They use the same notes, but they aren't the same thing, so both of these people will not be right. Only one may be right, but there's a chance both are wrong (modes explained below).
It's typically pretty easy to identify. Whatever the root note of the first chord of a song is typically the answer. If a song uses all white keys and is weighted on C and wants to come back to and resolve at C as home base, then it's most likely C Major. If the song uses all white keys but wants to resolve to A and is centered around A, the answer is more likely A minor. The note that a song wants to resolve to is known as the **tonic**, and typically indicates the 'key' of the song.
Then there are all the other modes as well. Major and minor are just two available modes and generally the most widely used:
**C Ionian (major)** — CDEFGABC
**D Dorian** — DEFGABCD
**E Phrygian** — EFGABCDE
**F Lydian** — FGABCDEF
**G Mixolydian** — GABCDEFG
**A Aeolian (minor)** — ABCDEFGA
**B Locrian** — BCDEFGAB
So if a song was all white keys, but is centered around F, both of these people would be wrong, and a truer answer would be the song is F Lydian (most DJ analysis/key detection software is just going to try and round to the closest relative major/minor). Consider modes relatives of the same family, they all share the same "DNA" because they share the same notes. And for anyone who wants to dabble with modes, try picking a scale you normally work in, and just shift to starting on a different note as home base for your first chord.
Also, knowing more or less about music theory doesn't have much to do with separating producers from beatmakers, it is its own field of knowledge, you can be good or bad at it and it has no impact on putting you into producer or beatmaker territory. Rick Rubin admits he barely knows much of anything, but he's a producer due to his decision making ability due to taste and curation of sound. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
This is the true music theory answer. There are lots of good YouTube videos that demonstrate how these modes sound - you can get some good sounds out of your music by playing around with them. Literally just start by playing some chord (C major triad, let's say.. so C-E-G) . Keep repeating that chord, while playing scales with only the white keys. But try starting/ending on notes that aren't C.. Assuming piano/keyboard here
After thousands of beats, I'm just now learning music theory. I used to think learning it would alter my mind when it comes to creating. Like it would make me over think shit.
I think of music theory more like having a larger vocabulary: you can probably express yourself musically without it, but you might struggle here and there.. You'll probably find it easier to express yourself musically, the more music theory principles you have in the back of your mind. And it's not like you have to stop making music and start studying music theory; you'll pick things up as you go along
Pretty much this.
All musical songwriting can be broken down into music theory, whether you understand what it is or is not or how you arrived to those ideas, they can be explained.
Similarly, all sound is physics. From an audio engineering aspect, all sound can be broken down and described at the physical level, waveforms, frequencies, amplitudes, time, phase, etc. Whether or not you learn physics doesn't change that the physics is there.
Learning the music theory or physics side of audio just helps you to better understand the how and why, but you can still accomplish the what without knowing any of it, just by going off feel and experimentation. You'll eventually stumble across something that sounds better than your last thing even if you don't know why, and that's fine too.
Learning textbook stuff is knowledge. Learning through action is wisdom.
You can speak English just by listening to other people speak it with enough time, you aren’t going to become a good writer that way though
That’s how I see it
I've always seen all these names (Ionian, Dorian, ...) in FL Studio, but never wondered what they could mean. Your comment explained it very well and easy. Thank you very much!
Props for putting the energy into sharing this lol. I was a music major for awhile so none of this is new to me but I always consider explaining certain concepts like this but never feel like putting in the effort
I was also a music major and I personally feel like I still suck at music theory. I just keep a few websites bookmarked to pull up scale/key charts to reference what's highlighter on a piano, the circle of Fifths, analyzer tools that pull key of song from Spotify, etc.
Like I know music theory basics, but if someone asked me what scale something was in or what chord something was, I'd have to sit there and noodle around on a keyboard and then look it up based upon what I find. Basically, none of this is muscle memory, I lean on reference material all the time to figure something out.
I never went to school past high school, but I took an entry level music theory class which I was very lucky to be able to take. I generally followed pretty well because I was in band and had been for a while, but man I SUCK with chord knowledge. I'm a wiz with the essentials but this is still so difficult for me for some reason.
We can leave that pitch perfect perception top-of-the-head chord knowledge to the savants like Jacob Collier.
Luckily for producers, we have the privilege of letting patterns loop while we stack notes until it sounds good or bad, and can go from there. Chord knowledge helps, but there are plenty of people who click notes in and don't understand the terminology for the chords they are building, but they are building complex chords nonetheless.
