Hello audiosexuals! I'm DayDreamer, and today I am going to be teaching you all of the basics of traditional music theory that you need to know. I'll be mostly covering beginner material here, but there will be some intermediate as well. This guide is intended for the music producer (or anyone really) who knows almost nothing about traditional music theory. It will be almost purely text for now, but in the future I'm hoping to incorporate resources, images, and examples as time goes on. If you would like to contribute to this, feel free to do so! Just either leave some links below or PM me and I'll add it here!

Why do I Need to Learn Music Theory?
Learning traditional music theory used to be absolutely essential to sharing songs you composed before the boom of technology gave us our wonderful DAWs and midi programs used today. It is said that it was invented by the ancient greeks, and later on we incorporated Latin and Italian terms into it is well. Knowing music theory can make understanding a DAW easier, pieces flow better, give you solid chords and more consistency in general. Knowing this ancient method will give you a huge edge in the production world, since many don't bother to learn it these days. Alas, let us get started with the actual lessons then!

The Start of the Bare Basics
There are two core things that make up music: PITCH and RHYTHM. Let's focus on Pitch, because it's the easier of the two.
Pitch- Ah, wonderful pitch. Since there's no better way to put it, I shall just quote the musical definition from dictionary.com. "The degree of height or depth of a tone or of sound, depending on the relative rapidity of the vibrations by which it is produced". In notation, there's two sides to pitch, the note itself and the octave. We use A-G for the notes, and then octaves are shown by Clefs. There are three main clefs: Treble Clef (usually designates soprano or alto parts, Alto Clef (this is less common, only viola players use it often), and Bass clef (this designates Tenor or Bass parts) although the best reference for octave in my opinion is a piano, since sometimes you can see notes that are in the tenor octave in the treble clef, or see notes that are in the alto octave with the bass clef.
Why do we have clefs other than for octave? Well, to make life easier, we use 5 lines with 4 spaces to designate where our notes are, the A-G ones. Unfortunately, all of the clefs have different arrangements of these letters, but luckily there's little tricks to remember the order of these lines and spaces. Note: Clefs are only used in traditional musical notation. Your DAW isn't ever going to show you this in the piano roll.

Treble Clef line order from bottom to top- EGBDF or "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge"
Treble Clef spaces from bottom to top- FACE. There's no real phrase to remember this since it's straightforward.

I'm going to skip the alto clef for now, since it really is useless.
Bass Clef Lines order from bottom to top: GDFA "Great Dogs Frighten Albert"
Bass Clef spaces order from bottom to top: ACEG "All Cows Eat Grass"

A quick explanation of the terms I used above explaining the octave names if you need it:
Soprano- The highest.
Alto- The lower end of the high range.
Tenor- The higher range of the lower range
Bass- the lowest.

Okay! That's all you need to know about PITCH... time to get to the hard and painful: Rhythm.

Rhythm has two main designations that you need to worry about: Time Signature and Notes.
Notes: These are straightforward. They're all divisible by 4, so I'll just slap a chart here. I'll talk about these guys more in the intermediate edit/thread.. Donno which I'll do yet, but this is a series for sure!


Now I'll talk about time signature, since this is something you definitely need to understand when using a DAW. Time signature is those two numbers displayed like a fraction after the Clef.
The top- How many notes per beat (how many bars you'll see per measure in your DAW)
The bottom- What kind of note is the beat.
Having a hard time understanding? Well I'll break down the default time signature in every DAW, 4/4. There's 4 beats per measure, and the note that gets the beat is a Quarter note.

Any type of note can be the beat, but unlike the number of beats, it is specific. I'll list the common ones below:
1- Whole note gets the beat (DON'T USE THIS PLEASE IT'LL MAKE YOUR MUSIC PAINFULLY SLOW UNLESS YOU HAVE AN INSANE TEMPO!)
2- Half note gets the beat
4- Quarter note gets the beat
8- eighth note gets the beat.
as stated with whole note, this partially determines the speed that you'll be playing, but the main factor of that would actually be Tempo, or that little number that's somewhere in your DAW and is 120 by default. Tempo is just another word for BPM really, or Beats Per Minute.

