Musicians - The Music Theory Thread

[Disestabulistic]

Thank you so much for the Scalculator, it truly is a wonderful thing.

[Ravenous Yam]

Yeah the Scalculator is truly a brilliant invention. And people say the internet isn't good for anything but porn.

 

 

And because i'm bored right now, i'm gonna write a little blues lesson here, even though nobody asked and i'm not even aware of any general interest in blues here.

 

 

The most common blues chord progression is the 12-bar blues. With the chord degree on the left, in the key of A, it looks like this ( the '/' means repeat last chord):

 

I7(A7) / / /

IV7(D7) / I7(A7) /

V7(E7) IV7(D7) I7(A7) I7(A7)

 

Apparently the formatting doesnt really work, but theres supposed to be three rows, four columns, evenly spaced. Each chord or '/' gets a whole bar.

 

The thing that really defines the tonality of the blues is the use of the minor pentatonic scale (and the pentatonic blues scale, which i will get to later) over dominant seventh chords. It has a unique, yet not unpleasant dissonance (due mostly to the clashing of the minor and major 3rd) that is quite unlike any other musical genre.

 

Another trademark of the blues (as opposed to jazz, specifically), is the use of the single tonic scale over the entire progression, rather than changing scales to match the chord. In the above example, you would play the A minor pentatonic (or blues pentatonic) over the entire thing, rather than using the A minor, D minor, and E minor according to the current chord.

 

Now, on to the blues scale. If you remember to the first page, i wrote about the minor pentatonic scale (scale formula: 1 b3 4 5 b7). In A this is A C D E G.

The blues scale is almost the same as this, but with the added tritone (diminished fifth/augmented fourth). The scale formula looks like this: 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7. In A, this is A C D Eb E G. The tritone (Eb) is the most dissonant interval in western music.

 

Interesting fact: in medieval times, through to about 1910, the tritone was considered the "devil's interval" and was forbidden completely by the church. I seem to remember hearing about some people being burned at the stake during the medieval times for using it in music. Igor Stravinsky broke this rule in the early 1900's, and since then it has become quite common, mostly in jazz, blues and metal.

 

Now, back to the tritone. It is important not to linger on the note too long, as it is very dissonant and very unsettling if you hold it too long. It is best used as a passing tone between the 4th and 5th. Although, of course, these are just guidelines; you can use it however you want to.

 

Now, one of the most important things about the blues, and one of the things few people know and gets taught very rarely, is the use of the so-called 'blue notes', which are an exercise in microtonality (notes slightly off the usual western notes).

These notes are the b3rd, b5th, and b7th. These notes can, of course, be played as usual as well, with no ill effects. But to implement them as blue notes, they are raised in pitch (bent, on a guitar) up a quarter step. This means what was a b3rd is now halfway between b3 and 3; what was a b5 is halfway between b5 and 5; and what was a b7 is halfway between b7 and 7.

I'm not sure how microtonality is implemented on other instruments (trumpet, for instance ;) ).

 

To further complicate matters, if you have the melodic skill, you can throw in the major 3 and major 7th as well.

So in a grand and complicated view of the blues scale, the total effect looks like this. Pentatonic minor notes are in regular font, blues pentatonic notes are in bold, 'blue notes' are in blue, and additional major blues notes are in italics.

 

1 b3 b3/3 3 4 b5 b5/5 5 b7 b7/7 7.

 

Contrary to everything i just said, the blues is really quite simple once you learn the distinctive attributes of it. The reason it is explained in a complicated way is because it developed entirely independent of western music. It grew from bastardized African tribal music mixed with folk played and modified by Southern American black slaves in the 1800's who knew no formal music theory.

 

THE END

[Disestabulistic]

Thank you for that.

 

To get microtonality on the trumpet it takes an insanely disciplined embrasure and ear. theoreticaly you can produce any tone imaginable on the trumpet, but actualy playing a tone between semitones accurately is super hard.

 

As for the piano I'm preety sure it's impossible. Cecil Taylor spent a good deal of his career trying to get away from the fixed tones of the piano. In much of free jazz a piano is not usd for the same reason, fixed pitch.

[Ravenous Yam]

Microtonality is fun to play with. Did you know some Middle Eastern scale sets have as many as 80 different, distinct tones? Imagine how hard those would be to differentiate. Western music only has 12 tones.

