[Diana de Cabarrus]

Tuesday 17th October

Melody – understanding note function (i.e. that every note has a different flavour relative to the chord that is being played. Some are consonant, some a little dissonant, some very dissonant. Playing with consonance and dissonance is one of the major ways we are able to create and release tension.

Play a root note, power chord or octave chord and hum/sing each scale degree from 1 up-do it so you can really experience how that note sounds against the chord.

Compose as many as possible but at least three short motifs where you are featuring different notes in the scale against a chord. You can start this against one chord first and then move to a chord pair of your choosing.

Remember that when the chord changes, the note function changes too – which is to say, if I play a G chord and sing the G note, that note is functioning as note 1. If I stay on the G but change to a C chord, now the note is functioning as note 5

[Diana de Cabarrus]

Tuesday 17th October

Melody – understanding note function (i.e. that every note has a different flavour relative to the chord that is being played. Some are consonant, some a little dissonant, some very dissonant. Playing with consonance and dissonance is one of the major ways we are able to create and release tension.

Play a root note, power chord or octave chord and hum/sing each scale degree from 1 up-do it so you can really experience how that note sounds against the chord.

Compose as many as possible but at least three short motifs where you are featuring different notes in the scale against a chord. You can start this against one chord first and then move to a chord pair of your choosing.

Remember that when the chord changes, the note function changes too – which is to say, if I play a G chord and sing the G note, that note is functioning as note 1. If I stay on the G but change to a C chord, now the note is functioning as note 5

[Diana de Cabarrus]

Hi Liou
this has some nice atmosphere. When it comes to the second chord, you are correct that you want the note to be in relation to that chord (this is how your ear will interpret it anyway). You don’t need to use a C minor scale necessarily. C minor will differ from G major in having the notes of Eb and Bb – Bb sounds tense against G major as it is the minor third of G. You probably want to avoid that – in the example above, your ‘featured’ notes sound atmospheric, but that minor third against the G major chord sounds a bit less deliberate and it might be harder to make that level of tension work.
Keeping it simple is excellent at this stage. We really want to hear what the shape of the melody is. Imagine if someone was singing this and you’ll be along the right lines.

[Diana de Cabarrus]

Tuesday 10th October

Beginning to explore rhythm!

The 5/4 track is here

and the 7/8 track is here

Ring of fire – mixed 4/4 3/4. Many Johnny Cash songs use very simple chord progressions, but when you count them out, they drop or add beats in weird places and that is part of what stops them feeling too simple.

Try listening through and counting along. It won’t take you long but it’ll start to dial in that new time signature and feel. See if you can notice how the pieces overall feel – and consider how the rhythm affects that.

Rhythm is a very good subtle way to work with tension and release. Moving from 7/8 to 4/4, as on the track of mine I played and as happens at the end of the first link above, tends to create a feeling of releasing tension.

It will feel odd to start with and you may struggle to sing over the top. Slow it right down until you can comfortably count the rhythm you have chosen to experiment with.

The other angle you can explore is remaining in 4/4 but accenting 8th or 16th notes in groups of three or five. You will need to work this out on paper – and using basic sequencers (you can get free drum sequencer apps for smartphone) is a way to hear the effect of this without needing to be able to play it.

Challenging yourselves to come up with a melody or riff in 7/8 or 15/16 is a very good way to become more creative. The track of mine I played began as an assignment at music college and ended up being a song that was played on BBC 6 music when it came out – so it’s worth persisting.

With these topics, don’t expect to have mastered them in one week. We could spend weeks getting right into depth with all kinds of rhythmic development – but even starting to broaden your thinking so that you have more awareness of it will raise the quality of your creative decision making.

[Diana de Cabarrus]

Do you also have a note of what these chords are?

[Diana de Cabarrus]

HI Matt,

good work entering this. Do you use dropbox? A short recording is always good too.
You’re correct that part 1 above and part 2 could both be in C. Don’t worry if the first attempt at transitioning doesn’t sound great – doing this activity multiple times is what will generate sufficient material for you to pull out progressions and transitions you really like.

[Diana de Cabarrus]

Hi Liou. Great work. I like how this transitions half way through to higher voicings and how you then change chords but retain the same melody note on top.

Plenty of ways to approach writing melodies – but this is already showing development.

[Diana de Cabarrus]

6th October:

Matt, Alan – Changing keys smoothly

– Review the topic.
Try out at least three more navigations from one key to a new key using each of the methods supplied (common chords, using the V chord). Even if you don’t like the result of the first one you try, you’ll find that different contexts create different results.

Take a F C F G progression and a C Am Dm F as another progression from which to start.

Gowyn
– Experiment with creating Dorian lines using different methods – target the natural 6 in a regular scale pattern; and then try playing notes from Bm pentatonic but starting on an A note. This will foreground the 6 and 2 which give us a strong dorian flavour. You can also experiment with Em pentatonic which foregrounds the 2 and b7. Try creating a line that initially features the ‘6’ in an important position in the phrase – like at the end – and then repeat that phrase but replace the 6 with b7. Then return to emphasising the 6. You can do this with any other note.

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