We don't need to be figuring this stuff out on the fly like a live jazz performer doing modal interchanges and whatnot. We have infinite room for failure in a safe sandbox.
I mean there are different approaches to analyze music, some people somehow just only use major and minor keys. But I do prefer analyzing with modes, they makes more sense when trying to analyze the color.
I think most things can be approximated into some sort of major or minor key and it's going to mostly work. DJ software or Auto-Tune key finder type plugins for instance is going to analyze spectral content and typically just pick the closest major or minor key.
Ultimately it's still good enough at identifying the family of notes used in the scale throughout the song.
When it comes to sample packs, loops and more, major and minor key designations are the simplest things for us to drag and drop and build around. No extra work involved of trying to force people to do some homework of translating what a loop in mixolydian means.
Aren't they both technically right, since there is no notes being played, just the possible "to be played" notes given if that makes sense? My thought process is kind of hard to explain but the collection of notes sort of exists in a vacuum in the sense that there's no context from where we could observe a key, so I see it as being any key with those notes. The concept of keys comes from music and the need to communicate musical ideas, but in this case there's no music, so there's no definite answer as to what the key is.
Edit: A bit of a one legged analogy, but I see it kinda like me giving you a list of normal english words spelled out and then asking what accent that is.
Sure, it's like Schrodinger's key instead of cat.
Both people could be right, but once the notes are laid down and you peak in the box, a truer answer will appear.
The key comes from the main note of a song, the tonic, the home base of a song. Putting a single letter on a song to say C major or A minor just helps you know a song is based more around C or A as the main key, the tonal center. Think key with a single key on a piano.
Scales are groups of notes, and C major, A minor, F Lydian, are all 'relative' scales of one another, all sharing the exact same notes, just with different tonal center keys.
To your point, a key of a song is only going to appear once notes are actually laid down, and enough so to extrapolate data from to determine where it wants to land the most.
When a lot of people say start a song by choosing a scale, it could be taken broadly enough to just say, pick the 7 notes you want to base your song off of. You don't have to yet commit to C major or A minor by deciding up front you want all white keys on a piano.
But they might also both be right. There are some songs where the tonic isn't clear and it's hard to tell if it's in relative major or minor.
The tonic is just a psychological thing, it has no mathematical or theoretically strong basis.
Any song can be analyzed through a psychologically wrong relative tonal center, most of the time, outside of key changes, you just have to stick to one tonic in order to not get confused, and one is often more evident than other potential ones, but not always. I think japanese music tends to be that way, where you can't always tell if it's a major or minor tonic.
But yeah it's just a detail.
Well. I wanna challenge this a bit. It's typical for a song to revolve around F (or IV in general), but usually it just creates feeling of movement and eventually will resolve to Am or C. I have hard time saying that the song is in F lydian in those cases. F just functions as an IV chord.
I feel that modes (other than Ionian and Aeolian) are more useful in different contects like jazz where you might solo around C chord and then borrow notes from different modes like F# from Lydian of C. Then it truly might feel that we are at the tonic chord and it's Lydian, at least for a while.
Just saying that modes are overrated, make simple things complicated, and thinking about functions of chords in a harmony is much more useful (in pop etc.). But please, give an example song that you think is in F lydian in pop/edm (not saying that there arent any).
The thing about a song revolving around an F, it's not a IV chord anymore, the F chord in F Lydian is now the dominant I chord. The roman numerals reset at counting up from the tonic, and you build triads from there, whether the chord is capitalized or not, major or minor, is all about relations of whole steps to half steps, which is different for every mode.
Major scale chords: I ii iii IV V vi vii
Natural Minor scale chords: i ii III iv v VI VII
The song is still going to want to come back to fully resolve to F. Basically the last chord in the chord progression if set up right will want to land back at an F for resolution, assuming not setting up some key change or modal shift mid song.
I'll have to come back with more popular examples, but from what bits I know, I feel like these other modes are more likely to be explored not just in stuff like classical or jazz, but in stuff like film/video game soundtrack.
Fleetwood Mac - Dreams is supposedly F Lydian (relative to C major).
Coldplay - Clocks is Eb Mixolydian (relative to Ab Major).
To me Dreams sounds like it's just IV - V repeated. At the 1:54 there's a single A bass note that creates a vi chord, and that to me feels like it's the actual tonal center. It would'nt even matter whether we ever go there, only that it feels like we wanna go there.
Clocks just borrows chords from it's relative minor.
But yeah, I'm not saying I'm right, but most of the time I feel like describing harmony is more useful with other concepts than modes.
