Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

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Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

By:

Catherine Schmidt-Jones

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Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

By:

Catherine Schmidt-Jones

Online:

< http://cnx.org/content/col12061/1.3/ >

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This selection and arrangement of content as a collection is copyrighted by Catherine Schmidt-Jones. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Chapter 1

Learning by Doing: An Introduction

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1.1 Learning-by-Doing: Practical Tips for getting the most out of these courses

Many courses teach you the theory rst and then (maybe) let you practice using them in carefully controlled situations to do things that teachers expect you to be able to do. If you are expected at all to apply the idea in the messy arena of the real world, it is only after you have nished the approved learning. As discussed in detail below (Section 1.2: The Philosophy behind Learning-by-Doing), learning-by-doing turns this traditional approach on its head. It assumes that the best way to begin learning about theoretical concepts is to use them to do things in the real world that you want to or need to do. The end result may be that you know the theory less thoroughly (so learning by doing may not be ideal if you need a thorough conceptual background), but you understand the most useful concepts more deeply and can use them in the real-life situations that matter to you.

note: At the time of publication, I am also publishing ve learning-by-doing courses in the area of music: a course on Reading Rhythms² written in common notation, suitable for any instrument (including voice and body percussion); a course that helps guitar tablature readers learn common notation³; and three courses that can be used without learning to read common notation:

Music Theory for Digital Audio Work Station⁴, Music Theory for Guitar⁵, and an Exploring Music Theories⁶course for those who would like to learn more about unfamiliar music traditions. Please note that these are all short experimental courses. Feedback is much appreciated, and I will expand and rene the courses based on reader response and interest.

To get anything out of these courses, you must do some of the activities! Do not just read about them, and do not just imagine yourself doing them. Because human beings have very vivid imaginations, it is actually quite easy to imagine doing something well, and thus fool yourself into believing that you get it, when in practice you would actually struggle to do it or understand it. Simply reading about an idea without experimenting with it yourself is about as useful as watching an exercise video without doing the exercises. You don't have to do all the activities suggested in a module, just the ones that are most enjoyable or most closely related to things that you need to or want to do with music in your real life. And in the spirit of learning by doing, you should always feel free to adapt the activities to better t your immediate music-learning projects and goals.

1This content is available online at <http://cnx.org/content/m62540/1.2/>.

2Reading Rhythm: A Learning-by-Doing Course <http://cnx.org/content/col12057/latest/>

3Common Notation for Guitar Tablature Readers <http://cnx.org/content/col12059/latest/>

4Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation <http://cnx.org/content/col12061/latest/>

5Music Theory for Guitar <http://cnx.org/content/col12060/latest/>

6Exploring Music Theories <http://cnx.org/content/col12058/latest/>

Available for free at Connexions <http://cnx.org/content/col12061/1.3>

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2 CHAPTER 1. LEARNING BY DOING: AN INTRODUCTION Also, be prepared to take the course slowly, as if the point is to enjoy the process rather than to get to the end of the course. Concepts are introduced one at a time, with invitations to explore each one before proceeding to the next. The payo to the slow approach is that whenever you take time to let an idea become familiar, it not only becomes more useful for real-world activities, it also becomes more useful for learning about other concepts! Over the long run, you are laying down a foundation that will eventually help you understand the more advanced concepts more quickly and easily. As each concept becomes useful and familiar, it is also less likely to be completely forgotten, and easier to re-learn, even when you set it aside for months or years.

If a concept is familiar to you, it is of course ne to move past it quickly or even to skip it altogether.

How do you know when a music concept is familiar enough to move on? Can you:

• Recognize it when you hear it in real music?

• Write out an example of it, or point out an example in written music?

• Demonstrate it using your body (for example by singing, humming, or clapping)?

• Play an example of it on an instrument?

• Demonstrate a counter-example? In other words, can you hear or sing or play something that is denitely NOT an example of the concept, and explain why it is not?

If you cannot easily do at least two of the activities in the list, with condence that you are correct, then don't be in a hurry to move on. Play with the idea more than once, over the course of several days or even weeks, until you can condently recognize and DO (hear/play/write/sing) the concept.

The slow pace should not be frustrating if you choose activities that are at an interesting level (not so easy that they are boring, and not so dicult that they are frustrating) and that are related to your own music goals. Do you want to be a more knowledgeable listener? A better improviser? A better music reader? Do you want to play by ear? Compose or arrange music? You'll know you are really learning-by-doing when it's dicult to draw a line between learning about theory and doing your favorite or ideal music activities. To help you out with this, there is a wide variety of activities to choose from in the modules in these courses, and most of the activities are described in general terms, so that you can easily adapt them to your goals and situation.

Finally, the activities come with suggestions for gathering feedback, so that you know whether your use of the concept ts with other people's understanding of it. Take the feedback steps seriously. One of the main uses of music theory, notation, and acoustics is that they are useful for discussing music with other people, so you will want to make sure that your interpretation of the concepts is reasonably similar to theirs.

Shared concepts can also help you create music that other people like, so again, you want to make sure that your idea of how to use a concept is in line with what other people expect and enjoy. Again, the key to not getting frustrated is to not be in a hurry. If feedback, from others or from your own careful listening, suggests that you might be misunderstanding a concept or not using it well, try to work out a way to make the activity easier, or to get some help from a more experienced musician, or to switch to a dierent, easier activity for a while. Also, if feedback suggests that maybe you don't understand an idea or term that you thought you already understood, don't hesitate to go back to previous modules and try to work out what is causing your confusion. From the perspective of learning, it is particularly worthwhile to work through your confusions until you have found the root of the problem, because the resulting aha moment is usually a signicant step forward in your understanding.

Please note, however, that negative, unhelpful feedback on your personal projects can be terribly demo- tivating, and psychologically harmful. See Providing Constructive Criticism in Music⁷ for information on how to provide or ask for feedback that is both useful and psychologically positive, or, when you cannot get feedback from others, how to usefully critique your own work. The activities in this course also include plenty of pointers for keeping feedback positive and useful.

Here is a quick summary of the above tips:

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• Whenever a concept is not already familiar and useful to you, do some of the suggested activities regularly until it becomes familiar and useable.

• Don't be in a hurry to move on. Try to nd activities that you enjoy or want to be able to do, so that you will be content to explore each concept until it becomes very familiar and easy to use.

• Gather positive, useful feedback in order to make sure that your understanding of the concept is well connected to the understandings and preferences of others.

1.2 The Philosophy behind Learning-by-Doing

You don't have to understand the philosophy in order to do these courses; feel free to skip the rest of this module and move on to the hands-on modules if this does not interest you. Read on if you are not sure whether this approach is right for you, or if you think that understanding the philosophy will help you be more successful in using it.

