Production Thoughts

Production
5785

You need to like everything you play. You will suck because you don’t know how to do it. Just accept that you do, and keep playing ALL the notes. Listen to how the most dissonant combos sound like, and lower your god damn expectations.

The only thing you’ll learn if you’re playing only the black keys, is how to only play the black keys. You don’t need to know what scales are at all, just listen.

You assume every has an ear for the correct…

Everything you play is correct bro, just play.

I’m definitely not a savant, I’ve just spent a lot of time playing.

5786

Such a narrow opinion of progression. Like my only goal is to learn the black keys. I need to learn finger movement, otherwise, this is the important bit I get frustrated and quit learning each key note by note might work for you but it doesn’t for me. I need to sit there learning basic tunes (California love at the mo) and then when I’m bored(this happens quickly) of that I freestyle chromatically.
It’s giving me the best push in learning to play a piano.
Or I can not do that and go back to being frustrated and leave it be.

Some ppl out there may be like that and take it as good advice. If ppl don’t have an issue learning I’m sure they’ll try some regular method and good for them.

This is piano for spastics para. Get to know

1 BigUp
5787

The biggest issue I find hard to get past is not having my right hands rhythm effect the lefts. It feels like some Jedi-shit to have them do separate stuff. Then You see drummers doing 4 different rhythms with flair and it makes you think they have quad-brains

5788

ive always struggled with this too lol, i can play guitar/bass cause your right and left are mostly synchronized, but never got very far on piano and drums

start on a and then its minor btw

2 Likes
5789

Oh shit yeh I knew that. But it doesn’t make sense. That they’re all the same keys but starting on an A makes it minor.
The difference between major and minor for me has to be stark before I can hear it. Like: yeh that sounds sad or doesnt give you sunny vibes so it’s prob minor and the reverse for major.
Playing them next to each other it just seems like I’m playing a c major. Saying that, now you mention it there is a lil, tiny bit of woe in that A.
I’m trynna figure this shit out never played an instrument and for the life of me I can’t produce with a mouse music that sounds like actual music.
I need to know more, and I will practice the scales eventually. Just as a day one excercise playing with the black keys is fucking sweet for actual feeling like your playing music. Makes me wanting keep practicing different techniques and timings.
It’s boss!
Get on the chromatic phigz! It’s vibes for deyzz

5790

I know I’m ranting just, chatting you know but. Isn’t there a shit loads of scales? That’s why I’m a bit mardy at para. Like play 2 notes in sequence and one sounds off. How do you know that’s not part of some mad whatever scale. How Tf do I differentiate from that when I don’t know any scale.

Look at em…
Everything’s to a scale

I get what your saying about learning what each note sounds like Paz mate, but it’s kinda insulting to the in depth we’ve spoke that you can actual picture me having the patience to do some shit like that :joy:

5791

You don’t have to know the scales. Just being aware of that there are some notes organised into what we call scales/keys, is enough when starting out. I don’t know what all scales or chords are called, but since I’ve done years of ear training, I don’t really need to regardless. Unless I’m trying to explain how to play some specific thing for someone else that knows these things, it’s really pretty useless info, actually.
EDIT I can add that I

I mean it in an encouraging way haha. Of course you can do this shit, if you slow the fuck down and focus on what you’re doing, while doing it, otherwise you won’t learn shit, ye? The body/muscle memory does not differentiate between playing something the “wrong way” or “right way” you know, it’ll still internalise the shit you are actually doing. This is the reason you want to do it slow af, and focus on very basic shit, consciously.

Starting out with just getting to know the instrument, whatever it may be, is the first step. What kinds of different sounds do the keys on a keyboard instrument make? How can you articulate those sounds? Put on a metronome at 60 BPM, or slower, and just play one note at a time, with one hand. Start with one finger, or two, alternate, then do the same with two other fingers, etc. It does not matter which notes you play, as long as you play it in sync to a tempo. You have to like every note you play or whatever some jazz dude probably said once.

It’s a very iterative process, but in time, you’ll get more familiar with how to position your hands on the keys, and develop a sense of how far different intervals are from each other. When you feel comfortable enough just doing this, then you can start thinking about scales and whatnot.

This W-W-H-W-W-H-W formula works for finding the major (Ionian) scale, anywere on the keyboard, regardless of which note you start with. Actually it works for all (Western-tuned) instruments across the board.
W = Whole step AKA 2 keys
H = Half step AKA 1 key

5792

@Harkat can confirm that this way of thinking works pretty well.

Wanna disclaim again that I’m not some musical genius, I’ve just been grinding this shit for years because I love it. I live for this shit. Me getting impatient with your impatience is btw pretty hilarious, on some level.

1 BigUp
5793

Have seen the 3 bass notes for California love? They’re all just a semitone apart,

I didn’t sleep last night, again lololol

But not to sound like a victim, or stupid.
But I consciously remember getting awoken to the injustices at the world when the infants school teachers wouldn’t let me learn recorder cos I’m a spaz.
I’m not joking but if I start doing it and it gets to complicate it triggers something in me like I get hot and bothered and fidgety. It’s weird but real.
Now the idea of trying each combination of keys, of which there’s insane amounts is sound advice but I don’t think I could actually do it.