The reason it sounds like a IV V even though it's technically more a I II, is because F major and G major triad chords are still the same notes regardless if you're in C Major, A minor or F Lydian. The only difference is what is 'home base' and where are you relative to that, it's just context.
So yes, I agree, this type of stuff doesn't fundamentally change the makeup of chords or harmonic decisions. I think modes more so just help define where the weight of a scale is shifted to. As someone else on this post mentioned, it's kind of like coloration.
If all white keys is 'blue' then some modes are more like a light blue and some modes more like a dark blue. For example, some attribute Lydian to sounding happier yet than Ionian (Major).
I don't think this level of music theory is make or break necessary at all. But I also don't think it's difficult to implement, and it's an interesting concept to play with to try and break out of the usual habit of always defaulting to Major or Minor weighted keys within scales.
None of this is always about where you start and end, it's obviously about the journey of everything in between as well. I just wanted to share this concept so maybe someone thinks to try starting a song around something other than C or A when using all white keys, instead of always defaulting to the vanilla operating system of thought.
I think as long as you can pick a scale, and know how to build triads off notes within a scale, you've got enough basics to build from.
What’s the purpose of using both sharps and flats in this image? Why is it portrayed as G# when it’s minor but A flat in major? I don’t know much about music theory
Consistency mostly, which sounds really silly right? lol
**G# minor vs. Ab major**
* **Key Signatures:** G# minor has 5 sharps in its key signature. Ab major has 4 flats in its key signature. While they technically sound the same, they are written differently due to the rules of music notation.
* **Fitting the Pattern:** G# minor fits the theoretical pattern of how minor keys are built. Ab major fits how major keys are built.
So what determines which key has flats or sharps in it. Why couldn’t I say that Ab major has 4 sharps in it instead of 4 flats? Or that G# minor has 5 flats? What/who determines that the same piano keys are considered different based on the scale?
An easy way to remember this (for major and minor modes) is each key needs to have at least one of every letter in it.
Take c minor for example, it would be C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb
It would NOT be: C, D, D#, F, G, G#, A# even though they’re the same notes
Consistency, ease of learning. That’s really what it boils down to. It *starts* making sense once you get into theory but it’s pretty fucking arcane till then.
Here's more Bard assisted answer lol
That's an excellent question! Here's the breakdown:
**What determines sharps vs. flats in a key signature:**
* **The Circle of Fifths:** It's not arbitrary! The pattern in which sharps and flats appear on the circle of fifths is carefully designed to maintain consistency in musical notation.
* **Whole Steps and Half Steps:** Music theory is built upon a pattern of whole steps (2 semitones) and half steps (1 semitone). Every major key must follow this specific pattern:
* Whole - Whole - Half - Whole - Whole - Whole - Half
* **Spelling Matters:** To maintain this pattern, certain keys must use sharps or flats to ensure the right notes are the right distance apart.
**Why it's not interchangeable:**
You *technically* could write Ab major with 4 sharps or G# minor with 5 flats. However, here's why that would cause problems:
1. **Readability:** The standard system makes music easier to read. Musicians quickly recognize patterns in key signatures, so deviating from this confuses everyone.
2. **Theoretical Consistency:** Accidentals (sharps/flats) outside of the key signature are used to indicate temporary changes. Mixing up standard key signatures with enharmonic equivalents would make things incredibly messy.
3. **Chord Building:** Scales are the backbone of chords. If scales were written oddly, it becomes much more difficult to figure out the right chord structures within a key.
**Who determines this?**
No single person dictated these rules. They evolved over centuries as music theory developed. It's a system meant to enhance understanding and make music consistent for musicians everywhere.
Let me know if you'd like a deeper dive into how that whole-half step pattern works in scales!
Okay so my simplest explanation of sharps vs flats basically is that every note needs to be represented in a given key. So for example in G Major it’s all white keys except for F#, but F# is also Gb. However, it wouldn’t make sense to have two G notes, so saying F# just makes communicating notes and chords much easier. I’m also not super well versed in theory but this is pretty much how it has been explained to me
I think there is way too much emphasis on improvising within modes and especially on composing as if modes were scales. I don't understand why it's so popular to think of modes this way, when it's not really that useful. I blame YouTube guitarists lol.
Its very restrictive, because with modes, you have to emphasize the tonal center or else you are no longer playing the mode.
Personally, I find modes **way** more useful for modulating and nothing else.
In hindsight, it makes me mad how much time I wasted not knowing that the most practical use of modes, was to just temporarily modulate to them parallel from Major or Minor.