The goal of a learning-by-doing course is to help you make useful connections between the activities that you actually need to or want to do in the real world and the relevant theoretical concepts and terms that can help you organize and think about those activities. The basic ideas behind learning-by-doing are:

1. All theoretical concepts are somehow useful for real-world activities.

2. General theoretical understanding always begins with specic real-world understanding.

3. Practical activities that you actually want to or need to do are the best place to begin understanding the concepts.

4. Getting feedback on real-world projects is also the best way to check whether or not you have a good understanding of the concept.

1.2.1 1. Using theory to do things in the real world

All theoretical concepts are somehow useful for doing things that people need to or want to do; otherwise nobody would have bothered to invent and share them. (Some of them might only be useful to professional physicists or linguists, for example, but they are all truly useful to some group of people!) The real-world uses are actually the main point of the theoretical concepts. Even if you have studied a concept to the point that you can dene and discuss it, if you haven't actually used it to do something that "needs doing" (as opposed to "doing" a coursework-type problem), you really have only a vague idea of what you are talking about. That vague idea might be so limited or misleading that when you do nd yourself in a situation in which it could actually be useful, you may not know how to apply it, or may not even realize that it is applicable!

A theory-only concept is, by its nature, a weak spot in your understanding. Because it is weak, it is dicult to build on. Consider, for example, these two fake denitions: A mibble is a brown animal with a long tail and A iss is a deciduous angiosperm with an actinomorphic calyx. Although the denition of mibble is not real, you could probably use it, because it is based on familiar concepts like brown and animal. If required, you could use it to:

• name examples of mibbles

• decide whether any specic animal can be classied as a mibble

• answer simple questions about mibbles (such as Do any of them make good pets?)

• understand mibble-dependent concepts (such as a mibble-ty is a mibble that can swim)

Unless you know a lot about plants, you are probably having more trouble with isses. Even if you memorize the denition and look up the meaning of all of the words, could you decide whether or not a certain plant qualies as a iss? Could you answer simple questions about them (such as Do any of them make good house plants)? How certain would you be of your answers? The problem is that terms like deciduous are, for most of us, a bit theoretical. Even if we see deciduous plants every day, we don't use the idea deciduous

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4 CHAPTER 1. LEARNING BY DOING: AN INTRODUCTION to do things in their own lives. Brown, on the other hand, is an idea that we use to do things in our own lives, such as deciding which pair of shoes to wear. Brown is not a merely theoretical concept; it is practical, useful, familiar and comfortable.

Of course, if your job involves deciding what type of trees to plant, then deciduous becomes a very useful and comfortable term, too. If you want music theory to become familiar and comfortable, this practical approach is just what you want. For example, you probably hear "perfect fths" in music all the time, but you don't think of them in those terms, just as you don't think of the trees that you walk past as being deciduous. But if you start using the term perfect fths to do things, such as deciding what notes to use in an improvisation, perfect fths will eventually no longer be a vague theoretical concept; it will become a practical idea that you are comfortable using to describe the sounds that you hear or make.

important: You should note, however, that learning all of the conceptual information at once, in a clear, formal, structured format, is usually faster and more ecient, so if you are certain that you will need a wide and deep conceptual understanding of a certain area (for example, if you will need to be able to formally analyze contrapuntal music), you may nd traditional-style courses to be a better option for you than learning by doing.

1.2.2 2. Starting with specic understanding

General understanding starts with specic understanding. Nobody's understanding of an unfamiliar concept begins as a complete overview. You start with one or two clues, based on a formal denition or a few examples or the way someone else uses the concept. Your rst idea of it will almost certainly be incomplete or even partially mistaken. As you start trying the idea out for yourself, you and other people may notice mistakes in your use of the concept that are caused by incomplete understanding, rather than by a simple need for practice. The mistakes can be frustrating, sometimes even embarrassing, but they help you get a clearer, more complete and accurate idea of what the concept means and how to use it.

As you get more comfortable with a concept, you may start to notice that there are dierent ways to use terms, or that dierent people use dierent terms for the same ideas. This is because they have had dierent experiences with the terms and concepts, for example using them with dierent groups of people, dierent styles of music, or dierent instruments. The more comfortable you are with a concept, the easier it becomes to work with other people who have had dierent experiences or use dierent terms to talk about it. Four-year-olds who have had dierent experiences with plants may have trouble discussing plants with each other. Biologists who have had dierent experiences not only have little trouble using the term plant with each other, they also have little trouble accommodating a four-year-old's understanding of the term.

You will nd the same is true for music theory; the more you learn about how it is relevant to what you do, the easier it will be to talk to all kinds of musicians about what they do.

1.2.3 3. Doing things that you really want to or need to do

Using theoretical concepts to do practical things that you actually want to or need to do is the best way to get to know the concepts, because it helps you understand what the concepts are for. This big picture understanding will also help you recognize other specic ways that you might be able to use the concepts in your life, which will help you keep them in mind rather than forgetting them. Working on something that really matters to you personally will also help you work through those moments when you realize you are doing something wrong, instead of quitting in frustration or deciding that you are not good at it.

Note that needing to do an assignment for a class does not count as learning-by-doing, unless you feel that the goals of the course and of the assignment are relevant to your real life. (And getting a good grade in the course does not count as a learning-by-doing goal, because in that case, what you are doing is getting good grades, not making music.) For example, if the goal of a course

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5 your own goals. If you will need to write Bach-style chorales for your dream job as director of a choir, then that is learning-by-doing. If your goal is to write Chopin-style etudes, or Beatles-style songs, and you can see how the exercises in functional harmony and voice-leading will help you do those activities, then that is also learning-by-doing. On the other hand, if the teacher knows how the assignments could help you reach those goals, but you don't know, that does not count as learning-by-doing. In that case, the teacher has the practical knowledge, not you. To you, the ideas are still theoretical; they are about how someone would do that as opposed to how I could do this.

Learning by doing is not a new idea at all, nor is it particularly controversial; the ideas behind this course have been explored by educators and approved by psychologists for decades. (If you would like to learn more about the theory behind these courses, I recommend reading about inquiry, inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, or active learning. The writing of John Dewey is a personal favorite of mine.)

However, the ideas can be challenging for teachers to implement in traditional school situations. It is dicult to provide students in school with the opportunity to do the things that directly interest them, because dierent students in the same class are probably not going to be truly interested in the same activities. So formal education sometimes simply gives you the theoretical concepts, without making you use them at all. When this is the case, unless the information itself catches your interest, you usually forget it as soon as forgetting is allowed (in other words, after the nal test).