OKAY! THAT'S THE BARE BASICS. I will get into more complex things next edit. Next time I'll talk about Accidentals, Key/Key signature, and what all of these fraction notes are. There are no examples of how this all applies to your DAW yet, but that will probably be shown in the future or demonstrated in a video tutorial series I'll make if there's enough demand.

 

Would you or @Baxter (as a sound designer) please give an explanation for this post?
https://audiosex.pro/threads/why-di...e-wrong-chord-in-the-brain.26330/#post-207953

1- Is music theory being used just for strictly and roughly pitched (or tuned) sounds?

2- What about the complex sounds with odd and no specific frequency shapes that used in electronic genres?

Software synths are able to produce almost any randomly modulated sounds for any note that are unprecedented and Bach or his followers even would not dream of.

3- How could we apply traditional theory (that has been specialized for centuries or millenniums on tuned pitches) to these sounds?

I'm not talking necessarily about the timbre of sounds but specially the modulated and noisy-like sounds.

I personally think in dealing with these kinds of sounds, we need techniques being acquired more from the digital world rather than the theory itself.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 30, 2016

Nah, remember that theory doesn't just deal with pitch, it deals with rhythm and timing too, both of which help to make music more pleasing to the listener. Accidentals are what are used for the times certain notes are not ones that are in that specific key. (Accidentals include: Sharp (#), Flat (looks roughly like a lower case b), and the natural sign. Keys were invented so that you wouldn't have to put one of these signs every darn time you wanted anything other than a natural note. (for instance, if the piece uses E flat, A flat, and B flat a lot then naturally the key signature would be Ab major I believe. Keys are indicated at the beginning of the piece, putting usually just the sharp and flat signs on the lines/spaces that indicate which note needs to always be played flat/sharp. (so for instance, if I was in the treble clef and wanted to compose in Bb major, I'd put the flat sign on the third line from the bottom right next to where the treble clef is) So it's absolutely not impossible to drift away from the key without drifting away from the melody. Of course, time signatures and tempos can be changed on a composer's whim as well. (but that's getting into the advanced side of musical notation...)
As for delving more into your second and third questions, although certain sounds may be rather chaotic, it is possible to change their pitch to sound different usually. If that really isn't the case, then I can't see why you couldn't put those sounds in sync with the rhythm, it's like saying you can't use musical theory on drums because they have no real pitch- they're just the sound of a stick hitting skin or plastic. If you really want to tune these crazy sounds, or there's no way to time them, I'd try taking a little sample from them and turning it into a soundfont, which should let you manipulate the pitch and sync it to the rhythm a bit easier.
I am no expert here, this is just all theoretical. I'll leave it to the audio engineer to clarify whether or not this is really possible.

Overall though, the best solution imo is to use both digital and traditional techniques in your music, I think when the digital and traditional sides of music are fused together, you get really incredible results. That's why I want to teach producers the traditional side of music, but also tell them how to use it in the digital side, since I have never seen anything like "the traditional theory you should know if you're making digital music in your DAW". So I'm going to create things like that! >:3

 

Last edited: Jul 30, 2016

Like these kinds of sounds and more:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/336j8n8bc6a3p97/Randomly+Modulated+Sounds.aac

Many people use them as FX because they're so complicated to be analyzed by the classically and aurally trained persons or even modern producers. They're not treatable like the instruments' sounds being considered during the compositions.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 30, 2016

I don't see why you couldn't just slice them or something and then arrange them in a rhythmatic manner in your DAW. idk if it'd sound exactly pleasant, but it is theoretically somewhat possible to apply theory to those. They're just additive effects really, so they don't really need to be timed or anything. I feel like those sort of things just exist to add some atmosphere to actual music made. This is something that is exclusively digital in many ways, but like I said it's theoretically possible to sort of use them as instruments, they'll just sound really weird...
If you're talking about using the whole sound, no sampling and such, I doubt this is really possible. I know that Cubase and Studio One will stretch loops and things to fit the BPM, but this probably doesn't apply to these sounds.. So overall, an effect cannot be used in a more musical manner.

