@ed-enam
Does "AHM" in your signature stand for "Aeolian Harmonic Melodic"?
If it's your previous, what's your present?

Yes, I agree with you. Although, we live in the information era but acquiring them in the form of knowledge has not changed alot because our brains' structure have been kept fixed like a Pentium 1. Just our tools have changed not the speed of our learnings.

 

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I agree,you still have to put in a lot of time and effort,there are no short cuts,no miracle secrets.

 

@jeffglobal I actually agree with you. Therr is indeed no magic formula but I was referring to one part of his query which was structure. Everyone needs a start and I thought this might help him.

@foster911 thanks for pointing it out, I need to delete it. AHM was changed on my request so I kept it in my sig for people who knew me with my previous nick.

 

Formulas exist for the deterministic phenomenons that are true everywhere (like F=ma in the low speeds) or for the ones that are so simple facts.

For some events like the movement of the electrons in the wire, with its non-deterministic behavior, you need to know about the random processing that is one of the courses of the Communication Engineering.

Music differ from the both of the above subjects. No one can predict what would happen in the eg. minute 2 of the song. Music production is totally a random one. No one can formulate it.

The general structures such as "verse, chorus, ..." or others are for the commercialism and nothing else. I mean, just for satisfying the musically illiterate listeners' expectancy.

A real musician can be satisfied just by a 16 bar loop but the other ones look for the story inside it.

 

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If you go a little in psychology field, you will find out that humans are creatures of HABIT. On the other hand, humans are also easily bored. And all the music is about balacing these two elements expected by the listener.

Any good piece of music ever written (and for the sake of the argument let's consider the works of the classical composers - which is universally considered "good") has a very, very, very precise balance of "chaos" and "order" in terms of structure and patterns. Too much "chaos" and the song becomes unpredictable and therefore annoying. Too much "order" and the song becomes predictible and therefore boring. And this balance, my friend, can be calculated and expressed precisely.

(There is no such thing as "illiterate" listener. But there are lots of "crap" composers/producers. Our fellow Steve Faoki here is not the only one putting music in the world without basic musical knowledge.)

Every good story/drama has the standard components: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action & resolve. Take one element out and the story is crap.
Every good poem ever written has rhythm and rhyme beyond a very original story and/or word selection.

Without a proper structure everything fails.

No one NEEDS to predict what would happen in the 2nd minute of a song. But if one cannot predict SOME elements in the following seconds, the song is crap. Take any classical piece unknown to you and see how you almost can sing the lead melody before you actually hear the notes. Now that's a good composition. Music must be memorable.

Actually so many did. Great composers, music critiques and producers alike. People that know probably more than you will even know. For some reason, from all your posts, you see some important things (alot of useless things too, but that's another story) in music but you keep failing at "connecting the dots" stage. You see the pixels but somehow fail to see the big picture.

 

I def have basic music knowledge!! More than most... Most of these people putz around with technical jargon and never make music. I have 20 original tracks... I have a golden ear and will be famous one day.. Mark my words

 

@jayxflash
Talking about yours is so easy but on the production, everything is random even for the big composers.

Every piece that they have created have been done without any map inside their mind. But after creating them, we can falsely allege that they have been done smartly.

There isn't anything smart in the music production, Everything depends on whether it sounds good or not.

 

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If you are that clever why do you keep asking basic questions? Surely you should be the one teaching us how to do things.

 

Twenty lol

 

They are not basic questions. Nothing harder than those. Thinking about unlimited possibilities are not an easy task.

 

Here is a classic "unable to connect the dot situation": Some composers are more "analytical" let's say. Others are more "instinctual". In the end, if the "instinctual" composition does not fall into humanly accepted references (concerning structure, rhythm & pitch) the result will be catalogued as crap. If it fits the said terms, the end product is categorised as artwork.

I am not interested in how a specific composer thinks his music. Because I am not him, and no one is him for that matter. We each think differently. Some are brilliant minds but get lost easily without a metronome. Others implement rhythmical patterns very easy then they simply do the maths (rules) to get their counterpoint right (to some extent). Some are deaf and there's Mozart. Point is, no one is alike. It's useless to try to categorise people. But the results, the results are very very easy to put into categories, and it's way easy to find patterns and connections by analysing the end result.

But in general, music is written NOTE BY NOTE and that's a very precise map. Because we all know, the brain preffers steps not skips (and another hundreds of tiny little guides in making memorable music). You see, I don't care how one or another composer finished their work. In the end a commonly catogorised "masterpiece" falls within very precise boundaries.

If the composer is dumb or untalented, there is nothing smart. I have yet to see a dumb composer finishing masterpieces. PS: "smart" is defined in psychology in many ways. Even a college drop-out can be smart in several points of view (socially, skill etc.)

No shit, Jose. But it only sounds good when it fits the rules. With enough experience one can literally see if the music sounds good only by looking at the notes on the piano roll, arrangement or music sheet. That's how precise the music is. You should try sometimes.

 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

What a ridiculous statement. I for one, craft all my music with a surgical precision. Or, with a complete disregard for forethought if that is what the piece requires.

also, what @jayxflash said.

 

Because he considers that using the pencil tool to draw notes in FL's piano roll is basic music knowledge.

 

Foster,when you write more and more material,a lot of it becomes natural,though not one song is the same,unless you do fast sound design for a company,otherwise the basics are usually the same yes,but you usually come in from different angles.
Initial stages may not sound interesting,but layering and slowly bulding it up,you are shaping it into something,like building a structure.
You may not understand it for one simple reason,lack of experience.

 

@jayxflash

Production line is different from our imaginations.

If you still insist on your convictions, please tell us about the way you produce your musics. Please describe it genuinely.

I'm waiting to hear.........

Thanks!

 

Why don't you do it first? Oh wait, "more thinking and learning, less producing".

 

I said mine is random. How to describe it?

 

Thinking of unlimited possibilities is an impossible task so the question can never be answered. Using your logic this thread becomes irrelevant.

As to the original question (before you complicated things), working out a structure is as simple as sitting down with a pen and paper, listening to a piece of music and noting down what you hear. A far more valuable way to learn than reading books or asking others.

 

Well mine is not. And I would have to write a few pages to describe the entire reasoning behind my thinking involving music composition and arranging - because everything in music is so interleaved. Probably that's why you think is random, 'cause, again, you don't connect the dots. Yes I know, I'm repeating myself but it is what it is.

What I can tell you is, there are moments when melody/es, the bass and the harmony do not properly fall into place. And in those moments I rely on the music theory and usually I sort the things out. Yeah, music theory, so boring, I know.
And there are moments when "unlimited possibilities" (your words) occur. And I just pick a path and never look back. That's the most importing step towards finishing a song.