Good formal education include activities that interest some people, usually the experts in that subject and those who want to become experts. For example, you might be asked to use physics to design a safe bridge, or to use literary skills to analyze Shakespeare, or to use music theory to write a chorale. These activities help you to make sense of the concepts, which helps you remember them. They also give you some idea of what the concepts are for, but these expert uses may not give you much idea of what you yourself might be able to do with the concepts in everyday life.

For example, you might use physics to help you do skateboard tricks, use literary skills to discuss a favorite novel at book club, or use music theory to write a rock song. Often, teachers are so familiar with the concepts that such everyday uses are obvious to them. They may not realize, or may forget, that everyday uses are not obvious when concepts are new and unfamiliar; or they may feel that everyday uses do not belong in formal education. However, if you don't start using the concepts yourself in everyday life, then without practice you eventually forget the concepts or forget how to use them. So, once you decide to learn more about a subject on your own, it is useful to abandon the formal-education approach and set out instead to nd ways to use the concepts in projects that you want to or have to do as part of your own real life.

Modern technologies are making it easier to oer learning-by-doing within a course setting, but many courses use modern technology for other reasons. If you prefer this type of learning, or want to try it out while guided by an experienced teacher, look for courses that are so exible that students are expected to help set their own goals, activities, texts, and materials for the course. Note that if there are courses that are closely aligned with your own goals, a traditional-style course may be a better choice, because it is carefully designed to get you to the goal as quickly and eciently as possible.

1.2.4 4. Getting feedback on real-world projects

Again, in a formal-education setting, getting feedback usually means being told that you are right or wrong when you discuss or dene the concept, or use it to solve a clearly-dened, expert-use type of problem. Since this is feedback on a theoretical level, it doesn't give you a good idea of whether your own understanding of the concept is useful for the not-so-clearly dened problems you meet in the real world. In contrast, feedback on your own projects is feedback at that real-world-usefulness level.

The real world itself may provide all the feedback you need; for example, if you misunderstand the physics of skateboarding, gravity and momentum may supply some very practical and memorable feedback.

Similarly, if you try to use concepts from a write-Bach-chorales course to write a pop song, your own ears may tell you that something about the way you are using the concepts is not right.

However, if the concepts you are trying to learn have a large social component, then feedback from other people is also very useful. For example, the reactions of other people to your pop song are a source of useful

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6 CHAPTER 1. LEARNING BY DOING: AN INTRODUCTION information, and feedback from another musician who can perhaps help you locate specic reasons why the song isn't working well can be extremely useful.

Interestingly, there is a lot of evidence that feedback does not have to come from experts to be useful.

This is why, for example, so many rock and pop musicians manage to teach themselves how to play simply by being in bands with other musicians who are at the same level as them. Band members give each other helpful and encouraging feedback, because that makes the entire group sound better, and in this way they simply work out together how to make music that sounds good to them and to their fans.

However, such self-taught musicians often don't have a clear understanding of theoretical terms and concepts. A knowledgeable musician can more easily provide useful help in this area, perhaps even to the point of being able to explain to you what you are misunderstanding and why and how that is aecting what you are doing. But when such feedback is unavailable, keep in mind that anyone who understands the principles of constructive feedback⁸ and is willing to listen carefully can provide clues that will help you better understand what you are doing.

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Chapter 2

Music Theory for DAW: Course Introduction

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This is an open, experimental prototype learning by doing (Chapter 1) course. It is intended for people who do not have much formal music education but do have some experience creating music using any digital audio work station (DAW) that has a piano roll editor (for example, FL Studio, ProTools, or GarageBand).

important: Note that some audio editors, such as Audacity, do not have a piano roll editor, which makes them incompatible with this course. I cannot recommend a specic commercial DAW, because the ideal software for you will depend very much on your personal preferences and goals as a musician, composer, and software user. Most commercial DAWs will have a free trial option, to help you decide. If you want to take this course without spending money on a DAW, (at the time of publication) LMMS oers a free, open-source DAW with a piano roll editor.

Knowing a little theory can open up your options as a music composer, arranger, and producer. Many people who love to work with DAWs cannot read music. If this describes you, you may have encountered an extra challenge when you want to learn useful music theory concepts. It is dicult to discuss the concepts without being able to point to specic examples in music, but music theory concepts are typically presented using notated music. Spotting the concepts in a picture of the sound, such as a spectrogram or waveform, can be just as dicult for the beginner as listening for the concept as it goes by in the music. This course explains some basic music theory using the piano roll view to explain and illustrate the concepts. You do not need to be able to read music to learn the theory concepts that can help you exercise more knowledgeable creative control over your digital music projects.

If you would like general information about learning-by-doing courses, including practical advice for getting the most out of them, please see Learning by Doing: An Introduction (Chapter 1). Please note that these are short, experimental courses. Feedback is most welcome, and I will develop and expand the courses based on reader interest and feedback. You will nd below:

• What kind of music theory is featured in this course? (p. 7)

• What will knowing this theory help you do? (p. 7)

• What do you need to take this course? (Section 2.2: What do you need to take this course?)

2.1 Music Styles and Genres in Common Practice

The most widely useful music theory was originally developed to help musicians understand the complex classical music that rst developed in western Europe. However, the theory can also be used to discuss

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8 CHAPTER 2. MUSIC THEORY FOR DAW: COURSE INTRODUCTION and understand any other style and genre of music that is organized using the same basic principals. This includes many modern pop, rock, and jazz styles from around the world, as well as many of the folk, country, and traditional music styles of some countries. The basic elements of this traditions can be called either Western or common practice. If the type of music that you would like to create features a melody against a background of changing chords and a steady underlying beat, then it is likely that you will nd common practice music theory concepts useful.

Harmony based on changing chords, often called functional harmony, is one of the most fundamental aspects of common practice music, and also one of the most complex and dicult to learn without help. So this course focuses on introducing the most basic and useful harmony concepts, in a way that lets you experiment with them and begin to understand how to use them on your own. You will nd the concepts most useful if you are interested in creating music that features melodies against a background of changing chords. If you would like some examples of the types of music that feature functional harmony, search for music labeled as:

• rock

• jazz

• reggae

• pop

• country and western

• Baroque era

• Classical era

• Romantic era

• Celtic

• Folk tradition of a Western European country, or of Western European settlers in Australia or the Americas

If you would like some examples of the types of music that do not feature functional harmony and for which this course will NOT be useful, try searching for music labeled:

• Classical music of an Asian, middle Eastern, or African country

• Folk tradition of an Asian or African country, or of an indigenous American or Australian people

• Medieval European chant

• modern Western classical genres such as twelve-tone and musique concrete

If you are more interested in creating music that is not in a common-practice genre, you may nd the Exploring Music Theories² course to be much more useful than this course.