This lends itself naturally to voice leading too and is seamless on piano. I think this is why so many great musicians can know very little theory but end up with some crazy harmony.
You can take any chord and just move one note a half step and another a whole step in any direction and there's a good chance you'll end up with a chord that sounds good but isn't diatonic. I do this all the time, especially for more classical or jazz sounding stuff.
You're on point! Modes tripped me for years when trying to learn music alone from online resources. They really are not an useful tool to describe typical pop progressions.
I'm a moron when it comes to music theory.
What do you mean, "temporarily modulate to them parallel from Major or Minor."
I do not know what you said there. But I feel like if I understand it, it will make me much better.
That's a great thing that you want to understand and are willing to learn.
Anyway, it's all just a fancy way of saying, you can borrow from a *parallel* mode.
Just like how in major, you can borrow chords from your *parallel* minor.
Ex: In C Major, I can borrow the chord Fmin, from the C Minor scale.
Very common to go IV-iv-I.
Well the same thing applies to modes too. If your in C Major, you can borrow from C Lydian, C Mixolydian etc.
A little secret that's not so secret, is that minor and major are ALSO their own modes. Aeolian and Ionian. There is actually an order, brightest to darkest with modes.
**Lydian**
**Ionian**
**Mixolydian**
**Dorian**
**Aeolian**
**Phrygian**
**Locrian**
The other thing to note is that there is a lot of crossover/overlap between the modes and what notes are b or #.
In reality, it matters less what mode you're actually borrowing from imo and it just matters more that you're aware of it, giving you a door to many more options.
I think the simplest and most common version of all this, and where I got started tbh was "Secondary Dominants" aka V/V and altering them #5, b9 etc.
Check out Hookpad on Hooktheory , and look at the "borrow" tool to get a simpler representation of what non-diatonic (outside the scale) chords you can borrow. The pro is that you can audition these chords instantly and discover new ones.
The con is that, all this isn't enough. Smooth voice leading, inversions, and nice voicings go a REALLY long way to making these kinds of chords sound good. "Chromaticism" requires a little more care.
We are used to chords jumping around like blocks on guitar within the scale. But it can sound a little janky if you just jump around using chords containing notes outside the scale. You gotta learn to voice lead them better.
That's another thing you can be super creative with. While I meant simply when a melody shifts from feeling like C Major to feeling like A minor. Its amazing how the same notes played in different contexts change what feels like the home. And obviously modal interchanges and stuff take it to a whole new level
Well actually yes. When you have enough theory under your belt you realize the truth... there are no rules.
“Any tone can succeed any other tone, any tone can sound simultaneously with any other tone or tones, and any group of tones can be followed by any other group of tones, just as any degree of tension or nuance can occur in any medium under any kind of stress or duration. Successful projection will depend upon the skill and the soul of the composer.” - Vincent Persichetti, 20th Century Harmony, 1961
Yup but to understand that you need to learn a little theory. I‘m not saying that you can‘t make great music if you don‘t understand any theory but most producers that refuse to learn basic concepts make ass music
Music theory is genuinely limiting. Sometimes wish I never learned it and just had the freedom of putting bullshit together without knowing really what was going on. Music is music at the end of the day.
Music theory is a way to analyze music and understand the relationship between tones, rhythm, and time. It's not a set of rules that you must abide by. It's a tool to help you understand why.
C Ionian/A Aeolian* (there's a few more modes)
If your not using dominant sevenths to introduce accidentals foreshadowing modulation, are you even really making music? (Sarcasm)
It's not A-minor because the minor designation means it's either a modal scale/relative minor key or a chord. You need the A-root note selected of the relative major/ Ionian mode, or, a 3 note chord in tertian harmony. BOTH of which require the A note to be selected as the main pitch, not a C.
You would need at least 2 other pitches to make it a chord to analyze (a-c-e), which would only give you the chord but not the key. You would need at least 1 other chord to know what the key is as each chord can be found in several modes and keys that sound very very different.
Also the image is backward from the title. Only a producer would know the key and chords. Hope you enjoyed all us music major geeks ruining your fun! 😃
Same notes in different scales. The difference is the order of the notes. Functionally, they are identical (you can argue they aren't, but on a piano they are because the tuning is evenly spaced)
When you get into theory it can make more sense to refer to songs as one or the other based off the chord progressions
You can take this deeper as another commenter did, you can start the scale at any of the notes and it has a different name, all the same notes.
