Thank you. Learning the way that pitch will progress/ combine with other pitches is interesting. All instruments sound great when a musician is having fun with it. When it gets complicated there are tricks like you’re saying about the black keys to keeping the inspiration going further. I’ve noticed that True Cuckoo will put stickers on certain keys to let him know it’s in some special scale of his.
1 BigUp
I’ve read back to what you wrote and it makes more sense.
I can try the right/wrong approach with trynna find scales and always flip back to my chromatic Freeform when I’m dissatisfied that I’m not instant Freidrich Merkery
1 BigUp
Set a midi track on the Digitone to listen to whatever channel your controller is sending on. Then in ableton have it listen to that Digitone midi track
Edit:here’s a video that shows someone using a keyboard with Digitakt into Digitone. Pretty much the same as what you need to do to set the Digitone to forward the midi on to ableton
1 BigUp
Yeh, that sticker idea is a good in. I’d need to plan it out though as you’d have to make sure you kept them all in a nice row as not to mix your lines of stickers and be all skhwiffy.
Also, fun is exactly what I need to play and do music. When I used to jam it would be stoned freestyles and mad singing that’d only be found in that moment as I was bobbing on the vibe in the room.
It’s why I started free styling all my tracks cos when you wanna say something, going back each line trynna find rhymes inhibits what your actually trynna say.
Chromatic jamming can only get repetitive never dischordant which makes me feel consistently like I’m in the realm of music whilst inspired.
As soon as I feel frustration I lose inspiration and my tune I wanted to make the representing x emotion will be replaced with ‘put that there, idgaf, distortion 100%, non-rhythmic spazcore.
Sometimes I listen to my tracks and think 
hmm not too bad production on this frustration piece. Not: that actually sounds like what I was aiming for which if you’d heard my og idea compared what I actually made you’d lol and go ‘not quite mate’ 
The only track I’ve made where musically it sounds like sort what I was aiming for is
And that’s a chord progression some guy sent so I could remix an acoustic track of his. As you can hear that never happened and he unfriended me and that was the last time I seen or heard from him. Melt
1 BigUp
Jamming and trying shit out is not the same as composing, it’s usually two different things/activities, but they can of course be combined. The counting of notes part is completely eliminated once you can just hear the note intervals, and find some basic shapes like major or minor triads or whatever. The most important thing is that you think it sounds good, not necessarily why it sounds good, imho.
Roman numerals refer to which chords are within a certain key (numbered 1-7), with special “chord symbols” noting what type of chord it is. Capital or lower-case means it’s either minor or major, etc. The usage of Roman numerals to write down chord progressions, has the advantage that you don’t have to write what key you should play them in, you can use them in any key. The distance/intervals between the notes in the chords will be the same.
All of this can be referenced through sites like this. There’s no reason to learn this shit by heart if you’re sitting and composing stuff, but I’d recommend having some notebook or thing to write shit on, on the side, to have something to reference yourself for later use.
This is exactly what I wrote here:
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.
Regarding this bit, I’d say it’s good for just practicing to play on the instrument, but it’s not very useful for ear training, since everything you play can sound “correct”. It’s good for motivation though, I can see that. I usually just put on some 10 hour Youtube piano jazz video and play along on my guitar, trying to anticipate the chord progressions with melody notes etc, ear training and guitar playing knowledge slammed into one activity. I usually do that for half an hour or so, a couple times a week, when I have time and mental energy for it.
Jonwayne coming with some TRUTH for y’all.
1 BigUp
I think I’d make better music if I was working with some feelies. I’ve got a bunch of random instruments (like crappy shit people got me for Christmas like a hang drum lol), much prefer jamming. Need to learn guitar, or keys. Im mediocre at drumming, tho
1 BigUp
2 Likes
Havent touched my harmonica in forever, damn
Harmonica’s kinda got the opposite problem of a keyboard, youre locked into one set of notes (usually major), and if you want to play outside that scale, you gotta learn all kinds of funny bends and overblows to hit the notes
1 BigUp
Decided to make a little demo with some cross rhythm patterns
Here’s the furnace file, if you’re interested @Paralytik
Only 4 patterns + a click. If you want to think of it as a time signature, 12/8 or 6/8 is probably the best. I just think of it as 12 beats. There’s not really a subdivision in this kind of music, so meter isn’t really the same.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Click is on the downbeat
x . . x . . x . . x . .
Kind of like quarter note triplets
1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a
First pattern is the standard bell
x . x . x x . x . x . x
then the double strike on the front beat of the pulse
x x . x x . x x . x x .
then double strike on the back beat of the pulse
. x x . x x . x x . x x
then both the front and back double beats playing
x X x x X x x X x x X x
then the chaabi beat
. . x . x . . . x . (x) x .
parentheses around the second to last hit because that’s just one version and it’s not always played
then I just start messing around with combining them.
It’s kinda sloppy, and I was super lazy with the fm synth lol. Might redo it with samples or something in a bit.
2 Likes
I’m pretty sure black keys are not chromatic. chromatic is literally all 12 semitones of a scale, so on the piano it includes the white keys as well.
1 BigUp
It just needs a big boomy bass drum and it’s ready for the club
fun to watch you learn and play around dude, truly
2 Likes
Pentatonic you pedant
I just wish more people were interested 
Can say that I of course do not mean to literally try each combo. And my whole point is that there are no rights or wrongs, everything is potentially useful. You’re taking atonal dischordant ambient as an example. That’s a style that exists, and makes use of those certain types of intervals, to create that type of “feel”. Every interval and combo of notes can be useful in context, that’s my whole point, and that’s why you should try them out.
2 Likes
Yeh will do.
Just worked on a track for last 24 hours solid lol.
Found a well cool technique using a Saturn fab filter preset but it’s messy.
Already had started mixing down through AH and had to change it to match this new style. Wasn’t easy trynna get shapes from the chaos, got something sounded how I wanted, bounce it down and the volume jumps far too much
But it’s kept some of what I’m trynna get and I can work on it more in the project.
Gutted tho cos I spent agggges trynna box off each segment fks sake lol
Sick one, ry. Maybe you should think about getting back on the weed