I just remember certain rules or phrases, or hold chords that I know might work till they sound good.
This works perfectly in chromatic mode cos I can hold chords in the lower register and twinkle about the high notes and actually sounds like a really sloppy unhinged Keith jarrett.

Where I’m at currently is trynna route midi from my Yamaha mm6 into the Digitone (which I’ve done, works :+1:) and then send this midi through Digitone as notes into ableton. I can send from mm6 into digi, sound. And from digi into ableton, sound. But I’ve not yet managed to connect the 2 so those notes end up as midi on my timeline.

The mm6 does have a usb output but it’s ancient and keeps cutting out and doesn’t show up in the midi options.

@knobgoblin ypu know if this is possible? I’ve been through what seems like a lot of the midi settings but no joy

1 BigUp
5794

There are only 12 notes, with the octave included.

Chromatic mode is when you use all 12 notes, by the way. Using only the black notes, you’ll end up with a pentatonic scale.

5795

“Sometimes, I try to do things
And it just doesn’t work out the way I want it to
And I get real frustrated
And like, I try hard to do it
And I like, take my time, but it just doesn’t work out the way I want it to
It’s like I concentrate on it real hard
But it just doesn’t work out
And everything I do and everything I try
It never turns out
It’s like, I need time to figure these things out“

So true

5796

I know there’s 12 notes and to you the might sound the same in different octaves but if you played me a c3 and then a few other notes and then a c1 and ask me which one matched I’d be stumped.

So by that token the 12 keys in a scale would be learned but in that octave.
I can’t say that for defo, but you’d imagine the exposure I’ve had to music and that, producing spending time immersed that I could actually identify a song in the c major scale but I couldn’t.

I genuinely think I need to learn an instrument. Have it be more than just a way to input notes into a daw, badly.

I want to start actually playing tunes,
And the best way I found today is play a basic version of cal love and the freestyle on the chrom.

If I had to go clunking through each combo, I wouldn’t know which wasn’t right. Like I could play a few combinations that are wrong and think: yeh I’ve heard that before (my point of reference haha) but I could have heard that in some atonal discordant ambient noise.

Taking it back to the level I’m already: baithoven

5797

I get the same feeling when trying to play some specific guitar melody from a song I’m listening to, but I try to just accept that I need to spend more time learning the melody. Can be hella frustrating though, haha.

1 BigUp
5798

Then play a C1, then a C2, then a C3 etc, and listen to how it sounds. You will surely hear that they are the same, just a higher octave.

I can’t do this, btw. Knowing what actual key something is in, is for people with perfect pitch, playing in symphony orchestras. I’d readily identify it as a major key in about 5 seconds though.

1 BigUp
5799

Yeh I got that before when I was trynna play different rhythms with each hand.

Like I felt it in my brain and my legs st the same time an urge to twitch or I dunno it’s weird.

I remember going to do music under old new labours new deal scheme. A week course out in the sticks.
It was bless apart from the music but :lol_og:

There was a bit where we all had to play a few chords on the guitar at the same time.

Literally everyone could do it except me haha. And each time I hit a bum chord they stopped and started again with amazing patience

I literally hoped they’d just carry in playing letting me hit bunnies but nah. Stopped and started bout 10 times till I quit before I caused a scene smashing the guitar lol

5800

Yeh I’m pretty good at major/minor, it’s mostly that major sounds summery, upbeat, autobot and minor cold, melancholy, deception

5801

Great start if you can identify those, because that’s the large chunk of everything. The major mode/key has 3 major chords, 3 minor chords and 1 diminished chord. All of the other modes has the same number of these, but in a “different” order. It’s pretty mind-blowing to think about, because playing the chords in sequence, gives you completely different vibes for each mode. Same thing with just playing the scales, really.

What sounds “happy” or “sad” is 100% contextual.

1 BigUp
5802

I know from tutes from root the note 7 semitones away is a perfect 5th, which I don’t know why it’s called a fifth but sounds good. Something to do with oscillation and harmonics. I kinda get that the 7st or 9st away work. Like 1st 5th and 7th make a chord.

What I wanna know and apply is when ppl start writing I, iv, V, III and saying that’s what you wanna do.
I spend hours transcribing Roman numerals into notes in my piano roll and it almost nevef sounds like music afterwards.

Having to do all that counting, and mouse clicking and cursing means by the time it’s time to make a tune I have zero inspiration and I just throw them on the first bite of each bar and it sounds shit.

That’s why I’m like just play the piano till my fingers start being able to move less like potatoes then I’ll be mr learn a chord cos the hand coordination will be one less thing to get hung up on.

That’s why chrome sparks is so good for pracco cos you literally can’t go out of key.

I still want the scales, chords knowledge, but the the theory way makes it feel like homework that I know I need to know but only makes sense when I can put it into practice

5803

5 whole steps innit

1 BigUp
5804

Ahh yeh of course!