Music writing tutorials - Opinions&Suggestions

[loominous]

I ve yet to come across a music composing/arranging/orchestration tutorial, n since I enjoy writing tutorials for some reason, I figured I d give it a shot.

What I m interested in finding out is if there s any interest for these things and secondly what it should cover.

Some example topics:

(i) Beginner: Creating a very basic rockstyled song from scratch

Would cover very basic things such as creating a standard drumbeat, bassline, chords and would be accompanied by some basic theory when dealing with the bassline/chords.

(ii) More advanced: Creating arrangements in different styles such as Jazz/Reggae/Latin

(iii) Experienced: Arranging/Orchestrating for a standard symphony orchestra

So, any thoughts?

(if you care to listen to some of my work there s a thread in the critics lounge:

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=6016

[scotch]

There's certainly some interest from me
I'd love to make some music.. but don't really know where to start..

[Ginny]

ditto on that one, I have no idea where to even begin to begin with...

[Archangel (aka SoupDragon)]

I had this same idea a while back, but couldn't be arsed to make anything of it. You feel like collaborating?

[loominous]

scotch & GinnyW:

I take it from your posts that you re totally new to making music? So your ideal tutorial would also contain information how to set up a music-writing-program (sequencer)?

Could you tell me in detail what you d wish the tutorial/s would cover?

Archangel:

I ll send you a pm when I get some sort of picture of what s of interest.

[LGM]

I'd like to learn how to compose MP3 and Midi music.. So I'd love to see tutorials!

[Proskrito]

yes, i would love some music tutorials.
And if they are going to be -mainly- for the ags community, you could tell us about how to get the typical adventure game moods, like mistery, wacky, creepy, fun, jazzy, piratesque, futuristic, medieval, etc...
i hope you can understand my crappy english.

[Trumgottist]

A good place to start when making music is to sing. I always sing when I'm walking alone (I walk a lot) and most music I've written have started as an improvisation during a walk that I wrote down when I came home. I also save themes that came to me that way that are waiting for a good place to be used.

Another thing that helps when writing music is to make music. Hm, this was a bit of a cryptic statement. What I mean is that playing and singing is very helpful for getting to know and understand how music works. And listening to music too, of course, but actual performing is very valuable. Even if you don't play an instrument, you can sing. Join a choir! It can work wonders for your music ear.

Rikard
Trumpet and bassoon teacher

[Matt Brown]

I would love tuts....I can play drums, and if anybody needed help in adding percussion of any kind to music I can help, but thats about it

[n3tgraph]

whoooo hold your horses guys!

I don't want to break it to you, but making music is not that easy... IMO.

I am wondering how you will make a tutorial about basslines. I think this is only usefull for people who have some music experience... at least with the basic chords. I'm playing keyboards for 8,5 years now and finally I undrstand how a song REALLY works (and then I'm not talking about the trance / R&B crap from this time).

I could tell you that you can use these notes:
C, D#, F, F#, G, A#, B   (I could have one wrong) in a C, F, G blues scheme... But a lot would say I'm talking out of my ass.

A lot of respect would go to you if you manage to make a nice tutorial, but I think it will be very difficult.

[remixor]

N3t:  If you mean the pentatonic scale (which seems likely), you wouldn't have the F# or the B.  That scale consists of 5 notes; in the key of C, they would be C, D#, F, G, A#.  In blues though other notes are added in all the time, such as the flat five (which would be F# as you mention).  A bassline, however, wouldn't be necessarily built on this scale if you're working within the blues idiom.  Often blues basslines are built by walking up and down in a scalar fasion, or by forming broken chords (ie, playing notes of chords in a given progression in sequence).  Basslines for other forms of music work differently.  The scale you are looking for (and if I gave the wrong example you or someone else can probably correct me ) would be used mainly for the solo/melody which goes on top of the bassline and chords.  One of the tenets of blues is to layer major and minor modes on top of each other, which creates a very distinctive sound.


I also somewhat agree about the inherent difficulty in presenting a "making music primer."  Music composition is an enormously deep subject to which people dedicate entire lifetimes.  However, I don't think there would be any harm in outlining some of the basic compositional techniques of styles commonly used in games, as well as things like basic orchestration (I don't think genres such as reggae and so forth are quite as important).  Also, the technical aspects of how to actually get the music from your mind or paper to a .mid or .mp3 file would certainly be a feasable topic for a tutorial, and a useful one at that.  I'm willing to help in whatever way I can.  Perhaps if a more specific list of subjects is created I can see which ones would make sense for me to provide input.  Good luck

[n3tgraph]

I know remix0r thanks for correcting me

I was talking about improvisation and not basslines.

But what I meant to say was, that when you make a tutorial, it's very diffucult to explain the difference between the song being in 'E' or in 'A minor'

But I think it's worth a shot

[Crash]

I know how to make rock / punk midi songs, but I can't quite get other styles right, mainly cos I don't really know how any instruments apart from guitars and drums are played. So some tuts on stuff like that would be cool.

[SimSaw]

Why are you still posting - start writing it. I would be interested in that. But I even don't know any software for that.

[PeaceMan]

I'd find a tutorial on making midi music useful as I wouldn't have to take songs off the internet to put into games.

[Evil]

I would love to learn to use a programto make music, not making music in genral. Is this what is planned?

[n3tgraph]

learning and understanding music is not to be learned in a one hour tutorial - believe me

but oh well
what am I nagging about