Edited September 21, 2005 by Ravenous Yam

[no yu begin wher i end]

There's also a couple other blues progressions as well, although the one Yam mentioned above is the one that most jazz students will learn first.

 

(Chords on scale degree)

 

I,IV,I,I,IV,IV,I,VI,-II,V,I/VI,-II/V.

 

The last two measures both have two chords in them, and the -II means the minor chord. So, in the key of G, you'd have:

 

G7,C7,G7,G7,C7,C7,G7,E7,-a7,D7,G7/E7,-a7/D7.

 

The one/six/two/five turn-around is very common in jazz, and you'll see this form a lot in bebop tunes (Now's the Time, Billie's Bounce, Straight No Chaser, etc.)

 

A minor blues pattern is only a little different from the first one.

 

-I*4, -IV*2, -I*2, -II, -V, -I, -II/-V.

 

The -II chords also have a flat five.

 

In the key of g-, you'd have:

 

-g7, -g7, -g7, -g7, -c7, -c7, -g7, -g7, -a7 b5, -d7, -g7, -a7 b5/-d7.

 

I'm not sure how many other 12-bar patterns there are, these are just the ones I've played.

 

[/band nerd] Don't mind me.

 

I think to play microtonality on trumpet (this is the first place I've heard about it), you finger the valves only about half way?

 

Did you know some Middle Eastern scale sets have as many as 80 different, distinct tones? Imagine how hard those would be to differentiate. Western music only has 12 tones.

 

Holy snap.

Edited September 21, 2005 by no yu begin wher i end

[Ryan44]

teach me to play real guitar, i am weak.

 

 

-Ryan

[Ravenous Yam]

Practice, practice, and more practice. Practice several hours a day, seven days a week. It takes a long time and a hell of a lot of practice to be good. For instance, people like Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen practiced at least 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for years and years (that's probably a little overboard though).

 

Learn the CAGED system to best learn the most amount of chords the easiest, as they are the fundamentals of music. The CAGED system can also be applied to scales. Basically what it is is a method of learning where chords in a certain key can be played all over the fretboard, according to the 5 basic chord shapes of guitar.

CAGED system

 

But really what it boils down to is lots and lots of practice. Listen to as many different styles of music you can; this helps too. When you hear something you like in a song, learn that part (instead of the entire song), and play around with it to see what else can be done with the idea.

[Disestabulistic]

I'm feeling too lazy to figure this out so...

 

what chord is this: C,E,F,A

 

and... F,A,B,D

[no yu begin wher i end]

C,E,F,A, looks like an Fmaj7 chord rearranged from F,A,C,E.

 

The second one looks like a rearranged d-minor with a sharp 6. Honestly, I have no clue what the hell it actually is.

[Ravenous Yam]

Yeah, C E F A would be the third inversion of Fmaj7. Pretty much a regular Fmaj7 with the notes in a different order, as said.

 

The second one is a B half-diminished, also third inversion. A half-diminished is like a regular diminished, except instead of a double-flat 7th, it has a regular flat 7th. Therefore, B(1) D(b3) F(b6) A(b7).

 

The mention of inversions is not really important, so if you dont know what an inversion is just ignore it, just pay attention to the chord.

 

For reference, however, an inversion is when you take the same chord and rearrange the notes so they are in a different order. Take a major chord (1 3 5). If you start on the 3, then you get (3 5 1)[lowest to highest - the third is now the bass]. You are starting on the second note of the chord, therefore it is the second inversion of the chord.

[ecnarf]

teach me to play real guitar, i am weak.

 

 

-Ryan

Teach yourself to play guitar, like us real men do.

[Ravenous Yam]

I just realized now that i had made a typo in the above post about chords. Where i said "B(1) D(b3) F(b6) A(b7).", it SHOULD say F(b5). I don't know if anybody caught that, but i figured i'd best correct it.

 

Also, i neglected to mention that the actual notation for a half-diminshed chord is m7b5. As in: Bm7b5 (B minor seventh, flat five). This is how it would usually be written in chord charts.

[Ravenous Yam]

C'mon, somebody's gotta have something.

I could write an unsolicited lesson/article like the couple previous times, but i'd have to think of a topic.

[Disestabulistic]

Regail us with tails of Igor Stravinsky and the intergration of the devil's interval in to modern western music.

[Ravenous Yam]

Haha.

Didn't i do that already? That was pretty much all i know about that particular series of events. Sorry.