There are also many contemporary popular styles that are fusions of common-practice and other traditions. Specic pieces in these styles borrow elements from each tradition, so they may or may not feature functional harmony. For example, jazz was originally a fusion of African and European traditions, and chord changes are central to most jazz genres. However, there are more modern fusions of European and African traditions in which rhythm is more central than harmony. Some modern Indian pop uses functional harmony, while some is more rmly rooted in the local raga-over-drone tradition. Similarly, chord changes can be more or less important in rap genres, depending on what sounds the loops feature and how they are used. If you are interested in these types of music, it may be up to you to research the styles you enjoy the most and decide how important it is to you to learn about harmony and chord changes.

2.2 What do you need to take this course?

What you do NOT need:

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• You do not need any prior knowledge of music theory.

• You do not need to be able to play or record real-world instruments; working entirely with MIDI, virtual or software instruments will be easiest.

• You will not need to use pre-recorded or downloaded loops, although you will have the opportunity to use them if you like.

• You will not need to create or download drum tracks, although again, you will be able to use them if you like.

• You will not need an instructor. Although the course can be used in formal teaching situations such as a course or private lessons, it is designed to be doable as a personal exploration of the concepts. If you nd it dicult to work alone, and an instructor is not available, you might want to consider doing it with friends who also enjoy making music with DAWs.

What you DO need:

• You will need access to a digital audio workstation (DAW) that lets you manipulate specic notes using a piano roll view, because piano roll will be used instead of notated music to illustrate the concepts. Most commercial DAWs (for example, FL Studio, ProTools, or GarageBand) include a piano roll view. Which is best depends a lot on your personal preferences. Many are priced very reasonably and have a free trial version that you can use to nd one that has the features that you want. If you are not prepared to spend any money at this time, be aware that Audacity, the most popular open-source sound editor, is not really a full DAW, and does not currently oer a piano roll option. (At the time of publication,) LMMS is a free, open-source DAW.

• This is not a how-to-use-your DAW tutorial; how to directions are simply too dierent for the various DAWs that are available. It is assumed that you have already gured out how to (1) use an available DAW to create a track that includes notes from a virtual instrument; (2) edit the track (for example, move notes around) using the piano roll editor; and (3) save your work. If you have trouble doing Activity 1 in Lesson 1 (Activity 1: Create a Melody Track, p. 11), look up tutorials on how to use your DAW and practice that activity (or any music-making project that appeals to you) until you can do these 3 actions without frustration. At that point, you will be ready for the rest of the course.

• The music for the activities will not be provided; the learning-by-doing assumption is that you would prefer to work on pieces that you choose. This will require you to be a little resourceful, but you also get to choose how to get your resources. Can you compose or improvise tunes that you like, using MIDI or a virtual instrument? Can you use MIDI or a virtual instrument to recreate, by ear, a favorite tune?

Can you nd a source of tunes that you can load into your DAW and edit in piano roll view? Can you decide by ear whether a harmony sounds good with a given tune? Can you nd chord progressions for some of your favorite tunes? You won't need all of these skills, but if they all sound too dicult, you will probably nd this course too frustrating. You may be able to locate a course or instructor that chooses music for you and provides specic materials, directing questions, and right answers to smooth your way. Or with some practice and patience, you may be able to develop a few of the needed skills.

• You will need to do the activities with an attitude of taking time to explore the concepts and learn what they sound like and how to use them in your own creations. If you try to simply read the lessons quickly, you will likely learn very little. Music theory is not a memorize the facts type of knowledge. It is a learn how to type of knowledge. Like learning to play an instrument, it takes time and practice, but the result is that you can do something that you could not do before: purposefully construct melodies and harmonies that are in the musical styles that you like.

• You will need a reasonable amount of time. Each lesson features a concept that is central to common practice theory, and includes several activities designed to help you understand how the concept is used. Most musicians will need to take a break between activities, so plan on needing several sessions to complete each lesson. In addition, each lesson also includes a number of suggested additional activities. These suggested activities are not necessary, but are designed to help deepen and strengthen your understanding of each concept, making it easier to use it as a base to understand further concepts.

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10 CHAPTER 2. MUSIC THEORY FOR DAW: COURSE INTRODUCTION note: The audio les in this course are provided in two dierent formats (mp3 and wav) in order to accommodate a wide variety of hardware and software combinations. If you are still experiencing diculty listening to or downloading the audio examples, please contact the author.

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Chapter 3

Theory for DAW 1: Pitch and Octaves

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note: This lesson is part of Music Theory for Digital Audio Work Station², a learning by doing (Chapter 1) course intended to help digital music creators expand on their capabilities by learning a little harmony theory. It is a short experimental course that will be rened and expanded if there is sucient user interest and feedback.

You will nd in this lesson:

• What is pitch? (p. 12)

• What is a melodic line? (Section 3.1: Melody)

• What is harmony? (Section 3.2: Harmony)

• What is an octave? (p. 14)

As discussed in the course introduction (Chapter 2), it is expected that you are already familiar enough with your digital audio work station (DAW) to create a track using a virtual (software) instrument, alter it using the piano roll editor, and save it. For this course, the piano roll view will serve not only as your editing interface, but also as an alternative to written music, as a way to visualize and work with specic music theory concepts so that you can begin to understand what each concept sounds like and how it is used in the kinds of music that you like.

3.1 Melody

The rst activity involves creating a melody track that you can use in later activities to start experimenting with and listening to music theory concepts. The melody, or melodic line of a piece of music is what you would hum or sing if asked what does that piece (or song or tune) sound like? You can only sing or hum one note at a time; one-note-at-a-time is a dening quality of melody. There may be more than one line of notes happening in the piece; the one that seems to invite you to sing or hum along, or at least pay the most attention, is the melody.

You should always feel free to spend as much time as you need on a learning-by-doing activity, but that is particularly true of this rst activity. You will be using this track as a starting point for other activities in this course, so you want to create something that sounds good to you. If that seems to take a long time, remember that the process involves learning how to use your DAW to create melodies that you like, a skill that you will nd useful! If at any point during the course you get tired of using this track, feel free to create and use a dierent one, or to continue editing this track to make it more to your liking.

Activity 1: Create a Melody Track

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12 CHAPTER 3. THEORY FOR DAW 1: PITCH AND OCTAVES 1. Begin a new project in your DAW.

2. Create a track in which you can input individual notes either using a MIDI instrument, or by entering the notes manually (for example, using the DAW's virtual keyboard). For this course, always choose instrument sounds that are simple enough to let you hear harmonies clearly. For example, avoid distortion eects, reverb, and virtual instruments that have a buzzy or "metal" tone quality. This will help you hear the pitches more clearly and train your ear to hear and choose harmonies that you like.