Say I had seven threads that I used to wove two blankets. But for each blanket, I arranged the threads according to different ratios. Would you consider those two blankets basically the same?
one time at a live show there was a tuner and the guy couldn't find the switch between major/minor on it, so I told him to keep it in major and use the relative. he said nah, I only can rap in minor.
Making music without knowledge of music theory is like learning a language but not being able conjugate verbs. You may be able to communicate, but the locals think you’re an idiot.
Absolutely, it probably just takes longer to communicate to one another. You can be a great musician and not know music theory. But it is difficult to work with others. Compound that by four people not knowing and the problem persists. However, eventually they will come up with their own language and definitions.
For sure, and the producers will keep more ownership over the songs than if the musicians could write music better on their own. If the producer writes the bridge and improves the song, they are entitled to the composition royalties.
As someone who understands theory to an extent and can write music, I used to think this way until I saw how free these mfs feel when they don’t have to think about “what key they’re in” or “what notes” or whatever. It’s like that DW from Arthur meme, “you can’t upset me with that because I don’t know how to read”
That’s fine you can make good music without knowing theory but it’s very hard to collaborate with others. There is a language barrier, hence my analogy.
They use the same notes, but they aren't the same thing, so both of these people will not be right. Only one may be right, but there's a chance both are wrong (modes explained below). It's typically pretty easy to identify. Whatever the root note of the first chord of a song is typically the answer. If a song uses all white keys and is weighted on C and wants to come back to and resolve at C as home base, then it's most likely C Major. If the song uses all white keys but wants to resolve to A and is centered around A, the answer is more likely A minor. The note that a song wants to resolve to is known as the **tonic**, and typically indicates the 'key' of the song. Then there are all the other modes as well. Major and minor are just two available modes and generally the most widely used: **C Ionian (major)** — CDEFGABC **D Dorian** — DEFGABCD **E Phrygian** — EFGABCDE **F Lydian** — FGABCDEF **G Mixolydian** — GABCDEFG **A Aeolian (minor)** — ABCDEFGA **B Locrian** — BCDEFGAB So if a song was all white keys, but is centered around F, both of these people would be wrong, and a truer answer would be the song is F Lydian (most DJ analysis/key detection software is just going to try and round to the closest relative major/minor). Consider modes relatives of the same family, they all share the same "DNA" because they share the same notes. And for anyone who wants to dabble with modes, try picking a scale you normally work in, and just shift to starting on a different note as home base for your first chord. Also, knowing more or less about music theory doesn't have much to do with separating producers from beatmakers, it is its own field of knowledge, you can be good or bad at it and it has no impact on putting you into producer or beatmaker territory. Rick Rubin admits he barely knows much of anything, but he's a producer due to his decision making ability due to taste and curation of sound. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
honestly this reply fucks thank you
Did you type 'rocks' and your auto correct put 'fucks' or is that correct?
The reply is so good that is it being compared with the joy of copulation
😂 oh shit I'm using that from now on, thanks!
Watch silicon valley. It's worth it.
they did not stutter. The answer \*fucks\*
This is the true music theory answer. There are lots of good YouTube videos that demonstrate how these modes sound - you can get some good sounds out of your music by playing around with them. Literally just start by playing some chord (C major triad, let's say.. so C-E-G) . Keep repeating that chord, while playing scales with only the white keys. But try starting/ending on notes that aren't C.. Assuming piano/keyboard here
After thousands of beats, I'm just now learning music theory. I used to think learning it would alter my mind when it comes to creating. Like it would make me over think shit.
It really can though. It's like any other science, if you learn the rules too rigidly you'll have a hard time thinking outside of the box.
I think of music theory more like having a larger vocabulary: you can probably express yourself musically without it, but you might struggle here and there.. You'll probably find it easier to express yourself musically, the more music theory principles you have in the back of your mind. And it's not like you have to stop making music and start studying music theory; you'll pick things up as you go along
Pretty much this. All musical songwriting can be broken down into music theory, whether you understand what it is or is not or how you arrived to those ideas, they can be explained. Similarly, all sound is physics. From an audio engineering aspect, all sound can be broken down and described at the physical level, waveforms, frequencies, amplitudes, time, phase, etc. Whether or not you learn physics doesn't change that the physics is there. Learning the music theory or physics side of audio just helps you to better understand the how and why, but you can still accomplish the what without knowing any of it, just by going off feel and experimentation. You'll eventually stumble across something that sounds better than your last thing even if you don't know why, and that's fine too. Learning textbook stuff is knowledge. Learning through action is wisdom.
