Castle Paradox

[Jazz_Man]

I buy into it. It may not be an exact science or anything, but I've had instances where songs in different keys just sounded... wrong...
...but then I find that one key, and it suddenly just seems to fit.

[msw188]

Okay, Giz asked not only what key to choose, but how to pick chords. I will try to help answer this, but it is a difficult question with no definitive answer.

Picking a specific key is not so important at first, because once you write your melody and choose your chords, you can go back and change the key by moving all of your notes to their corresponding notes in the new key. This is called transposition, I think. But in any case, I think that it is easiest for a beginner working in Notate to start with the key of C major (or A minor), so I will talk about that.

The name of your key is also your grounding chord. It is the chord that is usually used to start, or perhaps end a phrase. I'll deal in C major. Here, the chord C (notes C E G) is your basic chord. In any major key signature, besides the main grounding chord there are two other major chords that naturally occur. They are the fourth and fifth chord, usually labelled with roman numerals IV and V. In C major, these are the chords F (F A C) and G (G B D). I think someone explained this already. Using only these three chords one can create many simple chord sequences.

When I say naturally occuring, what I mean is that the notes in the chord come directly from the key signature. Thus, all of the notes in the chords C, F, and G as shown above are in the C major scale. This makes experimenting in Notate in C major easy. Simply by stacking different notes on each other (all naturals, no sharps or flats) you can discover all sorts of chords that will work 'naturally' with the key of C. Usually when you are stacking notes on top of each other in this way, you will want to keep a space of two notes in between each note in your stack. Thus, in the chord F the note A is two notes above the note F in the C major scale, and it is two notes below the note C.

Doing this you can experiment with many chord sequences. While doing this, it is my advice that you make all of your chords last a measure or two (keeping the changing of the sound even), and that you throw in the chord C fairly regularly. This will ground your ear in the key of C major and allow you to hear what your other chords sound like in that light.

[msw188]

Sorry about the double posting, but I timed out last time, and I didn't want to risk that again.

The above post can help to experiment with how different chords sound, but it may not help to choose chords for a specific song. Here are some ideas about making a song.

Different people start with different ideas when making a song. If you are experimenting with the different chords and find a sequence that sounds interesting to you, I'd say start there. I'll reiterate what I said before; it may be helpful to have a good bass sound going underneath playing the notes that are the names of the chords that you have made above (if you are stacking notes according to the 2-note spacing rule, this will always be the name of the bottom note in the stack). Once you have this, you need a melody. Usually made of a single voice, a melody is the main thing that a person hears in a song. It often moves around in the middle of measures, but I think it is helpful for beginners to have the melody land on notes that exist in the currently playing chord as often as possible, especially on the first note of the measure.

On the other hand, if you have an idea for a melody, you can begin with this. Try to get your melody notated into a key you are familiar with, and if you can get it in C so much the better. For now, I will assume you have managed to do this (if this was the way you were composing at all). Then the advice I gave before can be followed in backwards order. Notice what notes are being played by your melody, especially on the downbeat of each measure, and try to pick your chords accordingly. For example, you notice that your melody climbs one note at a time during the measure, but it began on the note D, and also made use of the note F in that measure. My first guess at putting a chord in that measure would be the stack starting on D, that is D F A (it is the chord of D minor). But maybe after hearing that it doesn't sound quite right with what you thought should belong there. Well, what other stacks include D, and possibly F? The stack starting on B is one: B D F (it is the chord of B diminished), but this is a strange sounding chord. Maybe it's what you wanted, maybe not. If not, the chord of G also includes the note D, though not the note F. G is G B D. Maybe that will sound better. And don't forget that you can always stack more than three notes, if you think that will help the sound. If the chords sound funny, it sometimes comes together once you put in the bass sound, as I mentioned before.

Okay, that was a lot. Is any of this helpful? If my posts are too long and are not helping you at all, Gizmog, let me know and I will stop posting here. This thread is getting awfully long and somewhat cluttered, it seems to me.

[msw188]

One more thing. In the last post, I said I assumed that you could get your meoldy notated into the key of C major. If you cannot, let me know and I am sure I or some of the others here can help get it there, or tell you more about how to deal with it however it is currently notated.

Okay, one other thing, to practice my hypocrisy. Moogle1 said something about not understanding how different keys could have their own distinct sound. Here is one possible explanation. Different instruments have different tones and textures depending on what range they are playing in. This can be what changes the sound of a piece, just because it is in a different key. For example, let's say a trombone is called upon to play the melody in a piece written in C major (just to make the example easy), and the melody is based around the note C, so it is something like C C B C D E C. Yeah, a nice melody I just made up. The trombone would most likely play this in the octave with the C in the middle of the grand scale. Now I think keys don't matter, and I like the letter F better than the letter C, so let's put this into F. Our new tonic is F, and the melody must now be written as F F E F G A F. Now the trombone has a choice. The lower octave is easily playable, but the feeling of the instrument that low might not match the desired feeling of the song. The higher octave is a little more challenging, and more piercing, again maybe not what the melody was supposed to feel like. The key of C was a better choice.

PS: I've never taken any music theory, but this seems to me to be a possible explanation. Okay, I'll shut up now.

[Gizmog1]

Actually, MSW, those are two of the more helpful posts I've seen here. I'm still mostly trying to follow the advice, and read up, and dink around in notate, but that sounds useful, and I'm going to use that advice the next time I get to working.

[Jazz_Man]

So, yeah. MSW had some comprehensive posts. Good on you.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but keep in mind that is just a basic basic knowledge of how to start. It'll get things sounding a little better... but... mleh. Forget it.

Good posts, MSW. (If not 100% technically correct. )

[Setu_Firestorm]

It's all a variant matter of discretion, too. Different things work for different people.
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