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Get started making music

learningmusic.ableton.com

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Re: Get started making music

#141

Post by stfwn »

_pergosausage wrote: post #108
hxta98596 wrote: post #89

Anecdotal: there's a few different approaches to learning songwriting that seem to click for beginners. The "build up" approach is the most common and is what this link offers: It first teaches beats, then chords, then melodies and then, in theory, vocals etc. These lessons in this order make sense to many people, but not everyone. If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusi…

What you said about learning melodies and beats and chords kind of confused me. Do people actually learn how to make up music? I always thought it was just some natural ability that people have. For as long I can remember if somebody told me to write a song I would just spit it out after a while. Am I unuiqe in this respect?

I created an account just to reply to your comment. As someone who has played keyboard instruments for all my life, it's not crossed my mind lately that the idea that there is structure to music is not well known.

Just for fun: chords in scales are numbered from bottom to top in Roman numerals. I feels like home base, V feels like wanting to go home. If you want to create the feeling of going home but then not really go there you can go from V to VI instead of I. 'Sad but I have closure'-type ending? Major IV - Minor IV - I. Bluesy feeling? Add a minor seventh to your I, IV and V chords. Dreamy? Major seventh instead there, except on the V.

It's even entirely possible to learn to recognize all of these types of chord progressions and sounds instantly. I'm working on and off on an ear training app that randomly generates them that musicians can use to train their musical ear.

Re: Get started making music

#142

Post by rmxt »

whiddershins wrote: post #110
weavie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not a multiple of beats, would it generally sound good in any musical kind of way?

Yes! So many examples of why. What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song? What if I wanted my piece to happen over a drone tone similar in function to a tamboura or a constantly feeding back electric guitar? What if I wanted to have another sort of loop and while playing it back, experiment with different tempos against it to see what sounds right? And a zillion other thing…

You can turn off auto-warp on audio tracks by default globally, and you can disable warp on a per clip basis as you go.

In your specific case... disable warping on your ambient track, line it up against your warped/synced "another sort of loop" in arrangement view, and then change the master tempo of the track until you find out what you want in terms of different tempos. (This is off the top of my head, and without the program in front of me. Apologies if it's vague.)

Live can definitely function as a "dumb" multitrack recorder that lets you do those things -- but, by default it has all the tempo/beat/quantize options turned on.

I saw your edited post above... I think people are reacting negatively to your criticisms because they're a bit harsh, and, I personally think it's shooting the messenger (Live). You can do the things you want to do in Live... but by default out of the box, it's not what's it designed for. Live lowers the barrier entry to making sound... the people/users cranking out 4-4 120bpm tracks likely wouldn't be making anything had there not been Live. If you don't want to call that sound art or music, that's on you. To many people, that's still music, and music they might not have created otherwise.

EDIT: Just saw your other post here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14300672) with some more specific criticisms. I feel your pain. You obviously already know how to do the thing I'm mentioning above, and are referring to more complicated scenarios. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Get started making music

#143

Post by rubatuga »

This is extremely comprehensive for any beginner/intermediate musician/composer, and I'm really impressed at how they managed to implement the content in a mobile friendly manner!

Re: Get started making music

#145

Post by ilamont »

I was looking for an app like this for my son. He started with "My Singing Monsters" and some music lessons at school, but when I tried to get him into Garage Band it was too much for a beginner.

Thank you to the creator ... I will show it to him later today. I am not sure how far he can take it, but I like what I have seen so far.

Also, if anyone has other suggestions for music-making apps for tween kids I am all ears ...

Re: Get started making music

#146

Post by teilo »

_pergosausage wrote: post #108
hxta98596 wrote: post #89

Anecdotal: there's a few different approaches to learning songwriting that seem to click for beginners. The "build up" approach is the most common and is what this link offers: It first teaches beats, then chords, then melodies and then, in theory, vocals etc. These lessons in this order make sense to many people, but not everyone. If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusi…

What you said about learning melodies and beats and chords kind of confused me. Do people actually learn how to make up music? I always thought it was just some natural ability that people have. For as long I can remember if somebody told me to write a song I would just spit it out after a while. Am I unuiqe in this respect?

There are certainly people who have natural ability, and compose melodically, applying varying levels of knowledge in music theory.