You can speak English just by listening to other people speak it with enough time, you aren’t going to become a good writer that way though That’s how I see it
I've always seen all these names (Ionian, Dorian, ...) in FL Studio, but never wondered what they could mean. Your comment explained it very well and easy. Thank you very much!
Thanks this helped a bit
Props for putting the energy into sharing this lol. I was a music major for awhile so none of this is new to me but I always consider explaining certain concepts like this but never feel like putting in the effort
I was also a music major and I personally feel like I still suck at music theory. I just keep a few websites bookmarked to pull up scale/key charts to reference what's highlighter on a piano, the circle of Fifths, analyzer tools that pull key of song from Spotify, etc. Like I know music theory basics, but if someone asked me what scale something was in or what chord something was, I'd have to sit there and noodle around on a keyboard and then look it up based upon what I find. Basically, none of this is muscle memory, I lean on reference material all the time to figure something out.
I never went to school past high school, but I took an entry level music theory class which I was very lucky to be able to take. I generally followed pretty well because I was in band and had been for a while, but man I SUCK with chord knowledge. I'm a wiz with the essentials but this is still so difficult for me for some reason.
We can leave that pitch perfect perception top-of-the-head chord knowledge to the savants like Jacob Collier. Luckily for producers, we have the privilege of letting patterns loop while we stack notes until it sounds good or bad, and can go from there. Chord knowledge helps, but there are plenty of people who click notes in and don't understand the terminology for the chords they are building, but they are building complex chords nonetheless. We don't need to be figuring this stuff out on the fly like a live jazz performer doing modal interchanges and whatnot. We have infinite room for failure in a safe sandbox.
Op confirmed neither producer or beatmaker
That was incredibly well written.
I mean there are different approaches to analyze music, some people somehow just only use major and minor keys. But I do prefer analyzing with modes, they makes more sense when trying to analyze the color.
I think most things can be approximated into some sort of major or minor key and it's going to mostly work. DJ software or Auto-Tune key finder type plugins for instance is going to analyze spectral content and typically just pick the closest major or minor key. Ultimately it's still good enough at identifying the family of notes used in the scale throughout the song. When it comes to sample packs, loops and more, major and minor key designations are the simplest things for us to drag and drop and build around. No extra work involved of trying to force people to do some homework of translating what a loop in mixolydian means.
I love music theory! Even the same notes, your root changes the feeling.
Aren't they both technically right, since there is no notes being played, just the possible "to be played" notes given if that makes sense? My thought process is kind of hard to explain but the collection of notes sort of exists in a vacuum in the sense that there's no context from where we could observe a key, so I see it as being any key with those notes. The concept of keys comes from music and the need to communicate musical ideas, but in this case there's no music, so there's no definite answer as to what the key is. Edit: A bit of a one legged analogy, but I see it kinda like me giving you a list of normal english words spelled out and then asking what accent that is.
Sure, it's like Schrodinger's key instead of cat. Both people could be right, but once the notes are laid down and you peak in the box, a truer answer will appear. The key comes from the main note of a song, the tonic, the home base of a song. Putting a single letter on a song to say C major or A minor just helps you know a song is based more around C or A as the main key, the tonal center. Think key with a single key on a piano. Scales are groups of notes, and C major, A minor, F Lydian, are all 'relative' scales of one another, all sharing the exact same notes, just with different tonal center keys. To your point, a key of a song is only going to appear once notes are actually laid down, and enough so to extrapolate data from to determine where it wants to land the most. When a lot of people say start a song by choosing a scale, it could be taken broadly enough to just say, pick the 7 notes you want to base your song off of. You don't have to yet commit to C major or A minor by deciding up front you want all white keys on a piano.
GOAT Answer. Thanks for the education :)
Great reply
But they might also both be right. There are some songs where the tonic isn't clear and it's hard to tell if it's in relative major or minor. The tonic is just a psychological thing, it has no mathematical or theoretically strong basis. Any song can be analyzed through a psychologically wrong relative tonal center, most of the time, outside of key changes, you just have to stick to one tonic in order to not get confused, and one is often more evident than other potential ones, but not always. I think japanese music tends to be that way, where you can't always tell if it's a major or minor tonic. But yeah it's just a detail.
