I'm intrigued to know how you make full use of 12 notes of chromatic scale in your songs. Most mainstream music is 7-note music. In this type of music, the producer's prime focus and overriding concern is mostly on writing the lyrics, sound design, mixing, etc. In other words, that is to say almost no need to know music theory in this type of music. Do you have a special strategy and sound advice for utilizing 12 notes? Given this situation, what is it?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique

 

you're missing out if you don't watch this to the solo

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2023

This reminds me of when we had to work with Arnold Schönberg's technique. Just wait until you fall down the rabbit hole of 17TET, 19TET, 36TET, etc and other microtonal soundscapes.

 

working with "chromatic scale" is very different than working with 12 tones/serial schoenberg kind of music

probably you mean "chromatic adds" to a major or minor scale

listen to the masters of chromatic melodies: Mozart and Mahler in the old days and The Beatles in modern days.
In their production you will find all the tricks to use 12 notes in an "harmonic" situation.

PS: i forgot the starting point: White Christmas by Irving Berlin, quite a masterpiece using an unbelivable chromatic sequence in the melody

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2023

On the contrary. You have to know a lot about music theory (or have an exceptionally strong musical taste) to make a complex chromatic composition sound even remotely bearable.

 

In that type of music, there's people who do all of that separately, that's why there's so many of them credited on a song, someone will just write the music and top lines, other lyrics, than arranger and beat maker will do their own thing, than actual recording of performer which will be operated by recording engineer and all that overlooked by producer, than all that goes to mixing and later to mastering... all of those people are killing in their own area, even if the result isn't something for everyone's taste. That's how mainstream music is done, probably in some writing camp, where tons of people who know their stuff do what they do best. Even likes of Avicii and others have similar teams and than pose as bedroom producers, but behind that music is people who know how to write music on academic level, but do all that to put food on their table.

 

The music made with this technique is harsh and ear-splitting and doesn't convey a good feeling to the listener. I don't think you use this technique. Do you?
I asked about your using techniques...

 

I once experienced that you can make use of all 12 notes in Blues, but in mainstream?

 

It is true that every composer has tried to use the chromatic scale as much as possible, but I want to know more about the modern use of this scale. As a musician or producer, how do you use the chromatic scale and your music becomes a modern music and gives a modern sound? The musicians you mentioned are musicians from past centuries. In those centuries, when you used chromatic scale, your music was acceptable to the general public, but in today's era, almost most of the music listeners are used to 7-note music, and when you use the chromatic scale, it seems that you are going out of their hearing realm.

 

I said that about 7-note music.

 

The Bebop scale has 8 notes, I imagine the remaining 4 can be used as passing notes. The challenge would be writing a melody with the bebop scale because it seems to be constructed so that the scale falls on certain beats in order to fill a bar of music logically - ie., some of the notes are already passing notes. I've said too much though, the jazz police might be listening.

 

@DEGRAD It's hard, but is beautiful when used properly...! Please share the composition if you can \m/

 

you cant use chromatic notes without sounding dissonant unless you change keys. So those are your only strategies available to you. metal and hardcore make good use of dissonance. and changing keys can be done occasionally in pop and rock. often in classical

there is an argument that being improvisational like in a jazz setting could open up some opportunities to use chromatic scaling but, to me that is not melodic and is dissonant. a skilled improvisational jazz player can hide the dissonant qualities of their runs and make them feel like they belong melodically but that is an illusion ultimately. playing out of your key signature is going to create a strongly dissonant effect

playing in minor key signatures in general gives you access to more than 7 notes in a key because there are 2 minor scales with slightly different notes. and you can get away with changing which minor key signature you're using in certain settings and it can feel like its right. but you are still creating a dissonant interval ultimately

 

chuck in a glissando over an octave.
Bish Bash Bosh.

 

You weren't very specific and (according to my understanding of your question) I think a better title for this thread would be "Making songs with non-diatonic chords". Cuz "using 12 notes" can refer to a plethora of musical practices and traditions, even in tonal music (tonal music is 12 note based).

 

In my opinion, there is no problem with the listeners. The problem is with the producers. A few decades ago, during the jazz era, people were hearing chromatic music every day and welcoming it . But today, there is practically no chromatic music and I don't know how to bring it back to the world of music.

 

Bebop or other synthetic scales are only some subsets of the twelve-tone scale. Any scale other than the 12-note scale has been made only for ease of mind and use during playing and does not represent all the aural capabilities of the 12-note scale.

 

This is my question. How?

 

There's a reason why this generally is not done in popular music. The results, no matter how skillful, are going to be, shall we say, less than commercial. If you're bound and determined to go that route for whatever reason I wouldn't worry about "the right way to do it" because in *this context* I don't think such a thing exists, so I would just dive in and do it, you might get something interesting, who knows.