3. Choose a melody that you would like to work with. It can be one you have composed or improvised, or one that you have borrowed from a favorite piece. (If you use a borrowed melody, please be aware of copyright issues (Note, p. 20).) If borrowed, it does not have to be an exact reproduction. Whether you choose to shorten or simplify or jazz up or just alter the tune, using your own version of it is just 4. Using your chosen virtual instrument sound and the method of note entry that is easiest for you, createne.

a short track that consists only of a short section (around 15-20 notes) of the melody.

5. Listen to your track using good constructive criticism³ practices. Feel free to delete tracks that do not seem worth working on. Start over as many times as needed to get a section of melody that you like and want to work with. If frustration levels start to rise, keep things simple! A simple but strong melody will be much easier to work with than a more complex one that you feel is not developing well.

With more experience, you will be able to create longer, more complex melodies.

6. When you get a melody that you feel is worth working on, listen to it again with a critical ear, to locate any aspects of it still bother you.

7. Using the piano roll view of the track, edit the melody so that it sounds even better to you. Move notes left and right as needed to give the melody a compelling, persuasive rhythm without audible hesitations, hiccups or rhythmic distortions. If a few notes sound wrong, experiment with moving them up or down to see whether you can nd a note that ts the melody better. Add or take away notes if you like. If you have diculties making any of these alterations, refer to a tutorial for your DAW.

3.2 Harmony

Unlike melody, harmony happens when dierent notes are heard during the same period of time, rather than in a one-at-a-time sequence. A good place to begin studying harmony theory, then, is by asking: When are notes - in theory - dierent? In common practice, the answer is not as obvious as you might expect; it is possible for two notes that sound quite dierent to be, in theory, the same note.

important: In order to be considered harmony, the dierent notes do not have to begin and end at precisely the same time. They may begin and end around the same time, or they may only partially overlap. Harmony can be created by holding a note or chord for a long time while many dierent notes happen in the melody, or by playing dierent lines such as the melodic line and the bass line at the same time. It can even be created by playing notes in a pattern that causes the listener's ear to group them together as the chord for this period of time. All of these can be legitimately considered harmony.

In common practice, another dening quality of both melody and harmony is that each note is named as a pitch. Pitch refers to the frequency/wavelength aspects of the notes, which we hear as the "high" or "low"

aspect of the note. Notes with a higher pitch (a higher frequency) sound higher. (If you are not certain what is meant by a "low" or "high" sound, nd an app or online site that plays sounds with specied frequencies and experiment with listening to dierent frequencies.) You can sing or hum a melody, making the pitch higher and lower as needed, and several people together can sing or hum harmony, but nobody can clap a

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13 note: In this course, you will get a chance to learn the names of the pitches you are using, but if you prefer, you can choose to learn to use them based on their sounds and their relationships to each other, rather than on their names.

Activity 2: Explore Pitch

1. Use the piano roll view to look at the melody you created in Activity 1. (For the rest of this course, use piano roll view whenever told to look at a piece you are working on.)

2. You have probably already noticed that the left-right direction of this view shows time; in other words, the melody can be read as a sequence that is played from left to right. Since it is a melody, there will be no same time note that is above or below another note.

3. The up-down direction is pitch. Notes that look higher, sound higher. Notes that are on the same level have the same pitch. Your piano roll editor should include horizontal lines or shading that help you determine quickly whether or not two notes are the same pitch. Look at your melody carefully. Does it have any notes that are on the same horizontal line? (See the example below (Example 3.1).) Find all of the examples in your melody of notes that have the same pitch. If there are none, add some.

You can add more notes on the end of the melody, or jazz it up by adding notes in the middle and changing the rhythms, or simply divide one note into two separate notes that together are as long as the note was before you divided it.

4. If the changes you make do not appeal to you, listen to them but do not save them. If you like the changes, you can save them as your new favorite version of your melody or save them as a separate melody idea to work on later.

5. Play your melody while watching it. Listen carefully to hear what it sounds like when a note looks just a little higher or lower, a lot higher or lower, or on the same level, as the note before.

note: You should feel free to use any appropriate instrument sound for any activity in this course.

The audio examples are all created using a basic piano sound available in LMMS, a free, open DAW. The piano sound should allow you to hear the harmonies in the examples relatively easily.

If you wish to recreate any examples for yourself, in order to experiment with them, it should also allow you to compare and hear whether you have recreated them accurately.

Example 3.1

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14 CHAPTER 3. THEORY FOR DAW 1: PITCH AND OCTAVES Screen Shot of a Melody in a Piano Roll Editor

Figure 3.1: Since the notes happen one at a time (from left to right), no note in a melody is above or below another note. The higher the horizontal line that a note is on, the higher the pitch sounds.

Melodies in your piano roll editor may look slightly dierent; for example, the notes might be a dierent color.

This media object is an audio le. Please view or download it at

<DAW1-Ex1.mp3>

Figure 3.2: Listen to see whether you can hear that notes on the same horizontal line have the same pitch. (Audio examples in the text are provided as mp3 les (Note, p. 10). If you prefer wav les, those are provided below (Figure 3.11).)

In music theory, notes with the same pitch are considered to be the same note. It does not matter whether they are sung or played by dierent people or instruments, or have dierent tone qualities, or are held for longer or shorter amounts of time. They are given the same name, and if they happen at the same time, they do not create harmony.

More surprisingly, there are also notes that are much higher or lower that also have the same name.

When one pitch is exactly twice the frequency of another pitch, it is called one octave higher. To the human ear, notes that are exactly an octave apart sound surprisingly similar; for example; when women sing a melody at the same time as men, but one octave higher, everyone will agree that the men and women are singing the same thing; there is no harmony! We can hear that the pitches are dierent, but in common practice theory we say that they are essentially singing the same notes; we even give the notes the same name, so every octave in other words, every time the frequency of the pitch doubles the same notes repeat, over and over again, throughout the range that humans can hear.

This repetition is a fundamental aspect of common practice (Section 2.1: Music Styles and Genres in Common Practice) music, and a very useful one for composers and arrangers! For example, if the tone

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15 are grouped, two, then three, then two, then three, and so on (see Figure 3.3 (Three Octaves on a Piano Keyboard)) among the white keys. In all there are 12 dierent notes, ve of them black keys and seven of them white, within each octave. (It is the seven white keys, plus one more to get to the same note, that is the reason that the octave has a root that means eight.)

Three Octaves on a Piano Keyboard

Figure 3.3: The further left a note is on a keyboard, the lower its pitch. After 12 dierent notes - 7 white keys and 5 black keys - the cycle of names repeats.

