32
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When did the anonymous "you" become popular in western pop music?
I'm going to go with "it was always common". Certainly many Renaissance madrigals are written to "you" (or "thee", as the case may be):
Come again!
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces that ...
- 20.7k
26
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How "hard" to read is this rhythm? A rhythmic comparison
Minor nitpick: in your first example, the semiquaver should precede the minim. That will improve readability:
Major nitpick: The two rhythms are identical.
A crotchet triplet can be subdivided into ...
- 9,589
25
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Is it necessary to use only notes and chords that belong in a specific scale?
As the other answers have correctly pointed out, you can do what sounds good to you. But this might leave you with a feeling of not knowing where to start. That's why I would like to let you know the ...
- 20.1k
22
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Do I need 88 keys to produce film soundtracks?
No, you do not need 88 keys.
You could produce film soundtracks with 0 keys- everything can be programmed nowadays. Of course, many prefer to record MIDI, and 61 keys will be sufficient at that. How ...
- 7,423
21
votes
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Which would benefit my band the most, learning covers or writing originals?
You should do both! When I just start working with other musicians, I like to get a cover or two under our belts so we can feel each other out and learn to play as a group. Literally at the same time, ...
- 56.1k
21
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Is it necessary to use only notes and chords that belong in a specific scale?
Theory is not a set of rules to be followed or broken. Theory is a set of explanations for why things sound the way they do. As a composer you use theory to help inform your choices, but it never ...
- 22.3k
20
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Does the starting note for a song have to be the starting note of its scale?
Does a scale always have to start off with the note it is named after?
A scale is a collection of notes with one of those notes designated as the 'home note'. When you're playing that scale in a ...
- 45.9k
15
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What is the difference between 'chorus' and 'refrain'?
It gets more complicated. The term 'refrain' comes from a time when poems were routinely set to music, and it is more appropriately left for the discussion of Classical and Romantic songs.
At the ...
- 2,785
15
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what are the characteristics that define a "good" melody?
It does depend on the style of music, but generally speaking I think there are good rules of thumb which will yield good results in most styles.
Keep it easy to sing and easy to remember.
You want ...
- 2,420
15
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Do I need 88 keys to produce film soundtracks?
88 keys are very useful if you intend to PLAY the keyboard in a pianistic style. Otherwise your 61 keys will be fine. I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a modern soundtrack composer who didn't use ...
- 90.4k
15
votes
Writing songs on piano that are meant for a guitar-led band
What's happening at the moment is they're parroting your keyboard-based attempts to sound like the instrument that they play. They're not using their imagination nearly enough.
I'd suggest presenting ...
- 11.3k
14
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Is it necessary to use only notes and chords that belong in a specific scale?
TL;DR: No.
You can use anything you like, as long as it sounds good to you. You can use many scales or not use any; you can use chords from some scale or use chords outside that scale.
Just ...
- 31.3k
13
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Why does most "Country" Music use mostly major and minor plain simple chords?
You could also ask “why do artists outside of the country genre use complex chords instead of the simpler harmonies of country music?” The complex harmonies are not necessarily better.
In the country ...
- 818
12
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Is it necessary to use only notes and chords that belong in a specific scale?
First, you play a toy xylophone, and it has 1 octave of the notes in a major scale. And you can play a lot of nursery rhymes.
Then you pick up a recorder, and there are some more notes in between the ...
- 243
12
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Which would benefit my band the most, learning covers or writing originals?
I agree 100% with everything Todd Wilcox stated in his excellent answer!
To add to what he said - as a songwriter myself, I find that learning covers is a great way to improve not only my skills as ...
- 27.2k
12
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Layering multiple instruments
You really have two questions there. I'm going to answer this one:
In a section like the chorus, how do you get the layering of many instrument to get that full and rich impression?
Playing a ...
- 56.1k
12
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Lead guitar improvisation strategies for young intermediate guitarists
Reading music - safe. Regurgitating others' riffs - safe. Both, when one is good at either (or both) have a certain authenticity to them. 'I play what's written - if it's written, it's probaably good, ...
- 190k
12
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Writing songs on piano that are meant for a guitar-led band
The issue doesn't seem to be in the writing, it's in the translation.
I guess it's stating the obvious that if the guitarists can't get it from you saying "It's reggae, a bit like this" then ...
- 27.4k
11
votes
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The Chords in this progression sound great but don't belong together - so why do they work?
Intro: G to E
This could work chromatically. It doesn't really belong to any scale. You play G and by chromatically changing G to G# you go to E. Beatles had a similar progression on the verse of ...
- 31.3k
11
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How can you retain the melody or tune you come up with in your head?
I would recommend recording yourself. Recording devices are so cheap and common now, that it would be the easy solution.
As far a recalling a song or tune, there probably is not that much difference ...
- 495
11
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Lead guitar improvisation strategies for young intermediate guitarists
I am not a music teacher, have not been teached by a music teacher and would not consider myself a 'good' guitarist. But I remember having similar problems in terms of improvisation. When I tried to ...
- 1,191
10
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Does a vocal melody have any rhythmic responsibility to the underlying arrangement in pop music?
No. It doesn't have to.
If you want, it can; but if you don't want, it doesn't need to.
I think the best thing you can say is that the good ones add up to a significant whole - something greater than ...
- 27.4k
10
votes
How to convert what I'm singing to notes
Your playing needs to be in the same key you're thinking about i.e. singing in, and there are basically two different approaches to do the coordination.
A: playing adjusts to singing: find the key ...
10
votes
What are the key ideas behind a good bassline?
Do note that your question is really vague (and too close to the "opinion based" flag).
As many rules, the first rule is that there is no absolute rule.
Bass lines are fundamental (yes, ...
- 6,013
9
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Why does most "Country" Music use mostly major and minor plain simple chords?
One of the important roots of country music is the folk music brought to the Appalachians by European (particularly Irish) immigrants in the late 18th and early 19th century, with influences from ...
- 45.9k
9
votes
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What are the key ideas behind a good bassline?
The important thing about the bass is that it's the bridge between the drums and the other instruments. How it fills that role is massively dependent on the musical style, the conventions of that ...
- 4,752
8
votes
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What is the difference between harmony and consonance in music?
Harmony is a noun that means "simultaneous sounds." Consonant and dissonant are adjectives that describe harmony; think of dissonance as "tension" and consonance as "stability/release."
In terms of ...
- 84k
8
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What is the difference between 'chorus' and 'refrain'?
Strictly speaking of pop/rock music I think there is a difference between chorus and refrain.
A chorus is a full blown section that has harmony, lyrics, and melody that is repeated and generally ...
- 7,120
8
votes
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Lead guitar improvisation strategies for young intermediate guitarists
I spent one year of my life designing a software training course called Improvisation By Degrees (link at the bottom) and answered thousands of support questions via email. From that, as well as from ...
- 6,309
8
votes
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How do I transpose an orchestral piece if it will push some of the instruments out of their range?
Transposing orchestral pieces mostly produces unsatisfactory results, but it's often done, particularly to accommodate singers. If you transpose up too much the result often sounds thin, and if you ...
- 19.5k
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