MUSIC THEORY: The Creative Process
Jon Stubbs- July 15, 2018 When we listen to amazing music, there’s almost a magical element to it. We know that the artists (composers and/or performers) have knowledge and skills to make that magic happen, but is there something extra? Inspiration? Creative freedom? As music creators we tap into a combination of: experience, comfort level, […]
Read more...TUNING SYSTEMS: Starting from Scratch
Before we get to Melody and Harmony, we have to start with the pitch tuning system, which gives us a super-set of notes from which to choose. From those pitches, we choose a scale; and then we choose (mostly) scale notes for melodies and chords. I think sometimes the terms tuning system and scale are […]
Read more...RHYTHM 03: Ultimate Rhythmic Freedom
1. Beats or no beats. You can decide if your music has a beat or is “free time”. Music without a beat can still have structure, even a rhythmic structure, but it won’t be based on regularly spaced beats or patterns. It might be more natural sounding or more “conversational” or perhaps more soulful and […]
Read more...RHYTHM 02: The Essence of Rhythm
In the most general terms, rhythm just refers to the placement of musical events in time. Our brains and experience dwell eternally in the present moment. Contained in this present moment is a well-calibrated sense of what has happened in the “recent” past- and a sensation of “flow”. That flow could be described as us […]
Read more...RHYTHM 01: Current Music Tech’s (ab)use of Time-Signatures
Patterning 2 is an iOS app that creates rhythmic patterns using powerful graphical tools. Unlike most drum machine apps, Patterning 2 gives us incredible freedom to explore unusual beat divisions. The app’s short-sighted use of time-signatures imposed a frustrating limitation onto an otherwise wonderful system. The crux of the issue is that we need a […]
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