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FamiTracker
Hello there, I'm a bit new to this and would like to ask a few questions. I've been studying Famitracker itself and I'm pretty comfortable with the interface by now. I've done a little cover and I'm fiddling with more. Anyway, to the main point, I'm interested in learning to do a bit of remixing and original composition. I feel I should learn music theory, and so I've been doing some googling. Scales, chord progressions, time signatures, and I play a weee little bit of keyboard/piano and can read sheet music. I'm also making use of GNU Solfege to try and get some ear-training in. I've also been spending quite a bit of time deconstructing and examining the wonderful work of the pros on the forum.
The trouble I'm having here is learning to truly understand and apply the things I'm learning, in terms of scales, and especially chord progressions. If it wouldn't be too much of a trouble, could any of you recommend a good and solid guide to applied music theory? I have googled around, but would like to try and draw from the experience of those who have been there and done that. Thank you kindly.
[quote=Agrinja]I've also been spending quite a bit of time deconstructing and examining the wonderful work of the pros on the forum.[/quote]
this is IMO the best way to learn. imitation is a great teacher. find songs you love, open them up (if they're FTM, modules, MIDIs etc. that's easy enough, i think midi might be more useful since you can see intervals visually more easily) and look at the parts that interest you. extrapolate, investigate etc. also a keyboard helps! the best way to apply the knowledge is to attempt writing something by borrowing elements.
of course theory helps too. it's good to have a lexicon to describe the things you're doing.
also, this image: http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr0drjmmXj1qamwr8o1_500.png
a good hard slog is totally important. but hopefully if you enjoy yourself it won't feel too much like work.
Thank you kindly, the website is exactly the kind of resource I was looking for, and the picture is the truth. It's for visual art, but I've often been told "Every artist has a thousand bad drawings to work through before they get the good ones out."
If I manage anything interesting, I'll post it up on the forums for review. Thanks again!
I've spent the past year focusing almost exclusively on music theory, thinking that it was the key for improving my compositions. While it drastically improved my general understanding of what music is actually doing, I saw very little improvement this past year.
Yes, it's important to understand how to build chords, know a few scales and understand what keys are, but one thing I've seen demonstrated time and time again is that transcription(or doing covers) of other people's work is what really gets you headed in the right direction, faster.
I've spoken with so many people who are incredible composers that give me the 'lol i dunno' answer when it comes to how they do what they do. It's a combination of your musical taste and musical vocabulary acquired through transcribing examples. The rest is you, being unafraid of making mistakes.
I'll add that I've been doing covers for over a year, and reduction covers (where I can't strictly do it channel-for-channel and pitch-for-pitch) for several months. I haven't really tried much original work, but I've gotten really good at making instruments on the fly. I haven't really read through the site I linked (just had it in StumbleUpon bookmarks), but I figured it's what you're looking for.
But yeah, covering things you like to listen to is a good way of getting technique, but I haven't really found the stride of writing original pieces. At this point, I just need forced composition exercises to get through the slog of writing what I don't like mentioned in the image. (Speaking of, anyone know any nice sites which have a daily/weekly theme to write things on and exhibit them? It'd be really nice to have something like that.)
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[url=http://icesoldier.me]Website (includes FTM's of my covers)
[quote=icesoldier]anyone know any nice sites which have a daily/weekly theme to write things on and exhibit them? It'd be really nice to have something like that.[/quote]
There are places like solid composer, but what do you think about starting a weekly theme thread or something? And yea, I think you'd just need something like this to unlock all that stuff you've been building up inside. I'm pretty sure you'd blow us all away with some originals.
The contest series starting in 5 days might be an interesting proposition for those who want to condition themselves to come up with something on a regular basis. It's bi-weekly instead of weekly, but if you really need something new every week, I see no problem with a weekly, themed exhibition happening in parallel.
The contest series is definitely something I'm interested in, but I was thinking themes along the lines of "write a sad song," "write a relaxed song," "write a song to fit this contrived situation," etc.
I just thought of something like [url=http://shirt.woot.com]Woot Shirt where there's a themed competition every week and people vote on the entries for one compo while submissions for the next are open. It's not anonymous, and voting results are viewable live, but the top nine places are obscured until voting is over. (Meaning that something in the top nine just says "in the fog" rather that its place.) Then they sell the top three, but I think we can do without that. (At first. :D Gotta have big plans somewhere!)
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[url=http://icesoldier.me]Website (includes FTM's of my covers)
I remember back when all contests were just posted in the FamiTracker Talk board.
As for the resulting NSF/FTM files, will they be hosted as attachments (or one big archive attachment) here, or stored externally & have their download links posted?
Perhaps this could become a new FamiTracker tradition to have its own annual competition.
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Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
Hello, don't want to sidetrack here but also don't want to make a new thread just for a quick question. I'm curious if anybody has a 'must hear' list of chiptunes, NES or otherwise, examples of tunes that absolutely must be heard, especially ones that are a little more obscure. Thank you kindly.
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