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budding wannabe homesongmaker
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12-12-2011 5:40pm#1
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Herb Powell wrote: »There are no real rules in music, apart from staying in key, and keeping time properly
Nope, neither of those are rules
Tonal harmony was broken by the 1890s and timekeeping is always open to interpretation - look up accelerando or rallentando, and rubato. Some really cool embellishment can come from knowing when not to keep time..
OP, if you're looking to know 'how' to write basslines, play along with your favourite songs and see how the bassline fits with the rest of the music. I'd also recommend learning some theory but that mightn't be everyone's bag. If you do want to do a bit of study on it, check out The AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor, great intro to Western harmony and notation and all.
Also, I think you'll get a better response on this topic over in Playing & Techniques & Theory, so I'll move the thread over now.0 -
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cloptrop: Do you play left-handed or is there another reason why your tab is written upside down? I thought you'd used a very odd tuning until it dawned on me that the low E was at the top
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As for the question about F#, these are the notes in the G Major scale: G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯, G.
A major chord contains the first, third and fifth (per the above that's G, B, D).
A major seventh chord contains the first, third, fifth and seventh (per the above that's G, B, D, F#).
Note that the above is probably not quite right and someone far more knowledgeable will no doubt come along with a better explanation!0 -
You don't need to know any theory except what sounds good to you. But I find it helps a lot (and I don't know all that much), it's a bit like having a map handy when exploring some place new.
What Malice said looks exactly right to me. I suggested the maj7 chord because it includes the bass note you used. If it doesn't sound right for the tune forget I said it 0 -
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That's why I said no real rules.Nope, neither of those are rules
Tonal harmony was broken by the 1890s and timekeeping is always open to interpretation - look up accelerando or rallentando, and rubato. Some really cool embellishment can come from knowing when not to keep time..
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But in fairness venturing out of key or relative keys is generally reserved for wanky try-hard music. I think we're getting at the same thing tbh.
And by keeping time, I mean not being an eejit, and play something regular. Like you'd hear some people trying to play and they haven't an iota of timing.
IDK, feel free to hurl abuse if you feel I've misinterpreted you 0 -
Herb Powell wrote: »IDK, feel free to hurl abuse if you feel I've misinterpreted you
Okie dokie
Herb Powell wrote: »That's why I said no real rules.
But in fairness venturing out of key or relative keys is generally reserved for wanky try-hard music.
Wanky try-hard music? So anyone who wants to have a go at something other than classical tonality is a wanker? I guess Sonic Youth, Radiohead, and Merzbow (off the top of my head) are all saps, along with every self-respecting classical composer since Wagner :pac:0 -
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if there was any explainable reasons for this
There are loads of reasons, and you could say 'rules' if you wanted to, but everything's bendable/breakable. Let's say we're sticking to straight up strict tonal harmony;
You're in D major
We have the notes;
D E F# G A B C#
You're asking for chords for your bassline, so look at what notes are in your bassline, and pick chords that have notes in common with the bass. In D major we have the chords (in this kind of harmony stuff chords are often written as roman numerals according to what number note/degree of the scale they are - capital for major, lower case for minor);
I - D major - D F# A
ii - E minor - E G B
iii - F# minor - F# A C#
IV - G major - G B D
V - A major - A C# E
vi - B minor - B D F#
vii - C# diminished - C# E G
(these chords are called triads - they have 3 notes. Most basic kind of chord, used absolutely everywhere (in tonal music), worth understanding!)
So your bassline starts on D - pick a D chord. That'll sound good 'cause it establishes the key of the music at the start and has a note in common with the bass.
V - I (A major - D major here) might sound good for when you want to finish the music - going from chord V to chord I is called a perfect cadence and makes the most 'finished' sound of all chord progressions. You've heard a million perfect cadences even if you didn't know it. It sounds good 'cause the A - D (V - I) movement is 'strong', and the C# in the V chord here only has to move up one semitone to D, the note of I. This is 'resolution', you can hear it easily 'cause the C# sounds kinda unbalanced and then shifting it up to D balances it all out.
vi (B minor here) is the relative minor key (minor keys are a bit more complicated, 'cause there are three kinds of minor scale, but don't worry about that now), it's the strongest minor 'cause its natural minor has all the notes in common with D major (you just count them from B if you want to use B minor). So if you want to have a minor section of a song, have a go at the chord of vi. Maybe to build some tension before the big finish or whatever. Play B minor and see how it sounds.
IV is another really strong chord (er, by strong, I mean unambiguous, balanced, 'right', whatever way you might hear it). If you want a happy-sounding, harmonically simple bit of music, try using I, IV and V (listen to Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones - I - I - IV - V).
Er so I've gone a bit off topic. There's a very quick summary of explanations for why chords 'work' when others 'don't'.
As for picking your chords for your bassline, try picking them with notes in common first. Maybe you could leave notes out of the guitar part to let the bass part fill them in. (Say you have a D in the bass, the guitar only needs to play F# and A to have a full D major triad). Or then if you had D in the bass and you play A and C#, you've got a Dmaj7 chord, without the fifth (A) note.
Play around with this stuff and try every different combination you can think of - you can get some really cool stuff if you figure out ways of leaving notes out or spreading a chord across loads of instruments. Also, try not to think of it as Instrument 1 = chords, Instrument 2 = bassline, Instrument 3 = lead line or whatever. Think of every instrument as its own line that come together to make the harmonies you want, and figure out nice ways for the separate lines to move around each other and come together and go apart and all. When I want to write like that, I find it easiest to write a chord progression first at a piano, with no rhythm, just hitting the chord once at the start of each bar), then figuring out what rhythms I want in the song, then putting the rhythm and harmony together as a separate phase of songwriting.
Of course you mightn't agree with any of what I like - figure out your own way. And sorry if I came across as patronising, I was just trying to explain stuff relatively thoroughly. And absolutely none of these are rules at all, break them all. You know what, just don't listen to me, go play some ****en tunes :pac:
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they must have known something
Well yeah :pac:
If you got a book on music theory or something this stuff would start to make sense to you. It's not that complicated, just a little abstract at first. It's entirely possible to write great tunes without know this stuff, but I think it's way more interesting to understand it all, and the results are usually a little more interesting 0 -
Well, I definitley misunderstood what you were saying. I love Sonic Youth.Okie dokie
Wanky try-hard music? So anyone who wants to have a go at something other than classical tonality is a wanker? I guess Sonic Youth, Radiohead, and Merzbow (off the top of my head) are all saps, along with every self-respecting classical composer since Wagner :pac:
What I had in mind when you mentioned breaking tonal harmony was free-form jazz. Fucck. That. ****.
I'm not great with remembering terms (grammatical or musical) even if I understand how a linguistic/musical application works.
Also in relation to OP, WHAT I DO is just first take the bass notes of a song, learn em, and really just **** around with that until I get something I like.0 -
Herb Powell wrote: »What I had in mind when you mentioned breaking tonal harmony was free-form jazz. Fucck. That. ****.
Tonal harmony is using the 7 notes of the key you're in, if you start sharpening/flattening notes you're breaking tonality, then you can get totally out of it and go atonal, spectral, serialist... All so lovely (Not saying that tonality isn't lovely )
And as for free jazz... But it's so deadly!0 -
Yeah basically it makes music interestingTonal harmony is using the 7 notes of the key you're in, if you start sharpening/flattening notes you're breaking tonality, then you can get totally out of it and go atonal, spectral, serialist... All so lovely (Not saying that tonality isn't lovely )
And as for free jazz... But it's so deadly!0 -
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