Music Theory 101

For many years I've been trying to learn Music Theory and no one could ever explain stuff I needed to know to compose the good stuff. How to listen to exact harmony you need and create them...

That's a big topic. You can't really tell what's good using books. You have to hear them. Yet way too many people try to learn it through books. Or EXPENSIVE teachers or schools.

And still get .. VERY formal instruction on how not to do things.. rather done how to DO things. That's gotta be a very depressing thing to find out. You've paid all that money so you can actually start learning how to make and play good music. Somethings' wrong with that. You need to be learning that from beginning.

What I can tell you today is that there is no rule. That's something people have put together after trial and error.

or worse some texts are based on those idea by people who wanted to teach and make money or present to the world they are intelligent and great.. These people made everything too difficult for beginners to grasp.

Correct appproach I believe is to if you can enjoy music, then you can enjoy theory as well. Just so you will be enjoying music a little more than you could before the first class on music theory.


- feel free to dive in to this as i'm curious how music beginners think and perceive theory.

Bach Chorale downloads..

I just bought a book of bach chorale collection and today I found this site that had all those available for free...

http://www.jsbchorales.net/sets.shtml

I guess I will just use the copy I bought for playing purpose and these for analyzing purpose. So I can justify my action.

Well I bought it.. someone is gonna be happy right? not bach but whoever are keeping this alive and making available to public.

Violin Intonation

I'm working on my violin intonation pretty much everyday. Its very interesting. You notice so many things that You don't when you are on guitar.

first pitch changes when you press. and how fast your press or "Release" into another note affects how quickly it will be in tune.. if you get the correct place to press that is...

that concept is very interesting. Right now, this is almost a disadvantage but if you could musically control this it's really cool what you can do..

bow changes pitch as well (although people don't tell you to control pitch from the bow.. ) and there are way too many thing you can do.



On playing guitar with the bow. seems like it's better to press your frets. rather than those spaces in between. You are getting semi fretless effect when you do that.

Guitar and Violin Playing - Pinky hell

I've started playing violin and since my left pinky has started to function very well.

Violin has really small, or thin neck as you know and that actually made me realize how important the grip was.

basically you have to have two things in your mind.

1. you and your hands have to be relaxed!
2. you apply necessary pressure when you need them. quick press and slight release. volume knob 10 -> 8 the moment you press it.

you have to make your pinky feel like other finger. you have to train it so that you know exactly what muscles move pinky. Flexor and Extensor muscles are almost at where your elbow is. try moving you pinky by itself and look at where it moves. that's what you need to train.

also you have to know Middle, Ring, and Pinky all are connected. shares one muscle. Finger independence is actually not possible. You really have to feel their differences and connection.

exception there is to a pinky because you can actually move your bottom joint (one that connects to your palm) pretty freely. and you have to move pinky from there.



anyway so the GRIP.
you basically have to find where your pinky can gain the most power. it is a weak finger. it's small but there is a point where you are grabbing the neck. and You feel that energy is spread out evenly onto each fingers.

next time you grab your guitar, try grabbing from your bottom joint. Obviously you only want finger tip to touch the finger board but you lay down your fingers from your bottom joint..

I wish I could explain this to you using pictures but try that.

Pro Tools: Shortcut keys: another way for changing modes & tools

That you can change modes and tools on Pro Tools with function keys is a common thing by now but there was on more that's not usually covered..

if you didn't know:
f1 - f4: select modes
f5 - f10: tools - pressing the same one twice will trigger next one down the list for those tools with options.
f6+f7 pressed together: Smart tool

that's good but there is one more to it.
You can press ESC and ~ to change them also... basically it selects next tool including smart tool.

Tilda or ~ or ` (key that's one below ESC) key will switch between Edit Modes.

and ESC will select next tool.

Unlike web browser it won't select one before even if you pressed shift key (shift + tab to go back to previous text field/tab stop in most browsers) but this is pretty useful when you are still thinking which one to press.

You won't have to look at the keyboard and that can make you more productive.
Try it out.

Bar Codes - How to get UPC

I've started to seriously look into and try to actually understand all aspect of music business.

Music Business until recently was just really something I never wanted to learn but there are lots of good thing also about this.

