# Making  electronic and/or sample-based music... Where to start?



## Pipistrele (Jul 10, 2017)

Welp, after several years of playing various music instruments, I finally decided to properly study producing and making music. I have some record of messing around in various trackers and DAWs, mainly FL Studio and SunVox, and through experimentation and some youtube tutorials, I've achieved some interesting results, but as with any craft, it isn't really enough to get legitimately good at making music instead of just getting cool tracks on occasion by pure fluke, so I'm bothered with the question: where to properly start? With learning how to draw or play guitar, for example, it's relatively simple - there are decades and centuries of books, video courses and established fundamentals to learn from, so it's a matter of buying a good book and sticking to it, or signing up to postgraduate art/music school. With producing modern music, it's a bit less definite than that. Should I learn music theory first, and where could I learn it? Should I dig more into tehnical aspects, like mastering and programming, and where could I properly learn _that_? Is it something that has strict fundamentals and rules, or something that could be achieved mainly through experimentation? I really want to start, but I'm a bit confused, so it would be cool to hear an advice from someone who has some personal experience with this.


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## Pipistrele (Jul 13, 2017)

Oi?


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## TheBoxDweller (Jul 13, 2017)

I personally learned music theory to start with. It is so, so helpful to understand, even for electronic artists. You won't always need to make classically "perfect" harmonies and progressions, but knowing the tools you're working with will allow you to "control" your sound. As you mentioned, sure, you could make something by total accident, but in order to be consistent, you want to be able to look at these accidents and *understand* what's going on. I still experiment, heck, everyone should. But there are times that I just throw in a random note or riff that works so well, and knowing theory helps me look at it and be like, "ah-ha. I see. The instability of harmonising with the sixth on the second beat is resolved on the third beat with a fifth harmony. I'll keep that in mind." But it's not enough to just know theory. I highly recommend playing around with anything you learn. It's SO HELPFUL to know how something SOUNDS. If you know how a minor chord sounds, for instance, you can determine whether or not you want to use it for the next measure in your piece. A keyboard is preferable (you don't need mad skillz; I'm not a great pianist. Just enough to hammer out some chords) but you could also use FL Studio or something.

In terms of what kind of theory to learn, I find that there are a few powerful things to know:
- Chords. Know what makes a major, minor, augmented, and diminished. Understand how inversions can change the sound of a chord, and how you can also add or subtract notes to also change it. (For instance, a chord consisting of a root and a fifth is the same in both major and minor, since it's the third that defines whether the chord is major or minor. This is known as a "power chord" and doesn't have as much "flavour" as a chord that also has the third. This can be very useful in some places.) Finally, know the "function" of chords, like how the root chord, or tonic, is most stable, and subdominant and dominant chords, like the fourth and fifth chord, push the melody along a bit but lose their power if you use them too much.
- Scales. Going along with chords, knowing the chords that are "native" to a scale is important. A major scale, for instance, consists of the degrees I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - viio, where capitals are major, lower case are minor, and the o after the seventh is a diminished chord. Any other chords will require accidentals, which temporarily change the key of the piece, and therefore the sound.
- Frequency ranges. This is especially important in electronic music. If you have a synth that needs extra punch because it gets "lost" in the noise, you can help it cut through the mix by adding a second or even a third voice that's an octave higher or lower. Some synths, like triangle- or sine-based ones, have a very pure tone, which makes them ideal for basslines. Others, like those based on square or saw waves, have more "grit" and overtones, which helps them cut through a mix and stand out.

This is my personal theory. Some musicians like to muck around until they get a cool sound. I like to know what I'm doing before I put notes to a page. My method is not the only one. If theory isn't your thing, don't stress. It just works well for me. Theory is helpful, but it isn't law. At the end of the day, I always learn so much by listening to songs and asking myself, "what are they doing? What does each instrument do for the song? How do they use periods of high and low volume and pitch to create a certain feeling?" Observation, like with visual art, is key. I cannot emphasise how important it is to constantly look out for new sounds and experiment with them. The more often you write music, even just 16- or 32-bar doodles, the more you learn to use your tools, and the more you understand how different sounds work together.

