Newbie Theory Question: Making the Elements of Song Mesh Together

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Hi!

I have what I think is probably a very basic theory question. Basically, I'm wondering about how you make sure the various elements of a song "mesh" together, in a theory sense.

Say I come up with a bass line. How do I then make sure that the melody I write next "goes" with it, and isn't jarring or dissonant? Do they just need to be in the same key or scale or whatever? Or is it more complicated than that?

I know that I could just brute-force something by playing random combinations until something sounds good together, but I suspect that's not how producers usually do it. So, could you help me understand how to make sure the various parts of my song go together?

Thanks!

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:popcorn:
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Why the popcorn? I'm sorry if that's a stupid question, but I'm very new to music theory and production.

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Anticipation for things that didn't happen yet. Sorry, nevermind...


Ok, to answer your question. You have this nice bass line. What should accomplish it?
Some melody lines or chords, hopefully not too dissonant. If the other parts are in the same key and scale, that would certainly help.

Do you have a piano-like keyboard, or do you click on the roll? Oh nevermind. There are twelve notes. A scale is a selection of seven of them, for instance all the white keys only. One of them is the Dominant. It's most likely the centre of gravity of your bass line, the note that keeps reoccurring. Counted from the Dominant up, the third and fifth are important as well. These will form the most basic chord. Melodies will usually revolve around the dominant, third an fifth notes.

That's a start. It should sound rather natural. Or not, up to you as a composer ;-)
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Image
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Thank you very much!

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Ultimately, it should come down to what sounds good to you. Unless you're writing for a specific audience, that's all that really matters. And those choices you make regarding what sounds to include/exclude in your music, are what goes into creating your style. What is unique about you? What choices will you make that are different from all the other rubes.

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I don't think you really have a theory question here, as it sounds like you have almost no knowledge of music theory, and it's far too large a subject to answer your questions based on what you've provided.

If you're interested in music theory, you should start studying it, as there are plenty of books and online videos that can help you get started.

The reason I say this is that your questions started "If I come up with a bassline..." with no other details. If you want to use theory to move on from something written for bass, you first need to understand what you have written, so you would need to provide some music theory context. For example, key, scale, mode, some idea of rhythmic elements.

Theory won't help you write 'better' per se, but it will allow you to write within a conventional framework. Some write entirely outside of that framework, and that's fine too. I think the best advice without any theory knowledge is to just use your ears - if it sounds right or wrong to you, it's probably going to sound right or wrong to others.

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Thanks for your reply. I think I understand the basics of scales, modes, etc., I just didn't indicate that in my initial post. What I don't understand is how multiple elements of a song fit together. My assumption, for example, is that if I write a bassline in A-minor, and I want to add some synths next, then the synth melody should also be in A-minor. But I didn't know if it's more complicated than that.

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How well elements 'mesh' is not a music theory question in itself. It isn't yet, surely.
We don't know what kind of music you're after or what you want at all with what we're given.

One person writes you should have a melody or some nice chord progressions. maybe :shrug:
"hopefully not too dissonant", well that reiterates remarks in the original post, and may turn out to be your taste, but that's not really an idea.

One of them is the Dominant. It's most likely the centre of gravity of your bass line, the note that keeps reoccurring.
yet we don't know that. We'd have to hear it to assess if one of your notes in your line is frequently recurring as the Dominant or not. Is that true of your bass line? Unknown.
We'd have to hear the line to make that determination. If it's a modal kind of line, perhaps this isn't the case.
(And NB: the dominant is never the center of gravity, the tonic is. If it's a real dominant it rather wants to resolve to the tonic.)

But if you have a line in A minor, probably you want other lines or chords to agree with that as to key, but through itself that only guarantees safety at a really basic level. You totally could write things which don't work and it be the same basic 7 notes.

For A minor to have a dominant chord, which was brought in as though a given, a change from the given 7 notes of A minor occurs. (In tonal music, a dominant harmony includes the leading tone of the scale: here G#.) You might still have a lot of 5 iterated in your line, but someone is telling you of a quasi-necessity, yet we don't know if you did that or not.

So we don't know a basic thing, is it tonal A minor and if so is there something in the tune where we ask about chords? There may be two types of subdominant. Then we need to examine does the bass line represents roots of chords in every instance, or what. Could be passing and no chord is assigned. Could be the bass note represents some other part of a chord. If there is never this real V chord (E major) it could be working more modally and a lot of chords is not the answer.