 

Link of the day: Outside Shore's Jazz Improvisational Primer. Just something to browse through if you're interested; you'd have to be pretty dedicated to read through the whole thing in one sitting. It has a lot of good solid information on jazz styles, technique, some theory, and what makes jazz the way it is.

[Disestabulistic]

does anyone know any chord progressions/melodies for any

MG(B)songs? I've looked on the internet and all there is is tab.

[no yu begin wher i end]

Know what's really stupdi? Trumpet tabs.

[Disestabulistic]

Know what's really stupdi? Trumpet tabs.

They exist?!?!!!! I'm disgusted. What are they like?

[no yu begin wher i end]

They tell you what valves to press, basically. I saw them once about a year ago and I was all like "...fuck..." and never looked at them again.

[Ravenous Yam]

does anyone know any chord progressions/melodies for any

MG(B)songs? I've looked on the internet and all there is is tab.

They're in the tabs... but you would have to play (or at least know) guitar to extract them from it. It is far, far easier to find tabs to guitar-based music than it is to find real notation for it.

 

And trumpet tabs? Really? Wouldn't that be pretty much unusably difficult?

[no yu begin wher i end]

And trumpet tabs? Really? Wouldn't that be pretty much unusably difficult?

See, that's what I thought, but I guess someone was able to make it work for them. But really, I think a person is better off being able to read music, anyway. It's not like it's very hard to pick up on, especially trumpet, where you can only play one note at a time (unless you can do this crazy hum/play thing at the same time and get two notes out of it).

[Disestabulistic]

does anyone know any chord progressions/melodies for any

MG(B)songs? I've looked on the internet and all there is is tab.

They're in the tabs... but you would have to play (or at least know) guitar to extract them from it. It is far, far easier to find tabs to guitar-based music than it is to find real notation for it.

 

And trumpet tabs? Really? Wouldn't that be pretty much unusably difficult?

But seeing as you've already extracted the chords, and know them all by heart, and are poised to post them... ;)

[Ravenous Yam]

Haha. I wish!

Request a couple, i could probably do it for you (assuming the tabs are of a high enough accuracy/quality). I don't know how i'd notate it though, other than just naming the chords and giving the notes of any applicable melodies. I can't read (or write) real music notation.

 

But, playing guitar, that is not really much of a detriment in most cases. Guitar and staff music don't really go well together, due to any given note on a guitar having as many as 5 different places to play it in the same octave, and having a limit for stretches set by the width of my hand. Also, guitar players are limited (in comparison to piano) by having a maximum of 6 notes you can play at any one time, ever.

I'd still like to be able to read music though...

[Disestabulistic]

Near Fantastica

Man of action

 

Thanks for the offer!

[Ravenous Yam]

Near Fantastica:

(the guitar is the song is tuned to Eb, but i don't really wanna write in all those flats and bother with mental transposing, so when youre playing it, just drop every note or chord by a half step)

 

EDIT: And i cannot get the damn spacing right for the chords to be in sync with the lyrics!! The 'Bm D' comes right at the end of each line, listen for the changes in the song.

 

Intro Riff:

F# G A G (repeat as needed)

 

 

Intro/Verse: (straight outta the tab, i didn't write this)

 

Em

THese pink pills are for your sanity

G Bm D

We are buried in the earth because we cant beat gravity

Em

And you still here and so made to figure

G Bm D

You are an important part of the computer

Em

Born of the Sea, Blink, the Sea is dead

G Bm D

Falls out of my, sockets in my head

Em

Everyone's a captain baby, ship of fools

G

Drowning while they're telling you

 

Chorus (still didnt write this)

 

D

It's been alright

Em G

Its been alright

D

It's been alright

Em G

Its been alright

 

The so-called 'solos between verses':

 

B C# E F# B A A B C# E F# B A A B C# E F# B C# E D D B

(most of the solos start like that)

 

'Breakdown':

Em G Em11/F#

 

Em

Cant fear fear, fears the mind killer

G Em11/F#

Cant fear fear, fears the mind killer

 

 

I'm not sure if this is quite as in-depth as you wanted; most of the verses and such were copied straight from the tab site. I did do the melody lines though (the ones played by the guitar, at least).

 

Aaaanyway... man of action later, if this is actually what you wanted. Low quality tabs are hard to work with; if everyone used Powertab, we wouldn't have this problem!! The notation would be right there already!

Edited October 21, 2005 by Ravenous Yam