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FamiTracker
Never really been active in the chiptune community, but I've always enjoyed playing around with famitracker in my spare time. Here's a little tune I conjured up today.
Could you be a little more specific with the timing/dissonance problems kinkinkijkin? The bass plays almost entirely root notes, melody is mostly chord tones and the first square wave is one of the other notes of the chord, like the third/fifth/seventh.
Timing problems as in little problems here and there on which row the notes are played on, and dissonance like the second frame's F# F#. You seem to know some theory, how did you not notice whenever you went out of key?
The F#(Gb) in the second measure is the 7th of the G#7(Ab7) chord. Try playing an E#(F) above it and you get a G#6(Ab6), which doesn't really resolve to the G7 as well as a G#7(Ab7), being that it loses its dominant quality due to the lack of the tritone between the 3rd of the chord (C/B#) and the 7th (Gb/F#).
*phew* aren't enharmonics fun?
This is a functional dissonance. Whether a note is dissonant or not is decided by how it relates to the underlying harmony, not whether it conforms to the key signature. You need chromatics in the melody to "compensate" for chromatics in the chords. You might want to look up secondary dominants and tritone substitutions.
Of course, whether something sounds /good/ or not is completely subjective, so if you don't like the melody, that's cool. However sharpening the 4th (or flatting the 5th...) in the melody to work as the 7th of a bVI chord isn't all that far out really, unlike say, sharpening the 5th to work as a #11 over a V/V chord
Thanks anyway my friend. I enjoy talking about this stuff and tend to waffle when I spot an opportunity, hence why this post got very wordy very fast.
I liked most of the melody, it's just frame 01 was a little... off.
And I don't know theory by nature, I just learn by what I understand of what people here say in theoretical terms. And I understood nothing you said, so can you please elaborate for someone who only knows basic key, dissonance, harmony, timing and advanced percussion?
C Major has no sharps or flats as I'm sure you know: C D E F G A B
These notes "work" in the sense that the chords and melody that arise from them generally gravitate towards the note C. However, you can also use chords that contain notes from outside of the key in certain situations. Say you have this progression, using only notes from the key of C: C Dm G7 C
If you play that chord progression, you'll be able to hear how nicely each chord leads into the next. However, what if we wanted to make it a little more interesting? How about: C D G7 C
The D has a stronger "pull" towards the G than the regular Dm. This is due to the fact that instead of the F note from the key signature which we'd normally use in the chord (D-F-A) we use F# which leads better into G. This note "comes from" the key of G Major: G A B C D E F#. Notice how the only difference between C and G Major is the F#. This chord is "borrowed" from the key of G temporarily. That's how secondary dominants work.
More examples:
C Am Dm G7 could become
C A7 Dm G7 or
C Am D7 G7 or
C A7 D7 G7
You don't have to use secondary dominants. Whether they sound good in a certain position or not is up to you. Secondary dominants add interest to music because they contain a note not in the key (which you sort of subliminally notice) and because they allow you to use those chromatic notes (notes not in the key signature) in the melody, to make it more interesting and create a greater sense of tension and relief.
Well, I tried. I'd be happy to clarify anything that doesn't make sense. A lot of this stuff requires some theory background that can't really be summarized into one forum post, but I tried to get the core concept across so you can use it in a practical situation.
I just like being able to know what the rules are so it's easier to break them effectively. It's also nice to know some well established musical patterns to work from and keep things grounded.
If you have a good ear, theory isn't really necessary. Classic rock is probably my favorite genre of music yet hardly any of the bands back then (The Beatles et al.) could even read sheet music
Nice theory dissertation there Mhmm! Taking me back to college...
I think of chords in terms of intervallic relationships, and try to keep as many common tones as I can when comping, or when it's chord-melody type stuff, I try to voice things in such a way that the melody is always implied.
What you're doing in the first tune you posted is quite advanced! Definitely an interesting approach to extended chords...I want to experiment more in that direction.
Of course, you could take the C64 approach and arpeggiate notes very quickly to fool the listener's ears into "hearing" chords, which would allow for a more straighforward approach without so much chromatic tap dancing.
I just feel like when there's not a 3rd somewhere at least implied, 7ths, especially M7ths sound dissonant, no matter what. You can always get away with omitting 5ths, but not 3rds to imply the "flavor" of the chord.
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[url=http://www.mootbooxle.com]Moot Booxlé: Contributing to the Funkiness of this planet since 1983.
Thanks for the comments moot. Nice to have a fellow jazz fan on here
I've tried the arpeggio approach a few times, but I prefer the sound of several voices working together to give the impression of chords. The downside is I have to compose all the melodies alongside each other to make sure they sound good together, and that tends to slow things down a bit. The other downside being you only have 3 voices, ignoring expansions, so you have to cram a lot of notes in sometimes, going back to the thing you said about not missing out thirds.
Anyways, here's an updated tune. Comments much appreciated.
