Music Theory vs Chord VST

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Other things can also get you away from what you would normally play, and you mention different voicings, but you could also make a conscious decision to find a different chord, or play in an unfamiliar key, or switch to a different instrument, etc.

If a chord VST helps, then that's great, but I think some people have already stated that they're more than happy to use it as a crutch, so I guess that happens.

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Forgotten wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:19 pm Other things can also get you away from what you would normally play, and you mention different voicings, but you could also make a conscious decision to find a different chord, or play in an unfamiliar key, or switch to a different instrument, etc.
That's what the deck of cards is all about, much like Oblique Strategies is on a wider creative scale.

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Gamma-UT wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:22 pm
Forgotten wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:19 pm Other things can also get you away from what you would normally play, and you mention different voicings, but you could also make a conscious decision to find a different chord, or play in an unfamiliar key, or switch to a different instrument, etc.
That's what the deck of cards is all about, much like Oblique Strategies is on a wider creative scale.
Not quite to extremes advocated by The Associates while recording Sulk I hope... :hihi:

In case you don't know, they did things like construct a drum kit entirely out of snared drums, piss inside an acoustic guitar before playing it, spent an entire day wearing ties made from kippers...

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if you cant commit dont use the oblique strategies :shrug:

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Forgotten wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:29 pm Not quite to extremes advocated by The Associates while recording Sulk I hope... :hihi:

In case you don't know, they did things like construct a drum kit entirely out of snared drums, piss inside an acoustic guitar before playing it, spent an entire day wearing ties made from kippers...
It's a great album. If it works...

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I don't normally (or at all, really) play chords from muscle memory. Harmony is like everything else in music, for me it's about having an idea.

In one of these many threads about musical helper plugins, I describe using the technology to exceed my own idea of the thing, an experiment I knew was going to produce error and I went with it. It was new and congruent somehow at the same time.

Chords to me are rather boring, I prefer lines coinciding and the freedom of no blocks or names to justify.
If went really into the jazz life I would have pursued that interest, but there are too many people doing it so well I think I have nothing to add or new to say in it, the world doesn't need me to do that and I have other ideas anyway.

I also make enough mistakes, and this includes hitting the wrong button, the wrong key, or whatever, I like accidents.

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jancivil wrote:I like accidents.
Yep, you'll never get a piece of software producing the accidents that lead to something like 'Blackbird' by the Beatles - McCartney told the story in an interview once that he sometimes played Bach's 'Bourree in E minor' as a party piece on guitar, and one day messed it up but liked the result, which he later went back to and developed into a song.

I always loved what Robert Fripp said about mistakes too - he basically said there's no such thing as a mistake in music, just the opportunity to create something different.

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datroof wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:51 pm
jancivil wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 3:15 pm
https://youtu.be/VBDr2HmkMMw?t=104

What I described earlier: it's cued to t=104, a minute 44. See the URL. I did a_lot of work on it but the impetus for this was the feedback in one of the delay lines creating this off-time (deliberate 5 in the time of 3, synced) repeating motif just earlier, a track which is far from monophonic fed into Cubase's audio to midi, which is designed for single lines afaict. It totally isn't an accurate transcription but it was fascinating. I will have *never* thought of this motif. Yet, I wrote a two-part invention, and the machine took something of that cross-rhythm and spit that sort of perversion of it out.
I like it! And yeah, that's a great example. That little motif reminds me of a short piece that a friend and I wrote a few years ago. Now I'll have to go find it.
Found it. Haven't listened to this in a while - old technology, but the effect is similar.

https://soundcloud.com/datroof/fanbelt

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I use analyzers (e.g. IRCAM Snail; Metric AB) to better understand the sonic characteristics of my field recordings. I was just reading a interesting report by a music teacher about a 2018 Ableton Loop session, where peeps similarly bridge music theory and software:

"A whole segment of the session was devoted to the problem of figuring out the key of melodic samples. TecBeatz uses Serato Sample, the top half of Serato as a VST. He also tests out key centers with tuned 808 kicks running through the tuner plugin, I guess because just using the piano is not very hip-hop. Other people in the session share their keyfinding strategies: using Mixed In Key, looking at the pitch of the fundamental in the EQ visualizer, using audio-to-MIDI, using Auto-Tune’s key finder function, using a specialized Max For Live device, and so on. No one says “Go to school and learn music theory.” Music educators: this is the world you live in."