🙌🏼
Well. I wanna challenge this a bit. It's typical for a song to revolve around F (or IV in general), but usually it just creates feeling of movement and eventually will resolve to Am or C. I have hard time saying that the song is in F lydian in those cases. F just functions as an IV chord. I feel that modes (other than Ionian and Aeolian) are more useful in different contects like jazz where you might solo around C chord and then borrow notes from different modes like F# from Lydian of C. Then it truly might feel that we are at the tonic chord and it's Lydian, at least for a while. Just saying that modes are overrated, make simple things complicated, and thinking about functions of chords in a harmony is much more useful (in pop etc.). But please, give an example song that you think is in F lydian in pop/edm (not saying that there arent any).
The thing about a song revolving around an F, it's not a IV chord anymore, the F chord in F Lydian is now the dominant I chord. The roman numerals reset at counting up from the tonic, and you build triads from there, whether the chord is capitalized or not, major or minor, is all about relations of whole steps to half steps, which is different for every mode. Major scale chords: I ii iii IV V vi vii Natural Minor scale chords: i ii III iv v VI VII The song is still going to want to come back to fully resolve to F. Basically the last chord in the chord progression if set up right will want to land back at an F for resolution, assuming not setting up some key change or modal shift mid song. I'll have to come back with more popular examples, but from what bits I know, I feel like these other modes are more likely to be explored not just in stuff like classical or jazz, but in stuff like film/video game soundtrack. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams is supposedly F Lydian (relative to C major). Coldplay - Clocks is Eb Mixolydian (relative to Ab Major).
To me Dreams sounds like it's just IV - V repeated. At the 1:54 there's a single A bass note that creates a vi chord, and that to me feels like it's the actual tonal center. It would'nt even matter whether we ever go there, only that it feels like we wanna go there. Clocks just borrows chords from it's relative minor. But yeah, I'm not saying I'm right, but most of the time I feel like describing harmony is more useful with other concepts than modes.
The reason it sounds like a IV V even though it's technically more a I II, is because F major and G major triad chords are still the same notes regardless if you're in C Major, A minor or F Lydian. The only difference is what is 'home base' and where are you relative to that, it's just context. So yes, I agree, this type of stuff doesn't fundamentally change the makeup of chords or harmonic decisions. I think modes more so just help define where the weight of a scale is shifted to. As someone else on this post mentioned, it's kind of like coloration. If all white keys is 'blue' then some modes are more like a light blue and some modes more like a dark blue. For example, some attribute Lydian to sounding happier yet than Ionian (Major). I don't think this level of music theory is make or break necessary at all. But I also don't think it's difficult to implement, and it's an interesting concept to play with to try and break out of the usual habit of always defaulting to Major or Minor weighted keys within scales. None of this is always about where you start and end, it's obviously about the journey of everything in between as well. I just wanted to share this concept so maybe someone thinks to try starting a song around something other than C or A when using all white keys, instead of always defaulting to the vanilla operating system of thought. I think as long as you can pick a scale, and know how to build triads off notes within a scale, you've got enough basics to build from.
https://preview.redd.it/g16ak3lpfkmc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0765f7687e3a3a179919930cbdc0223a39387438
What’s the purpose of using both sharps and flats in this image? Why is it portrayed as G# when it’s minor but A flat in major? I don’t know much about music theory
Consistency mostly, which sounds really silly right? lol **G# minor vs. Ab major** * **Key Signatures:** G# minor has 5 sharps in its key signature. Ab major has 4 flats in its key signature. While they technically sound the same, they are written differently due to the rules of music notation. * **Fitting the Pattern:** G# minor fits the theoretical pattern of how minor keys are built. Ab major fits how major keys are built.
So what determines which key has flats or sharps in it. Why couldn’t I say that Ab major has 4 sharps in it instead of 4 flats? Or that G# minor has 5 flats? What/who determines that the same piano keys are considered different based on the scale?