 

What I believe is if these sorts of sounds existed in our ancestors' hands (instead of their simple string-vibrated or similarly generated sounds), a thing such as music theory would not exist and we were much happier now.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 30, 2016

Well, our ancestors had some pretty weird percussion that honestly can't be pitched or keep to a rhythm. I think of the rain stick, baiscally a giant wood tube filled with shells, and when tilted it makes a very lovely sound, but you can't control it very well. And well, music started with singing so I think theory would've still been invented. We have much more flexibility now, so a lot more is possible in the music world. I can't wait to learn more about the digital side and watch it evolve even further..

 

@foster911 we are here at the heart of your problem. I've never tackled this aspect with you, it seemed pointless. But I've read many acrimonic comments from you regarding producers in general, regarding some genres (hip hop or edm) or even regarding discussion that aren't only about your beloved theory like talks about daws, fxs or what you call tools.
Music today is also widely past classical music theory in many aspects and it has been since about half a century, in any spectrum of Occidental music. Your music is stricly settled in those rules, all while using synths, and that's why your music (which isn't bad I'm not criticising your music, I like it) sounds like it does.
The things we can put sound throught nowadays - sound which is energy the energy we feed the listener with - thanks to all those tools that you think are not sophisticated enought for your clever theorical mind, well it's partly what allows modern music to not be stuck anymore in only Harmonic, melodic and rhythmic considerations.
And Foster I've read Schoenberg, right now I'm going through Timoczko A geometry of music, and Classical Form by Caplin, I know about music theory, chord progressions, counterpoints and all those matters, I'm not saying they are irrelevant. i still use them in my music. But with a lot of other elements in mind, elements that aren't theorised in books yet. And when I listen to other people music, modern music, I hear a lot more going on than just the few elements you think are relevant.

 

I think you pretty much got it head on- I think Foster is seeing music theory as some sort of law, when it really isn't. It is a foundation that is definitely meant to be expanded upon. The rules can be broken, but theory will always some root somewhere in all music, even if minor. Knowing it is good, but it really doesn't apply to every aspect of music, it's not like Newton's laws or the laws of matter. It just simply a base to work off of, it's the written form of something that is experienced through the ears. Writing has its limitations of course, and there are some things you just can't simply capture visually in a way that everyone who isn't an audio engineer looking at wave forms. I think a lot of the sounds shown do that.
We couldn't look at wave forms for a long time, so I think that is one of the reasons sheet music was invented and made to be universal.
Musical theory is meant to be a reference, not a law that tells you that you must do music this way and this way only, that is far from the truth. It was made with close observations and was meant to be something everyone can understand. It lets us play pieces we have never actually heard, and don't necessarily need to hear. Music in the end is interpreted by everybody differently. There's no "right" or "wrong". It is something that can easily be abstract, or precise and consistent.

 

Last edited: Jul 30, 2016

You are absolutely wrong because music theory doesn't have much to do with the instruments themselves. If you want to get technical, there's just sound, that is vibrations in the air and so on, you know the drill. So technically you can call it "noise". Just because you can't understand theory properly doesn't mean you have to discredit it (I admit, alot of theory courses suck and explain in a poor learn-by-rote fashion instead of logic).

So what is music? It is organized noise. The whole point of music is to organize pieces of sound in a manner that, well, resembles music. Which is either melodic, harmonic (both rely on pitch), or rhythmic. By this (only) definition, music requires rules and laws and other stuff you despise. It is what defines music.

Without melody or harmony or rhythm you don't have music, you have a sound effect. And I'm not speaking this as a classically trained composer at all. In fact, I am more of a sound designer, trying to branch into music. So obviously I can understand your frustration a bit because I used to be a bit like you.

So naturally, I think more in frequencies, DSP, and other algorithms when processing my audio. Because that's my main expertise, to design such FX. However, music theory is powerful and has very logical implications. Harmony, for example, is based on ratios of frequencies. While it is limited, indeed, not using any 'rules' or 'laws' when composing ends up in chaos which is noise — that is, unordered sound.

Music requires order/rules because that's what makes it music. Otherwise you just end up with noise or FX. Both are great, but the best arises when you combine FX and use them as instruments into the music. Give them rhythm, or make them resonate well with other parts of your music (by using harmony and proper ratios), in short these rules are what makes music… music.

When you learn theory, you won't even have to think of notes as a "rule". Rather, think of them as describing intervals, or ratios, between frequencies. The reason there are a limited set of notes on a keyboard is because, once again, rules have to be followed. Without order, you end up with chaos, and that's not music.