One of the big issue is UPC code and Bar Code. They are just a tracking system by SoundScan. and you do want to put this on your CD because you will know how much you've sold. and if you are member of ASCAP, BMI, etc that's the way for them to know how much you actually sold. (also, they have some membership benefits regarding this)

You can just look at their web site and they will tell you how.
for example

http://barcodes.gs1us.org/dnn_bcec/Default.aspx?tabid=376

This is one video that explain all the process. rather long so i'll just write it down.

1. To create your own Bar Code you need to become their member.
2. Apply for the membership and pay fee (check FAQ or contact them) - You get your own company number for use in UPC codes
3. create one - they explain how to do this as well.

So that's when you are a label or start one..
but minimum $150 for membership is maybe expensive.. then you can sign up with people like CD Baby because they offer one for you really cheap (last time i checked...)

It's actually up to you to decide which one you go with. You are not an established artist with fan base you probably won't ever need membership. and you can use your money for music production or graphic design for the album or whatever it is that you want to do.

iTunes Music Store - Global listening

Well a little time ago iTunes have added a feature to select country at the bottom of your iTunes Music Store home page.

I find this really interesting because although lot of music are internationally distributed you still don't really know in what country what song is popular.. Question like is American music really popular in Europe? what's the Europe's trend?

one way to find out is through magazines but i think iTunes can function in this way also.

If you navigate to the iTunes MS for UK then you'll see something you can only see in UK version. France or french version will something that's only available in france. likewise you can just navigate through all stores and you can actually listen to music from all over the world.

you can search in their languages (if you know or if you just knew the title), i'm not sure about the downloading but at least you can listen to them.. and buy CD (well the quality of digital download is still lower compared to regular CD so actually it's cheaper if you buy CD in my opinion)

but it's amazing how easily you can listen to all kinds of music and cultural differences. at least for musicians or composers.

Synthesizer Tutorial Video

I've just found a few amazing synthesizer tutorial. Not really for beginners.. you'd have to understand at least what oscillator, filters are and their functions..

They were talking about FM synthesis, how to make drums beats with LFO, things like that.. good point to cover. and he explains it really well.

http://www.sonicstate.com/

MIDI Programming for beginners: What is MIDI?

I'm going to write about the first step in MIDI programming and what those fancy term means.

What is MIDI? Often times my answer is "It is like a sheet music with performance information"

Any good sheet music will include marking like f (forte) p (piano), crescendo, ritardando but none of them actually gives you an idea of what it really sound like.. what composer meant. what arranger meant when they put those marks on the score.

On the other hand, MIDI records (or at least tries to capture) all that little nuances that composers were dying to put to their scores.

You can listen to free MIDI files somewhere and you should be able to tell differences. Some of them will have unnatural flow or no emotion and make you think "MIDI is horrible," but often times it is not MIDI that's is bad. Programmer.

MIDI will let you compose or play your own music even if you didn't know anything about music but on the other hand making it sound realistic or as if somebody is playing is very hard to do, especially when you are trying to get that "orchestra" sound; you have to know how all the instruments are played, sounds and talk with each other.

New Logic Pro 8!

I think new Logic is way cool.

First it's easier for new comers because you got those edit function icons on top of your arrange window (which is the window you are usually on) bounce, split, etc etc.

Secondly, when you try to load plug-in you'll the plug-in name first rather than multi track or strereo or whatever. so there will be less people trying to figure out how to use outputs other than 1-2 (or main)

Out of all others the best new feature for me was the feature to let you edit multiple midi tracks at once in the matrix window (maybe it's called piano roll in new version)

you open up the matrix window, select two or more regions and notes will show up in the same arrange window. This feature is extremely useful when you want to orchestrate or just want to program a choir or strings quartet!

same goes for Score Editor. you can orchestrate on Score Editor also. It's my ideal work flow and now it's there in Logic.


Another thing that's exciting for me is the MainStage. This will replace ableton live when i don't need loop capability.

This will let you create multi controller live environment. what's cool is that you can create multiple or for each gig...
If you are a digital guitarist or vocalist you could take advantage by plugging yourself into the effect chain.. etc.

now you can easily use 3-4 controllers and tell each knob what to do, what to control, and expression or amount it controls, etc etc.


only thing i'm still trying to figure out is how to utilize two screens. I haven't been able to open a Matrix window that corresponds to the arrange window onto the secondary screen... i really need to find this out.. i don't want other people to decide where to put my windows... if you know what i mean..


otherwise new Logic seems amazing.