There are other people who can't make heads or tails out of a keyboard, compose a tune in their head, or understand chordal progressions, but nevertheless compose music in layers and still do extraordinary work. They find what they like by playing with notes on the screen. Joel Zimmerman, a.k.a. Deadmau5, is an example of this.

I am an example of the former, with natural ability, bolstered by training in music theory. But I still use a layered approach when I am composing, generally starting with a beat or bassline, playing with melodic progressions in snippets, and eventually moving into a traditional composition process when I have something started that I like. Ableton makes this process extremely easy and productive.

Re: Get started making music

#147

Post by jungletek »

whiddershins wrote: post #110
weavie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not a multiple of beats, would it generally sound good in any musical kind of way?

Yes! So many examples of why. What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song? What if I wanted my piece to happen over a drone tone similar in function to a tamboura or a constantly feeding back electric guitar? What if I wanted to have another sort of loop and while playing it back, experiment with different tempos against it to see what sounds right? And a zillion other thing…

>What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song?

Trigger it via MIDI as a one-shot in the sampler, for example. Sampler and Simpler params can be automated. If you want some 'arbitrary' looping, again use the loop points of Sampler and set the (re)triggering appropriately.

You can do all these things if you want to, you just have to invest enough time learning the tools.

Edit: If you respond, you may mention that you have invested the time. Perhaps you have, and I'm just misunderstanding your case or needs.

Re: Get started making music

#148

Post by richardjdare »

_pergosausage wrote: post #108
hxta98596 wrote: post #89

Anecdotal: there's a few different approaches to learning songwriting that seem to click for beginners. The "build up" approach is the most common and is what this link offers: It first teaches beats, then chords, then melodies and then, in theory, vocals etc. These lessons in this order make sense to many people, but not everyone. If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusi…

What you said about learning melodies and beats and chords kind of confused me. Do people actually learn how to make up music? I always thought it was just some natural ability that people have. For as long I can remember if somebody told me to write a song I would just spit it out after a while. Am I unuiqe in this respect?

What I find difficult is that by the time I've got my DAW going and found some synths I like, the tune in my head has evaporated. Do all people find musical thoughts so insubstantial, or is it just me? If I imagine a picture or a paragraph of text, it'll stick around and I can remember it more or less indefinitely. I still recall snatches of crap poetry I thought up when I was a teenager, but any music I imagine just disappears before I can get it down.

The most successful tunes I made were more or less "discovered" from incrementally experimenting in the DAW, and not from any kind of original plan or idea. Maybe I'm just not a musician! (I'm an indie game dev who started making my own tunes for my games)

Re: Get started making music

#149

Post by pwenzel »

ilamont wrote: post #145

I was looking for an app like this for my son. He started with "My Singing Monsters" and some music lessons at school, but when I tried to get him into Garage Band it was too much for a beginner. Thank you to the creator ... I will show it to him later today. I am not sure how far he can take it, but I like what I have seen so far. Also, if anyone has other suggestions for music-making apps for tween kids I am all ea…

Interestingly enough, my 6 year old was able to drive in and start having fun drawing in MIDI notes in Ableton Live Intro (the creators of the app linked for discussion) and listening to them.

Ableton Live is certainly complex, but there's so much fun that can be had if you or your children can focus in on one feature and enjoying the musical accidents and exploration.

Re: Get started making music

#150

Post by andyjsong »

hxta98596 wrote: post #89

Anecdotal: there's a few different approaches to learning songwriting that seem to click for beginners. The "build up" approach is the most common and is what this link offers: It first teaches beats, then chords, then melodies and then, in theory, vocals etc. These lessons in this order make sense to many people, but not everyone. If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusi…

Interesting, I've never heard of the "peel back" approach, and I can totally understand why it would be instantly satisfying for a beginner in music to get started that way. Do you have any articles or books on the subject manner?

How would this approach apply to a more traditional instrument that doesn't have the advantages of having a "good" sounding sample already preloaded that can be easily layered into a song that you are composing? I grew up learning the violin and it was endless disjointed drills until it was put together in a classical song that I never heard before nor had the desire to play. 8 year old me just wanted to play the theme song to "Jurassic Park" and roar like a T-Rex.

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