So yeah, it's more complicated than key agreement. We can't know if you want chords, or just other lines; we can't know if you want chords on each note or every other or less frequently. We don't know the bass line. None of us can honestly advise.

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music theory is_not a "conventional framework" in itself.

If you fully understand what you're doing, using tools which may be called "music theory" (if you like), it applies to the extent that you may be writing better. It doesn't mean that you have accepted the one type of convention as inviolable for all musics as there is more than the Common Practice Period available.

One convention of "music theory" is CPP: tonal, where terms like 'dominant' have meaning, and the meaning is consistent.
Here harmonies *function* in a dominant-tonic paradigm.

Another "convention" known is modes: here, let's take phrygian off the top of my head, there is no dominant harmony. A Bb C D E F G. If anything, Bb is its dominant note, but minor v does not function, it's not a feature of tonal music; and we cannot consider modal music in the same sense as functional tonal harmony and simply glom chords onto every degree and expect those results to hold. You don't deal in a dominant-tonic paradigm.

Serial dodecaphony is another framework in "music theory". It has its own principles, it's not tonal at all really.

"music theory" applies to jazz, and differently to different areas of it.

It is not a set of rules for all cases. You may end up using convention in the wrong place. You could end up receiving a notion and now believing you need a dominant when you don't. Just sayin'.

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jancivil wrote: Sun Aug 04, 2019 4:04 pm music theory is_not a "conventional framework" in itself.
No, but I was at a loss for a better way to convey what advantage it might provide in simple language. Listening to the work of others and emulating their work would also provide a framework, but that could be conventional or not.

"Conventional" in that it represents a set of conventions in Western music, and "framework" in that music theory provides a number of rules with which to compose.

As I said, it's difficult to find a simply way of conveying what music theory will bring to a person without knowing how they intend to apply it.

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lungs wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 7:42 pm Hi!

I have what I think is probably a very basic theory question. Basically, I'm wondering about how you make sure the various elements of a song "mesh" together, in a theory sense.

Say I come up with a bass line. How do I then make sure that the melody I write next "goes" with it, and isn't jarring or dissonant? Do they just need to be in the same key or scale or whatever? Or is it more complicated than that?

I know that I could just brute-force something by playing random combinations until something sounds good together, but I suspect that's not how producers usually do it. So, could you help me understand how to make sure the various parts of my song go together?

Thanks!
Broadly, the answer to your question is that within the given segment of the phrase, all parts represent the current, underlying harmony. Generally, these chords and melody notes are derived from the same scale or mode.

All melodies in tonal music imply a harmonic progression that can be heard without the chords actually being played.

For example, if in Bar 1 I have an A minor chord, I don't actually have to play that chord for the listener to hear it. I just need my melody or bassline to stress the notes of A, C, and E; the "chord tones". If in my next bar, my melody is now based around the G mixolydian mode, stressing the G, B, and D notes, you will hear a chord change from Amin to G. It's like if I played arpeggios by themselves, but with a few notes from the scale that don't belong to the current chord added in.

As a rule, I try to avoid using heavy metal to teach music theory, but listen to breakin' the law as it demonstrates this very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU

You will notice that the guitar riff at the start follows the notes of the Amin, F and G chords. The bass implied this progression by just playing the root notes of those chords.

You will also notice that the vocals follow the chords too; if you isolated the vocals, you would still hear the rise and fall of the chord changes.

To get more specific, whenever you play a melody note over a chord or another sustaining note, you will momentarily create the sound of that chord.

So if I'm stressing that "F" note over my A minor chord, it is going to sound pretty damn dissonant not only because F doesn't fit with the harmony I'm trying to imply, but because it's a half-step away from that E note.

This is a bit of an over-simplification, and there are times where being too cohesive is not desirable, but if you follow the chords, you will not go wrong.

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AngelCityOutlaw wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:06 am

As a rule, I try to avoid using heavy metal to teach music theory, but listen to breakin' the law as it demonstrates this very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU

The irony of it!

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donkey tugger wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:36 am
AngelCityOutlaw wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:06 am

As a rule, I try to avoid using heavy metal to teach music theory, but listen to breakin' the law as it demonstrates this very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU

The irony of it!
:lol:

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Thank you for all the help, everyone!

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