That same pattern is reected on your piano roll editor. Look at the left-hand side of the piano roll view. You should nd there a diagram of a piano keyboard, extending toward the horizontal bars that notes are placed on, to indicate where the note would be found on a keyboard. Any note names (for example, C) indicated on the diagram repeat every 12 notes. Anything that does not repeat will be an indication of which octave you are working in. (See Figure 3.4 (Three Octaves in Piano Roll View).)

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16 CHAPTER 3. THEORY FOR DAW 1: PITCH AND OCTAVES

Three Octaves in Piano Roll View

Figure 3.4: This is a diagram (rather than a screen shot) of the view in a piano roll editor. The background colors correspond to the octaves on the keyboard in the previous gure. The grey horizontal lines correspond to black keys, and the other colors to white keys on a keyboard.

Your piano roll view also probably includes an indication of which octave the notes are in; for example C2 is an octave higher than C1, but for this course it really does not matter which octave you choose to work in. There are several dierent ways of naming octaves, and for purposes of basic music theory, it does not matter which octave a note is in. Octave is more relevant to other aspects of the sound, such as balance, timbre⁴, and voicing (Figure 6.3: Power chords).

Activity 3: Add notes one octave higher or lower

1. Open the melody that you created in Activity 1. Copy it to create a dierent project, a dierent track in this project, or a repeat of the melody in the same track, so that you will still have your original melody as a starting point for other activities.

2. Counting the horizontal lines on the piano roll carefully, locate the one that is exactly 12 places higher or lower than your rst note. Double-check that this line is in the same place in the light-dark pattern, one octave higher than your note.

3. When you are sure you have the right place, add a note of the same length, on this line, precisely above (or below, if you prefer) the rst note in your melody. (Use whatever method is easiest for you to create new notes using the piano roll editor; consult a tutorial if needed.)

4. Now triple-check that you found the right note, by listening to the track. You should hear that the extra note adds a bit of shading, perhaps changing the timbre or resonance of the note, but does not add any harmony or dissonance. (Dissonance is two dierent notes that don't sound harmonious

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17 5. Continue adding notes precisely one octave above (or below) each note in the melody. (See Exam- ple 3.2.) You should gradually see exactly the same melody line the same pattern of higher and lower notes appearing above (or below) the original melody line. Alternatively, if you know how to copy and paste groups of notes in your piano roll view, you can use this method to copy large sections of the melody one octave higher; simply make certain that the pasted sections are lined up precisely above the original melody, 12 line higher.

6. Check your work by listening to the track; again, the timbre or resonance of the melody should sound a bit dierent, but there should be no dissonance or harmony. Save this project to use in Activity 4.

Example 3.2

Melody in Octaves

Figure 3.5: This is the rst phrase of Beethoven's famous "Ode to Joy" melody. It is shown in two octaves, with the higher octave where women might sing it, and the lower octave where men would be more comfortable singing.

<DAW1-Ex2high.mp3>

Figure 3.6: Melody in higher octave.

<DAW1-Ex2low.mp3>

Figure 3.7: Melody in lower octave.

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18 CHAPTER 3. THEORY FOR DAW 1: PITCH AND OCTAVES This media object is an audio le. Please view or download it at

<DAW1-Ex2both.mp3>

Figure 3.8: Both octaves together. Note that the lines are so similar that they do not create any sense of harmony when played together.

In Activity 3, you doubled the melody at the octave. Another term for doubling a melody is parallel motion; a second line moves in parallel with the melody, rising or falling by exactly the same amount with each note. Parallel motion at any distance other than octaves is normally not used in common practice music, but it is common in some other traditions, such as medieval European chant, and you may nd it an interesting way to add a harmony eect when you don't want to use functional harmony.

Activity 4: Parallel Harmonies 1. Open your project from activity 3.

2. Leaving the melody where it is, move all of the notes from the parallel octave to a dierent distance from the melody. You can try any distance you like, but most composers prefer parallel harmonies that are four, ve, or seven lines above or below the melody.

3. Check to make sure that all of the harmony notes are exactly the same distance above or below the melody notes that they double. The two lines should also look parallel, in that the notes always move up or down by the same distance. (See Example 3.3.]

4. Listen to the parallel harmony eect. Try dierent distances to see which ones you like best.

5. If you like the eect, but think just a few of the notes sound wrong, feel free to try moving the wrong notes up or down a line, to see whether you can come up with a nearly parallel harmony line that you like. Unlike strictly-parallel lines, nearly-parallel harmony lines are very common in some common practice styles and genres.

Example 3.3

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19 Parallel Harmony

Figure 3.9: This is the "Ode to Joy" melody again, but in a parallel harmony with a pitch distance of seven lines, rather than the 12-line octave distance.

<DAW1-Ex2fths.mp3>

Figure 3.10: Notice that strictly parallel harmony does NOT sound like common practice harmonies. It may, however, remind you of European medieval music or other traditions that do use parallel harmonies.

In this course, you can always skip Further Explorations if you have no interest in them or do not know how to do them. They are simply extra suggestions if you like the sound of a concept and want to explore it a bit more, before going on to the next lesson. You can start a new project to try these suggestions, or try them with any project that you have been working on in or outside of this course.

Remember to always save back-ups of any version that you like of a project that you like, in case your explorations make it impossible to restore it to that version!

Further Explorations of Octaves

• Try emphasizing or changing the quality of a part by doubling it at the octave, in the same way that you did in Activity 3. Compare the dierence in sound between adding notes an octave higher, as compared to adding notes an octave lower. When do you prefer doubling a line an octave higher, and when do you prefer doubling it an octave lower?

• Try moving a part of the piece up or down by an octave. In other words, rather than adding a parallel higher or lower part, move all notes in the part up or down by an octave. The part could be any group of notes, for example a melodic line, a bass line, or an idea that gets repeated in the accompaniment;

or it could simply be all of the notes in one section of the piece.

• If you found a parallel harmony that you liked in Activity 4, you can add to that project by doubling either the original melody or the parallel line, or both, one octave higher or lower.

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• If you like any of these octave eects, try lengthening some of your ongoing projects by repeating sections, using octave dierences or doublings to make the repetitions fresh and interesting.

• If there is anything about the sounds of octaves or parallel harmonies that inspires you to do some composing or arranging on your own, or to make changes to your own music, take time to pursue your own creative projects before going on. Working on your own "real music" will help you get accustomed to this central concept, and any diculties or questions you encounter while working on your own music may help prepare you for the concepts in upcoming lessons.

note: This is not intended as legal advice, but be aware that copyright law, in the US and other countries, makes a distinction between educational and publishing purposes. For example, you can borrow short sections of melody for the purposes of learning, in private, about the theory that is used to construct that melody; but it is illegal to borrow recognizable sections of a copyrighted melody for any piece that you plan to publish. In order to avoid copyright hassles, if you plan to share your work with others, create your own melody or borrow one that is in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license⁵.