Side note: www.hooktheory.com: Tabs that show the theory behind songs - Theorytab
This site is amazing to learn about chords. I recommend taking a look at it. ^^

Best of luck to you! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.


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## Pipistrele (Jul 18, 2017)

TheBoxDweller said:


> tip


Thank you for giving an insightful and deep advice, I honestly didn't expect answer like this c: I guess I'll start with music theory then - as a musician, I know many chords and scales both on guitar and musical keyboard, it's just that for me it was more like a "Written letter thingie on a sheet/tabulature you need to play to make it sound good", rather than something to combine into melody that makes sense, so it's nice to see the flaw in my understanding of music to start with. As an additional question, are there books or video courses on music theory you can personally recommend?


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## TheBoxDweller (Jul 18, 2017)

Pipistrele said:


> Thank you for giving an insightful and deep advice, I honestly didn't expect answer like this c: I guess I'll start with music theory then - as a musician, I know many chords and scales both on guitar and musical keyboard, it's just that for me it was more like a "Written letter thingie on a sheet/tabulature you need to play to make it sound good", rather than something to combine into melody that makes sense, so it's nice to see the flaw in my understanding of music to start with. As an additional question, are there books or video courses on music theory you can personally recommend?


I personally didn't use books or courses. I mainly used the internet. I consider myself more of a "hands-on" learner, so I would research something simple, like how to build a chord progression off a major scale. I learned how to make it work by following "the book," which is using cliche stuff like I-IV-vi-V progressions. Once I got it to sound good, I said to myself, "Well, hey. I don't see anyone using the ii and iii chords, what would happen if I used those?" Then I played around with it. I didn't make great-sounding pieces that way, but I learned from it. I understood what kinds of noises I could make by following that particular method. Then I went completely bonkers, "Well, what about chords like III and VIIb (Flat seventh major)?" and I learned how to use those. So what I'm saying here is that the hands-on method worked best for me, and I would recommend it any day, because you get to see, first-hand, why certain things work or don't work. I see hardly anyone talk about the III chord in major scales, but I love the sound so much it's become a mainstay in a lot of my music. I wouldn't have learned that by just following books.

Wow. I got onto a tangent there. xD
Anyways, I would say that any course that gives you the basics is enough. Don't try to find "Le Methode Classicale" and try to memorise every single historical cadence. That comes later, once you get bored of the basics. I can't stress how important it is to try everything you learn. Take it step at a time, from the bottom up. Spend a lot of time on the "simple stuff," because everything else only builds on top of that stuff. I felt the same way with school. I didn't really care too much about how good or bad a teacher was, because I got the most mileage out of self-study. So I'm probably not the best to ask if you prefer more of a course-based path of study. Just to clarify: There is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I don't talk about course-based study because it just doesn't work for me. For me, the great thing about art in general is just how different everyone is. It's not like math where there's only one right way. In visual art, you have certain things that are, for the most part, undebatable: perspective, composition, appealing colour palettes, and so on. But unlike math, art takes it a step further and says, "well, how can we take perspective, and change it up a little to make something new and unique?" Same goes for music. Almost anyone can teach you the basics. Here, have the top result in Google for chord basics. http://www.guitarhabits.com/building-chords-and-progressions-of-the-major-scale/ It's a perfectly legit source, and doesn't take very long to read. The important part is what you do with it.

Let me stop tangenting, since you're probably sick of me repeating myself. Answer to your question: No, none in particular. But Google is pretty good at that. And of course, TheoryTab was SOOO helpful for me. : 3


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## Mandragoras (Jul 20, 2017)

TheBoxDweller said:


> In terms of what kind of theory to learn, I find that there are a few powerful things to know:
> - Chords. Know what makes a major, minor, augmented, and diminished. Understand how inversions can change the sound of a chord, and how you can also add or subtract notes to also change it. (For instance, a chord consisting of a root and a fifth is the same in both major and minor, since it's the third that defines whether the chord is major or minor. This is known as a "power chord" and doesn't have as much "flavour" as a chord that also has the third. This can be very useful in some places.) Finally, know the "function" of chords, like how the root chord, or tonic, is most stable, and subdominant and dominant chords, like the fourth and fifth chord, push the melody along a bit but lose their power if you use them too much.
> - Scales. Going along with chords, knowing the chords that are "native" to a scale is important. A major scale, for instance, consists of the degrees I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - viio, where capitals are major, lower case are minor, and the o after the seventh is a diminished chord. Any other chords will require accidentals, which temporarily change the key of the piece, and therefore the sound.
> - Frequency ranges. This is especially important in electronic music. If you have a synth that needs extra punch because it gets "lost" in the noise, you can help it cut through the mix by adding a second or even a third voice that's an octave higher or lower. Some synths, like triangle- or sine-based ones, have a very pure tone, which makes them ideal for basslines. Others, like those based on square or saw waves, have more "grit" and overtones, which helps them cut through a mix and stand out.





TheBoxDweller said:


> I personally didn't use books or courses. I mainly used the internet. I consider myself more of a "hands-on" learner, so I would research something simple, like how to build a chord progression off a major scale. I learned how to make it work by following "the book," which is using cliche stuff like I-IV-vi-V progressions. Once I got it to sound good, I said to myself, "Well, hey. I don't see anyone using the ii and iii chords, what would happen if I used those?" Then I played around with it. I didn't make great-sounding pieces that way, but I learned from it. I understood what kinds of noises I could make by following that particular method. Then I went completely bonkers, "Well, what about chords like III and VIIb (Flat seventh major)?" and I learned how to use those. So what I'm saying here is that the hands-on method worked best for me, and I would recommend it any day, because you get to see, first-hand, why certain things work or don't work. I see hardly anyone talk about the III chord in major scales, but I love the sound so much it's become a mainstay in a lot of my music. I wouldn't have learned that by just following books.


This is some really, really good stuff here. I had to learn a lot of this without any real guidance myself, and having someone to sketch this stuff out for you in an accessible fashion is really helpful. I do want to add a few things, though, hopefully in such a way that I can add to this conversation rather than detract from it.

So, here goes nothing:
- In addition to major and minor keys, there are modes, which are scales which either start on a different degree of a major or minor scale or alter those degrees in some fashion. The characteristic chord progressions which define a mode tend to emphasise the chords and chord orders which differentiate that mode from your typical major or minor. For instance, straight minor (also called Aeolian mode) might be defined by a [i - iv - v - iv] kind of progression, whereas Dorian mode, which is like minor with a major sixth, is defined by that major sixth and thus is best represented by a progression which contains it like, say, [i - ii - v - ii]. Those are boring examples, but knowing where to start is important here.
- Operating within a particular key or mode and bringing in "wrong" notes for colour—like, say, a major chord on the third degree in a major-key progression—is referred to as chromaticism. It's common practice when creating drama or tension in music, and a very basic element of styles like the blues. Not having a particular key centre at all is atonality (as having a key is tonality), and is fairly rare in popular music but quite common in, say, creepy scenes in film scores, and certain varieties of electronic music and metal have embraced atonality quite enthusiastically. The line between the two can be blurry, though: Unless you consciously avoid conventional harmonies like the plague, and quite often even then, atonal music will generally drift towards what the composer Arnold Schoenberg called a "pitch centre," which is to say a note that just kind of works anywhere.
- Relatedly, polytonality is when you play in more than one key at the same time, usually by locking down a chord progression in one key and playing the melody which harmonises with it in another. Mostly, you here this in classical music, certain kinds of folk music, and (again) blues music, as one of the key chromatic embellishments of the blues is wavering between a major and minor third in the same key. It's an extremely striking device when you do it correctly, but if not done with care can sound... well, like you don't know what key your song is in, or like you're just tone-deaf.
- Finally, let's talk a little more about timbre, which is how instruments *sound* rather than what notes they are playing and what key they are playing in. Timbres are defined by a lot of factors, but one of the biggest is whether or not their overtones are harmonic. Long story short, all sound is vibration, and the overtones are further vibrations which are some multiple faster than the instrument's fundamental pitch. Play a concert A, and the air shakes 440 times a second, or 440 Hertz; the octave of that note will be twice that speed, or 880 Hertz. Harmonic instruments have overtones which are clean multiples of the base note: 2, 3, 5, 11, whatever. You can hear these on a guitar by playing the harmonics, naturally, which are at points on the string which divide it by whole numbers. Our even scale of twelve notes per octave doesn't actually perfectly represent any of these, but it makes chords easier to play in every key without too many notes, so it's pretty simpatico with the lower harmonics, which are the easiest to hear. Inharmonic timbres... aren't harmonic. Basically any instrument you hit with a stick (drums, bells, xylophones, gongs) has a far more complicated or unusual relationship with its overtones than a simple 1-2-3 progression, and while most synths are either harmonic or don't really have much in the way of overtones to begin with—sine waves are basically just a pure tone—FM synthesis, also known as "the basis for all fake bell sounds and the Skrillex bass sound," is an inherently inharmonic process. Consequently, scales tend to sound different on FM synths from, say, sawtooths, which can be an interesting effect but is worth keeping in mind. Likewise, distorting something in the conventional way makes the sound *more* harmonic, which is why the kick drums in hardcore techno sound like one-note basslines.


