending on the scale, the entire feel of the music itself can change. Different scales will obviously result in some different sounds. For simplicity's sake, I will only explain the Major scales since this is an introduction to basic concepts.

Starting on the home key, the Major scale will be WWHWWWH ( W2, H, W3, H ). This might seem confusing, but W = whole step and H = half step. Every key on the piano ( or piano roll, mind you ) is a half-step, so going two keys over is a whole step. One of the most basic is the C Major scale. This will encompass only the white keys on a piano.



As you can see, the white keys are already pre-arranged in this fashion. CDEFGAB encompass the scale. C to C# ( black key ) to D is a whole step, while E to F is a half step following W-W-H-W-W-W-H until reaching C once more. This would create the <B>C Major</B> scale since it starts on C. If the W-W-H-W-W-W-H pattern were to start off of D, it would be D Major, and so forth.

Ascending up the C Major Scale ( midi ) - You're probably already familiar with how this sounds. Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do, right? That's essentially the C Major Scale going from C and back to C on a higher octave.

When you write a song, all of the notes should stay within the scale to prevent dissonance ( unless if that's what you're going for ). Even if you're not familiar with the piano key's names, that's perfectly fine.

Since you're working with a piano roll, now would be a good time to simply select the notes of the scale towards the beginning. If the program supports ghosting channels, you could place the notes towards the beginning of the song ( or measure ) and mute the channel. Similarly, you could do the same and set the velocity of the notes to 0. Since I'm doing this with FL Studio, I will use the channel method. If you are working with FL Studio, now would be a good time to select the down-pointing triangle in the upper-left hand corner and enable the Helpers. This will cause in-scale notes to be slightly lighter as you can see.



Chords

This is where things become a bit more complex. A chord is usually a series of three or more notes sounding at once. The basis of the note is called the root. Different chords have different names and different sounds. The most basic are Major and minor chords. These are usually written as roman numerals from 1 to 7. Why 7, might you ask? If you check the illustration provided prior, there are 7 tones in the scale. Upper case is used for Major chords and lower case is used for minor chords. The numeral stands for the root note that the chord is based upon. Major and minor chords function in triads. Some of these chords might wind up being minor, but don't concern yourself with that right now ( it's not important yet ). Don't worry, you won't have to memorize a lot: it's relatively formulaic. Other more complex chords exist as well, but I don't want to wind up confusing you - this is just an introduction.


C Major chord

This is the I chord ( CEG ) in the C Major scale. Major chords contain the 1st, 3rd, and 5th in relation to the scale counting up from it. C is the 1st note of the scale, so I will build upon it. The other Major chords will work the same, II coming from D and sharing the same interval ( or space between the notes in the chord ). For the roman numeral, simply count up the scale from where to start ( IV, V, etc. ) - then count up the scale for its 3rd and 5th.

As you can tell so far with these chords, the notes generally work well together. They are pretty much in harmony, so to speak. Harmony is somewhat important since it keeps all of the notes sounding in place. The numeral of the chord signifies the "root" note it's built upon. Not every Major chord will necessarily 'in' scale, but don't worry about that for now.

If you don't want to remember all of this stuff ( and are using FL Studio ), you can simply click the triangle, Chord -> and select the approriate one. This won't always keep it in scale, however!

Another way of playing chords is to break them into apreggios or broken chords. In the monophonic stylings of NES/Famicom and Gameboy music, sounding chords was not exactly possible so the use of arpeggiation was used to overcome the limitation. This is similar to some classic music styles in the baroque period. If a chord is played out note by note in a pattern, it still expresses it to a degree.


Chord progressions

Simply put, a chord progression is the direction a song is going. It is the skeleton and structure of the song itself. When the song changes from one chord to another, that is its harmonic progression. Chord progressions are generally written as their chord symbols as talked about earlier. This is a particularly important section, since the chord progression is the foundation on which you can build songs.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use some of the most widely used chords. I-V-vi-IV in this case. That would be I ( Major ) - V ( Major ) - vi ( minor ) - IV ( Major ).



Now that we have the notes laid out, we can reduce the volume for the channel to about 50% ( or keep it perfectly audible, the decision is up to you ). It will be there to remind us where the song is going. Create a new channel and let's proceed.

If you have helpers on, you should be able to see the progression we've created greyed out. This can act as a sort of road map for creating our song.

Creating a melody out of chord progression

As a rule of thumb ( although not strict ), you could start from each of your chord's root notes and travel to each one. If you don't have the notes step around too far, it should sound fairly fluid. Play around with it, staying in scale and around the chords and it should remain in harmony.


This is the melody I made in little to no time while typing up this section. As you can hear, applying a little music theory speeds up the process. It doesn't sound too bad, the notes work together.

Creating a bassline out of chord progression

Basslines tend to be less complex than melodies. It sounds better if you use a pattern, but this isn't necessary. Create a new channel and let's create a bassline using our chord progression. Feel free to play around with it a bit until you get the right feel you want for the piece. Since the one I've created sounds a bit classical, I decided to use an Alberti Bass.



After you have created you bassline, drop it one or two octaves to give the melody some space ( musically speaking ). If you're using FL Studio, you can do this by selecting the notes with CTRL+A and pressing CTRL+down once or twice.


This is the piece so far. I changed the channel playing the chords to strings ( and dropped them an octave to make room for the piano melody ) for a little variety.


Counter-melody

As explained earlier, let's say you wanted to create something a bit less polyphonic. In this case much like the NES and Gameboy stylings, we're going to only sound one note at a time. Instead of sounding the chords, you could create a counter-melody. I'm not going too in-depth in this, just stick alongside your chords and you'll remain in melody. Don't overpower your main melody, though!


All together so far, this time with piano only and the channel playing the chords outright muted.

Drums

This isn't too complex, so I might as well explain this one while I'm at it. At least for the purposes we're using, the drums don't necessarily have note values. Its main purposely is to keep rhythm and carry out the lower, perhaps middle, and high for the song. One trick is to play the kick/bass drum when the bass occurs, making the drum feel like it belongs in the song itself. Drums/rhythm is relatively simple, you could probably figure this stuff out on your own.

Conclusion

With basic knowledge of music theory, composing songs becomes easier. Just use basic concepts, and composing tunes will become a lot easier. My example is not the greatest, but it follows basic concepts and was created in a matter of minutes. I hope you've learned something from reading this tutorial. Look up different chord progressions and scales to get different sounds. Different rhythms can also change the sound and texture. Song structure is another thing entirely, but now you know the basics. Play around, experiment, and you'll ultimately learn.
Attached Files
File Type: mid CMajor.mid (276 Bytes, 908 views)
File Type: mid CMajorI.mid (243 Bytes, 876 views)
File Type: mid I-V-vi-IV.mid (313 Bytes, 915 views)
File Type: mid melody.mid (645 Bytes, 929 views)
File Type: mid songsofar.mid (1.1 KB, 898 views)
File Type: mid songsofar2.mid (1.4 KB, 922 views)

Last edited by hinorashi; February 25, 2012 at 09:59:45 AM.
 
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