<DAW1-Ex1.wav>

Figure 3.11: Listen to see whether you can hear that notes on the same horizontal line have the same pitch.

<DAW1-Ex2high.wav>

Figure 3.12: Melody in higher octave.

<DAW1-Ex2Low.wav>

Figure 3.13: Melody in lower octave.

5"Choosing a Publication License: Four Activities for the Creative Classroom" <http://cnx.org/content/m44907/latest/>

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21

<DAW1-Ex2both.wav>

Figure 3.14: Both octaves together. Note that the lines are so similar that they do not create any sense of harmony when played together.

<DAW1-Ex2fths.wav>

Figure 3.15: Notice that strictly parallel harmony does NOT sound like common practice harmonies. It may, however, remind you of European medieval music or other traditions that do use parallel harmonies.

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Chapter 4

Theory for DAW 2: Drone Accompaniments

¹

This lesson includes

• As a term in music, what does "drone" mean? (p. 23)

• What is harmonious or consonant? (p. 23)

• What is discordant or dissonant? (p. 23)

• What parts are the accompaniment? (p. 26)

• What is a bar, or measure, of music? (p. 26)

The simplest way to add harmony to a melody is by adding a drone. A drone is one or two notes played for a long time. When a melody is played at the same time as the drone, this creates a simple harmony eect. A drone can sound continuously, as a single very long note, or simply be repeated constantly, with or without a regular rhythm. It can be held for the entire piece, or only for a long section of it. Drones can be loud or quiet, but, in order not to overpower the melody, the drone is typically in a lower octave, and often played by a dierent instrument, so that it has a tone quality or timbre³ that is dierent from the melody.

(To nd some examples that appeal to you, try searching for "drone" on your favorite music sites or "music drone" at general sites such as YouTube.)

In some music traditions, drone notes are so common that there are instruments that specialize in them.

(For examples, listen to music that uses Scottish bagpipes or Indian tambura (or tanpoora.) Common practice (Section 2.1: Music Styles and Genres in Common Practice) music typically features harmony that changes, but drones are fairly common in some styles, such as blues and traditional folk, and are used occasionally in other styles as an eect.

Creating a harmony requires choosing notes that complement the melody, a skill that needs plenty of practice. When notes that sound at the same time do not complement each other, they can be described as dissonant or discordant. When they do complement each other, they can be described as consonant or harmonious. What is heard as consonant diers from one music tradition to another. This course introduces the basic harmonies of common practice, but as a composer and arranger of music, you should feel free to explore anything that sounds interesting and good to you. Stepping outside of the basics is a

3"Timbre: The Color of Music" <http://cnx.org/content/m11059/latest/>

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24 CHAPTER 4. THEORY FOR DAW 2: DRONE ACCOMPANIMENTS good way to develop your own signature sound. If you are more interested in harmonious sounds that are not typical of common practice, you may prefer the Exploring Music Theories⁴ course.

Even if you don't think you will use drone notes much, exploring drones is a good way to start practicing choosing harmony notes, because the lack of change helps you train your ear to hear how the harmony interacts with the melody. As always with learning by doing (Chapter 1) exercises, if you nd an activity particularly challenging, rather than becoming frustrated, try to nd a more enjoyable way to engage with the challenge. You may want to try activities more than once with various melodies that you particularly like, until you nd one that "works" for you, or you may want to turn the activity into a full-scale composition project, giving you a chance to really get used to working with the concept, before going on to the next challenge.

Activity 1: Improvise and Compose a Melody over a Drone 1. Start a new project in your DAW, and create a track for the drone.

2. Choose a virtual instrument sound that can make long, sustained notes. (For example, you cannot use steel drums to create a drone sound, because the sound of a steel drum dies away too quickly.) As for your melody tracks, choose a sound with a simple tone quality that makes it easy to hear the pitch clearly; eects, reverb, or a buzzy or "metal" tone quality make it harder to judge whether notes sound good together. Once you have gured out which harmonies you like, you can use whatever instrument sounds and eects you like!

3. Create a single long note that is in the lower half of your instrument's range of pitches, but not near the very bottom of the range. Extend the note so that it lasts for several seconds.

4. Add a melody track. You may want to choose a dierent instrument sound, to make it easy to distinguish from the drone.

5. While listening to the drone, improvise a short melody in this track. If you are not used to improvising, start the melody on the note that is exactly one or two octaves higher than the drone note and play something with a rhythm you like, using only a few dierent notes. Make the melody long enough by repeating notes and returning to notes that you used earlier. Returning to the starting note is an easy way to create a strong ending.

6. If you are completely dissatised with the improvisation, feel free to delete it and try again. Notice which notes seem dissonant to you, and try to avoid those notes in your later improvisations.

7. Once you get a melody that you feel is worth working with, use the editor to delete or move individual notes that you do not like. You do not have to get rid of all dissonant notes! Short moments of dissonance add avor and interest, so a good way to decrease dissonance is to simply make the notes that are harmonious longer and the dissonant notes shorter.

8. Use the editor to further clean up and strengthen the rhythm. Remember, you can include gaps in the melody (rests) as well as moving, lengthening and shortening notes.

9. Save this project to use in the activities below.

Example 4.1

A drone is a long or constantly-repeated note (or notes). When played with a melody, it functions as a very simple harmony. You may want to add the drone in the same track as the melody at rst, making it easy to see exactly how far the drone note is from the melody notes. If you later decide that you would like to hear the drone in a dierent instrument than the melody, simply add an instrument track, add notes that are the same as the drone notes in your melody track, and then delete the drone notes from the melody track.

4Exploring Music Theories <http://cnx.org/content/col12058/latest/>

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25 Melody over a Single Long Drone Note

Figure 4.1: The drone note chosen is one octave below the nal note in the melody, which also happens to be the longest note and a note that is played often, but other drones would also have worked with this melody.

<DAW2-Ex1.mp3>

Figure 4.2: (Audio examples in the text are provided as mp3 les (Note, p. 10). If you prefer wav les, those are provided below (Figure 4.5).)

Activity 2: Add a Drone to your Lesson 1 Melody

1. Open the melody that you created in Activity 1 of Lesson 1 (Activity 1: Create a Melody Track, p.

11) and save it as a dierent project, so that you won't lose the version of the melody that you like.

2. In this new project, add a track for a drone note, using any appropriate instrument sound. (If you would nd it much easier to add drone notes to the same track, you can do that for now, but be aware that when you do this, you cannot choose dierent volumes, instruments, or eects for the melody and harmony. Switch to using dierent tracks as soon as it is comfortable to do so.)