It's cool to learn the different ways folks get creative when they really know how to use their software.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2018/ableto ... more-17748
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Michael L wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 4:21 am I use analyzers (e.g. IRCAM Snail; Metric AB) to better understand the sonic characteristics of my field recordings. I was just reading a interesting report by a music teacher about a 2018 Ableton Loop session, where peeps similarly bridge music theory and software:

"A whole segment of the session was devoted to the problem of figuring out the key of melodic samples. TecBeatz uses Serato Sample, the top half of Serato as a VST. He also tests out key centers with tuned 808 kicks running through the tuner plugin, I guess because just using the piano is not very hip-hop. Other people in the session share their keyfinding strategies: using Mixed In Key, looking at the pitch of the fundamental in the EQ visualizer, using audio-to-MIDI, using Auto-Tune’s key finder function, using a specialized Max For Live device, and so on. No one says “Go to school and learn music theory.” Music educators: this is the world you live in."

It's cool to learn the different ways folks get creative when they really know how to use their software.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2018/ableto ... more-17748
Indeed, and the bolded part might be true, but, it's often just easier to use a tuner plugin. I have a piano in my work area, but not in my studio so tuning by ear means loading up something.

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^^^ This music theory guy (his moniker is actually "The Theorist") does piano covers of hip-hop tunes. Here's his version of Kanye West's Ultralight Beam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypbxWBiEvac
Here is a music theory breakdown of Ultralight Beam by ethan hein who wrote the above quote:
https://flypaper.soundfly.com/discovery ... ight-beam/

And FYI here is the original "West" tune ( I use quotes because he credits a cast of thousands):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oHdAA3AqnE
Last edited by Michael L on Mon Jul 01, 2019 5:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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There is always going to be a workaround. A quick and easy way to do things. Someone will always come up with a new vst that generates chord progression or automatically hits all the right notes and all your productions sound great and you do not have to know any music theory until the vst crashes then your stuck! i would frown upon these and stay away from them. I would suggest learning music theory and using it the old fashioned way as it is more rewarding. Whenever i make a track i always build a chord progression first i then create the melody from the chord progression. I then create the verse in another key that is the relative minor or major to my I chord and so forth. All of this may sound like mumble jumble but it is a lot of fun and enjoyable to be able to use music theory this way. in the end it is more rewarding. Mostly i produce uplifting trance and techno but even then you still have to utilize music theory. So in closing id say if you do not plan on ever learning music theory then use these tools. If you are old fashioned and would rather make your own songs write your own songs from scratch using music theory then you will have no use for these tools because you can do this your self without the vst. Simply put from using music theory you will know what key ,what scale what chord to be in which ones not to use,when to use a flat or sharp and so forth. So it is your choice ultimately but if i were you id learn theory yourself.There is a good book to learn yourself called Melody in songwriting or the songwriters workshop Harmony. You can just google both of them and learn theory yourself.

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xbitz wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2019 5:46 am it doesn't replace any kind of music theory knowledge but the voicing editor of RapidComposer can be a great help during the chord-progression building.
video
It took far longer to find 'sus2' and 'minor' harmonies by that interface than the fraction of the second it takes to do it if you can count.

Learn to do it, it's not doing that much at this level.

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^^^ nope, it's a quite big help in quick chord progression sketching ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igNnv2ozdlU
especially in voice leading
"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

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captain chords endorses the moon landing hoax!

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