I'm not even a fan of equal temperament myself. But different scales or custom scales still have rules and in fact you still need to learn theory. Western chords aren't "limiting" you (nobody forces you to use it), they're made the way they are because they have specific ratios, which makes them sound a certain way.

It's not different than designing a sound. If you want to make a sound fuller, you add a sub oscillator at half the frequency. This is a simple ratio. Music theory precisely describes this as "same note harmony, but on lower octave". It makes perfect sense even from a "sound designer" point of view, once you look past the frustrations.

Thanks for the initiative DayDreamer! So far I learned most of this theory stuff myself and found to appreciate it because of how mathematical it actually is. Music theory is actually much more science than art. But I'm still following it, maybe I'll learn it easier or something I missed, you never know.



I have to say there's one thing I never liked about music theory and which I find pointless, though. That is musical notation. That one is indeed not much about science and is cumbersome and has arbitrary rules that make no sense from a simplicity point of view. Music theory, however, is far more than just musical notation. The theory itself is what is important.

Once you know western theory, you can expand it to include any exotic scales, and they will all make sense from a logical point of view (treat notes as ratios!). Once that happens, you can then finally see how it easily links to your sound design background, where you also use frequency ratios to design FX.

Anyway, looking forward to more.

 

Thanks for the recap of what I learned in the first week of third-grade music class.

Not "having to" know diddly-squat about music theory with today's music-making technology is exactly like not "having to" know one's way around one's hometown because one has GPS in one's car and Google Maps on one's iDroid.

 

I agree with you. Music theory is a general frame, great base for building things, understanding others work and communicating yours. The more knowledge you have on the matter and the better it is, it's something we can always expand on.
Your post in that optic is very precious, I'm sure your work will be used by a lot of members here.
Theory covers some aspects of music making, and starting there makes perfect sense and isn't a bad thing, but there are others fundamental aspects today in the music making (sound designs and production technics) that allow someone with little knowledge in the theorical music aspect of things to be very creative and do great music. It's possible to start the ride there and then get the tools to build on that with music theory.
If one masters music theory but can't program a synth or use a reverb send, I'm not sure the results would be great.
I've said that before to Foster, a beat can begin with sound desining in a synth with one note looping over and over. Build variations in the sound, its timbre, its amplitude before even starting to think about melodies, chords or time signature. You can do a patch that already includes melodic variations, etc...An entire track can rely mostly on sonic and rhythmic evolution and be incredible.

 

Last edited: Jul 30, 2016

Analyzing the classical/modern/post modern sheet notations is one of the best methods of learning music (old styles). Suppose how much time students spend on that. A path that needs sweating blood.

On the other hand we have electronic/pop musics with the most simplistic musical phrases imaginable. In the below post I mentioned one of the characteristics of these kinds of musics:
https://audiosex.pro/threads/harmony.23937/page-2#post-193627

As a person with having a 21st century view to the music (these kinds of musics made by DAWs) can not find any strong tendency for acquiring the knowledge I get from the first paragraph for making the electronic musics.

Why should I still insist on learning the classical knowledge as I know I will never use it? Yes, me should answer that but please you do.

Thanks!

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 31, 2016

I'm not saying to toss it aside at all! If that was the case I would've never made this thread. You just need to know that classical knowledge isn't really some sort of law or anything. It was made long ago but music and humanity adapts to these changes. We all know about the problem of music sounding all the same.. (tbh when I listen to a radio on my bus trips I cringe) But luckily I have a lot of classical knowledge for a teen and really weird taste in music!

 

Do you think classicalism is the solution? Tbh it's so hard to follow and connect it to the modern life with all of its intricacies.

I don't have any problem in learning them, the main question is how to make them practical and enjoyable and convincing people that they can make better musics with knowing them. Look at all of the tutorials on youtube making track from scratch, even the big producers do not know those principles well. I don't say their musics suck, no not at all. Some of them are making astonishing tracks but without using high-level music theory just by their experiences. Of course their target is not classical composers.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 31, 2016

No, I just think that knowing the roots of music and really basic theory a little is useful in the long term and helps to prevent more crappy music... Even if just a little.