3. Choose a note from your melody that is your rst guess for a good drone note. This could be the rst note of the melody, the last note, or a note that is held for a long time or repeated often. (See Example 4.1)

4. Add a drone note that lasts as long as the entire melody, one or two octaves lower than your chosen note.

5. Listen to the result. Then try moving the drone to various other positions, one or two octaves below any note in the melody, to see whether you can nd one that you like better. If none of these sound good to you, you can also try moving the drone to notes that are not part of the melody, but these are less likely to be good drones.

6. Try to choose a best t drone for your melody. If all possible drone notes seem to clash badly with the melody, try moving the drone to a dierent octave and playing it more quietly than the melody,

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26 CHAPTER 4. THEORY FOR DAW 2: DRONE ACCOMPANIMENTS using a mellower instrument sound. A drone that seems to t most of the melody but not all of it is 7. Save this project with the best t drone, to use in the activities below.ne.

In common practice, the accompaniment is any part of the music that is not the melody. Accompaniment includes harmony notes, such as drones, as well as parts that do not have denite pitch, such as bass drum beats and cymbal crashes. Any of these parts can be used to help dene the basic beat of the music.

The melody also strengthens the basic beat, by beginning many of the melody notes on a beat. Your DAW helps you do this by snapping the beginnings of notes to the vertical lines; the thicker vertical lines in the piano-roll view are the beginnings of beats. However, melodies often are much more rhythmically complex than a basic beat; often, some of the notes begin in between beats (for example, on the thinner vertical lines). It is typically the job of the accompaniment to create a strong, steady, repetitive beat. Drum tracks are often used to do this; a short loop (usually two, three, four, six, or eight beats long) of drum rhythm is repeated continuously through long sections of the music. For the purposes of this course, this repeated unit of rhythm can be considered to be one bar (also called a measure) of music.

note: The repeated rhythm in the accompaniment does not have to be exactly one bar or measure long, so this is not an ocial denition, but this is so commonly the case that it is a useful working assumption for most common practice pieces. The actual denition is based on traditional methods of writing music, which we are not using in this course.

Notes in the harmony may have the same rhythm as the melody, or have their own independent, complex rhythms, but they are often used to strengthen the beat. One way that they can do this is to have a rhythm that repeats in every bar, similar to drum parts but with a pitch (See Figure 4.3 (Melody over a Single Rhythmic Drone Note)) To begin working with this idea, try turning your drone note into a rhythmic accompaniment in the next activity.

Example 4.2

Melody over a Single Rhythmic Drone Note

Figure 4.3: Since a rhythmic drone just repeats the same pitch, putting some spaces (rests) in between the individual notes helps make the rhythm more audible.

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27 This media object is an audio le. Please view or download it at

<DAW2-Ex2.mp3>

Figure 4.4

Activity 3: Add a Beat to your Drone

1. Open your project from Activity 2 to continue editing the track that contains the drone.

2. Break up the continuous drone note into a row of shorter notes that add a steady, repetitive beat to the sound. You can make the shorter notes all the same length, or create a more interesting rhythm, as long as it is repetitive. (See Figure 4.3 (Melody over a Single Rhythmic Drone Note)]

3. Use the beginnings of the melody notes and the vertical lines on the editor to help align the beginnings of the drone notes into a pattern that strengthens and complements the melody. Feel free to adjust the placement of the melody notes if you like.

4. If the rhythm is not very noticeable, shorten the notes so that there is more space in between them.

5. If you like, once you have a rhythmic beat in the drone that complements the melody, you can add to it by including drum tracks that strengthen or complement the beat in the drone.

If you would like to continue exploring drones before going on, try any of the following with any project you like.

• Change the instrument sound for both the drone and the melody, trying a variety of combinations.

• Try using drones closer to and further from the melody (i.e. in medium-low and very-low ranges).

• Try using a drone doubled at the octave, i.e. two drone notes one octave apart.

• Try a high drone with a low melody.

• Do some research to determine whether any of your favorite genres or styles feature drones. If they do, try to discover specic pieces that you like that feature a drone. Listen to them carefully to hear how drones are used in this genre/style. Can you imitate the instrument sound that is used? Does it create a steady, repeated rhythm or not? Does it consist of a single pitch, or octaves, or two dierent notes?

• If there is anything about the sounds of drones that inspires you to do some composing or arranging on your own, take time to pursue your own creative projects before going on. Working on your own

"real music" will help you get accustomed to adding harmony notes to melodies, and any diculties or questions you encounter along the way may help prepare you for the concepts in upcoming lessons.

<DAW2-Ex1.wav>

Figure 4.5

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28 CHAPTER 4. THEORY FOR DAW 2: DRONE ACCOMPANIMENTS

<DAW2-Ex2.wav>

Figure 4.6

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Chapter 5

Theory for DAW 3: Harmonic Tempo

¹

This lesson includes:

• What is the harmonic tempo or harmonic rhythm (p. 30) of a piece of music?

• Should you compose the harmony to t the melody (p. 32) or vice-versa?

As you worked on the activities in Lesson 2 (Chapter 4), you may have noticed that your best t drone worked better for some parts of your melody than others. In common practice, you can change the notes in the harmony at any time. For example, you can change the harmony with every single melody note, as you did with the parallel harmonies in Activity 4 of Lesson 1 (Activity 4: Parallel Harmonies, p. 18). Or you can change the harmony while holding the same melody note.

However, a steady beat is one of the most typical features of most common practice styles, and harmony is typically structured in a way that strengthens and emphasizes the beat. One way to do this is by organizing the accompaniment (p. 26) into repeated rhythmic patterns, as you did in Lesson 2.

Another powerful way that harmony can strengthen the rhythm of a piece is by changing the harmony at the beginnings of bars (p. 26). Changing the harmony on a beat emphasizes that beat, so changing harmony at the beginnings of bars makes it easier for listeners to hear/feel the bars. (See Figure 5.1).

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Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

By:

Catherine Schmidt-Jones

Music Theory for Digital Audio Workstation

By:

Catherine Schmidt-Jones

Online:

< http://cnx.org/content/col12061/1.3/ >

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Learning by Doing: An Introduction

1.1 Learning-by-Doing: Practical Tips for getting the most out of these courses

1.2 The Philosophy behind Learning-by-Doing

1.2.1 1. Using theory to do things in the real world

1.2.2 2. Starting with specic understanding

1.2.3 3. Doing things that you really want to or need to do

1.2.4 4. Getting feedback on real-world projects

Chapter 2

Music Theory for DAW: Course Introduction

2.1 Music Styles and Genres in Common Practice

2.2 What do you need to take this course?

Chapter 3

Theory for DAW 1: Pitch and Octaves

3.1 Melody

3.2 Harmony

Chapter 4

Theory for DAW 2: Drone Accompaniments

Chapter 5

Theory for DAW 3: Harmonic Tempo