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## Pipistrele (Jul 30, 2017)

What a bunch of cool advices! I guess I'll save and analyze it, I think there's a lot that I could learn, so thank you two very much :з 

@Mandragoras , honestly, I knew you're a big musichead, but didn't inspect you to be actually somewhat proficient in music theory. I guess it's a thing with FA Forums to find out about dudes being infinitely cooler than I thought they were.


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## Mandragoras (Aug 1, 2017)

Pipistrele said:


> What a bunch of cool advices! I guess I'll save and analyze it, I think there's a lot that I could learn, so thank you two very much :з
> 
> @Mandragoras , honestly, I knew you're a big musichead, but didn't inspect you to be actually somewhat proficient in music theory. I guess it's a thing with FA Forums to find out about dudes being infinitely cooler than I thought they were.


Thanks! I tend to retain a lot of information of varying levels of usefulness, particularly about things I like. Tuning and harmony are my big nerd passions, so I've kind of hoarded a lot of info about them.


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## GreenZone (Aug 1, 2017)

sorry i didn't find this sooner 

i have a close mate who side works as a DJ (professionally) so i'm asking him now i would link his sound cloud but i don't want people going "hey, hey my man, one of your mates is a furry" 

cause he literally threatened to shoot me when he saw me looking at furry art once... it was for my own good of course


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## surma_blackdog (Aug 3, 2017)

Can I ask people in this thread to recommend a good program for making music for absolute beginners? Something extremely simple (even if it lacks a lot of functionality, I can get something more advanced as I learn more)


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## Pipistrele (Aug 3, 2017)

surma_blackdog said:


> Can I ask people in this thread to recommend a good program for making music for absolute beginners? Something extremely simple (even if it lacks a lot of functionality, I can get something more advanced as I learn more)


SunVox, probably. It's as simple as you can get while still having legitimate functionality to it. Not to say it's easy to make music in it - quite the opposite, I find it _harder _due to it being bare-boned. If you want to really learn, better to start from FL Studio - of all DAWs it's the simplest to use, and considering popularity, there are tons of stuff on it you can find on YouTube, from simple lessons to whole track recreations. It looks intimidating at first, but it's like Photoshop - once you get the basics, everything becomes clear. There are more simple tools like eJay software, but honestly, they're more like toys than anything else, you don't want to use that for anything more than goofing around.


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## surma_blackdog (Aug 4, 2017)

Pipistrele said:


> SunVox, probably. It's as simple as you can get while still having legitimate functionality to it. Not to say it's easy to make music in it - quite the opposite, I find it _harder _due to it being bare-boned. If you want to really learn, better to start from FL Studio - of all DAWs it's the simplest to use, and considering popularity, there are tons of stuff on it you can find on YouTube, from simple lessons to whole track recreations. It looks intimidating at first, but it's like Photoshop - once you get the basics, everything becomes clear. There are more simple tools like eJay software, but honestly, they're more like toys than anything else, you don't want to use that for anything more than goofing around.


Awesome, thanks! I will check all of those out


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