 

Too bad they actually use basic harmonic theory without even knowing — they learned it by "experience" which is way slower and also much more limiting. If you understand why specific chords sound the way they do (and the underlying math, on the advanced level), you will know how to make more weird stuff. People who know almost no theory are, in fact, even more "restricted" than those who follow guidelines from theory. Because those people know a small part of the theory "by heart" and will NOT try anything special or exotic because it will sound bad and take a ton of time to get experience for it. That's why most of the "big producers" music sounds the same.

Now try to compose something that requires complexity like cinematic music, which blends everything these days (and my personal favorite, though I'm mostly designing the cinematic FX at the moment). I'd like to see you say the same thing there.

For example when you learn western theory you can expand your knowledge to any exotic scales. Want to make music that sounds arabic? Use arabian scale. Want to make big fat music you hear in movies? Use western harmonies and double layer everything.

Remember what I said about music being ordered sound. That's why you need scales, tunings, and rhythm. You can't just use random frequencies together as it will sound unpleasant and more like noise. Music requires that you restrict your freedom and order it in a way, depending on the song. These are not "limitations", they're simply defining your song. Your music.

Without them, it's just chaos. Noise.

Sometimes keeping it simple is best. Pentatonic scales for example sound great and only have 5 notes (per octave). If you use a pure tuning like just intonation, the chords will sound beautiful as well. Because of math. Don't think of it as restricting your freedom. Think of it as defining your song. Imagine rhythm — you wouldn't want to change the tempo every bar by huge amounts, right? Because a song part is set at a specific tempo, and it changes if the atmosphere of the song changes. Same thing with pitch where "scales" (which is really what all chords/notes theory is about) are constricting that.

Classical theory is modelled after math, it's not "arbitrary". I assure you if you go deep into it, you'll be fascinated like me.


EDIT: Just to prove my point, I bet none of your "big producers" know anything about scales. Thus anything they compose in piano roll is in fact, limited to 12-tone equal temperament. And you said learning theory limits you or is bad? If anything, NOT learning theory makes your music extremely limited. 99% of all people who don't even know what a scale or "key" is, only compose in ONE scale and ONE tuning with A4=440Hz because it is the default. They simply don't know enough to expand their music.

Classical theory does not limit your knowledge, it expands it. You will not understand this until you learn it.

 

Foster, why do you always come up with some nonsense about finding sounds/music that have yet to be discovered ?

I can't say they have all been discovered but to suggest you are on a search for some holy grail like solution to all your DAW/EDM creativeness is pretty ridiculous.

Why do you ask questions about functional harmony or voice leading if you have no interest in using any of it ?

You'd be much better off reading more about sound design and studying a history of instrument invention. Then you'd maybe understand why we use 12tet. You do seem a little unaware that sound design is essentially physics.

http://gizmodo.com/digital-music-couldnt-exist-without-the-fourier-transfo-1699155287

I've not downloaded your sounds but you'd do well to find out how difficult it is to produce low frequency sound with real world physical items. Non electronic or amplified. So Bass through an amp don't count.

 

(on topic) There is no theory. Only practice.

With a couple exceptions, sure they are! U cud just treat most of the sounds like u wud if u were using mod matrix or whatevs.

Maybe, but even in the more outre "random" sounds there are patterns. These cud be chopped up 2 form rhytmns, at least.

After hearing about the Tsimané people, I am slightly irked that my idea of consonance and dissonance has been tampered with by exposure 2 too much ET but, you know there is a payoff

Heh. Are u sure? Isn't that what all new forms of music are described as, before repetition leads 2 acceptance?

I don't think that trad music notation is fit for purpose, nowadays. Or ever. It is senseless, bizarre really, the way (simple) time of all things is dealt with. The whole concept of using rests, even. *shakes head*. Don't even get me started on fucking strings..

There's always a newer resonator waiting 2 be born, whether literally or figuratively.

 

I've started the music from the waveform shapes and now traveling through the reverse path to the past. I don't want to be such as an encyclopaedia and want to focus on the materials that I really need for productions.

Functional harmony due to its most relevancy to the electronic producers (and later, other harmonies) and voice leading (or more exactly 4-part writing) because all functional harmony books concentrate on it as a foundation for their further interpretations and explanations.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 31, 2016