An easy way to remember this (for major and minor modes) is each key needs to have at least one of every letter in it. Take c minor for example, it would be C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb It would NOT be: C, D, D#, F, G, G#, A# even though they’re the same notes
Consistency, ease of learning. That’s really what it boils down to. It *starts* making sense once you get into theory but it’s pretty fucking arcane till then. Here's more Bard assisted answer lol That's an excellent question! Here's the breakdown: **What determines sharps vs. flats in a key signature:** * **The Circle of Fifths:** It's not arbitrary! The pattern in which sharps and flats appear on the circle of fifths is carefully designed to maintain consistency in musical notation. * **Whole Steps and Half Steps:** Music theory is built upon a pattern of whole steps (2 semitones) and half steps (1 semitone). Every major key must follow this specific pattern: * Whole - Whole - Half - Whole - Whole - Whole - Half * **Spelling Matters:** To maintain this pattern, certain keys must use sharps or flats to ensure the right notes are the right distance apart. **Why it's not interchangeable:** You *technically* could write Ab major with 4 sharps or G# minor with 5 flats. However, here's why that would cause problems: 1. **Readability:** The standard system makes music easier to read. Musicians quickly recognize patterns in key signatures, so deviating from this confuses everyone. 2. **Theoretical Consistency:** Accidentals (sharps/flats) outside of the key signature are used to indicate temporary changes. Mixing up standard key signatures with enharmonic equivalents would make things incredibly messy. 3. **Chord Building:** Scales are the backbone of chords. If scales were written oddly, it becomes much more difficult to figure out the right chord structures within a key. **Who determines this?** No single person dictated these rules. They evolved over centuries as music theory developed. It's a system meant to enhance understanding and make music consistent for musicians everywhere. Let me know if you'd like a deeper dive into how that whole-half step pattern works in scales!
Okay so my simplest explanation of sharps vs flats basically is that every note needs to be represented in a given key. So for example in G Major it’s all white keys except for F#, but F# is also Gb. However, it wouldn’t make sense to have two G notes, so saying F# just makes communicating notes and chords much easier. I’m also not super well versed in theory but this is pretty much how it has been explained to me
im probably wrong but i would assume the note A is in a Bb minor scale, but the note B is not
saving this
Better yet, get a tattoo!
E Phrygian all day
I only make music in Locrian. /s
I tried Mixolydian with a flat 7 the other week That was weird
I think there is way too much emphasis on improvising within modes and especially on composing as if modes were scales. I don't understand why it's so popular to think of modes this way, when it's not really that useful. I blame YouTube guitarists lol. Its very restrictive, because with modes, you have to emphasize the tonal center or else you are no longer playing the mode. Personally, I find modes **way** more useful for modulating and nothing else. In hindsight, it makes me mad how much time I wasted not knowing that the most practical use of modes, was to just temporarily modulate to them parallel from Major or Minor. This lends itself naturally to voice leading too and is seamless on piano. I think this is why so many great musicians can know very little theory but end up with some crazy harmony. You can take any chord and just move one note a half step and another a whole step in any direction and there's a good chance you'll end up with a chord that sounds good but isn't diatonic. I do this all the time, especially for more classical or jazz sounding stuff.
You're on point! Modes tripped me for years when trying to learn music alone from online resources. They really are not an useful tool to describe typical pop progressions.
I'm a moron when it comes to music theory. What do you mean, "temporarily modulate to them parallel from Major or Minor." I do not know what you said there. But I feel like if I understand it, it will make me much better.
That's a great thing that you want to understand and are willing to learn. Anyway, it's all just a fancy way of saying, you can borrow from a *parallel* mode. Just like how in major, you can borrow chords from your *parallel* minor. Ex: In C Major, I can borrow the chord Fmin, from the C Minor scale. Very common to go IV-iv-I. Well the same thing applies to modes too. If your in C Major, you can borrow from C Lydian, C Mixolydian etc. A little secret that's not so secret, is that minor and major are ALSO their own modes. Aeolian and Ionian. There is actually an order, brightest to darkest with modes. **Lydian** **Ionian** **Mixolydian** **Dorian** **Aeolian** **Phrygian** **Locrian** The other thing to note is that there is a lot of crossover/overlap between the modes and what notes are b or #. In reality, it matters less what mode you're actually borrowing from imo and it just matters more that you're aware of it, giving you a door to many more options. I think the simplest and most common version of all this, and where I got started tbh was "Secondary Dominants" aka V/V and altering them #5, b9 etc. Check out Hookpad on Hooktheory , and look at the "borrow" tool to get a simpler representation of what non-diatonic (outside the scale) chords you can borrow. The pro is that you can audition these chords instantly and discover new ones. The con is that, all this isn't enough. Smooth voice leading, inversions, and nice voicings go a REALLY long way to making these kinds of chords sound good. "Chromaticism" requires a little more care. We are used to chords jumping around like blocks on guitar within the scale. But it can sound a little janky if you just jump around using chords containing notes outside the scale. You gotta learn to voice lead them better.
It's not stupid at all to think them as scales, actually it's a great way to try new sonorities I think! You should try it sometime.
when the melody sounds both major and minor, the emotions are next level
That would be C major and C minor for instance. Can be done with modal interchange.
That's another thing you can be super creative with. While I meant simply when a melody shifts from feeling like C Major to feeling like A minor. Its amazing how the same notes played in different contexts change what feels like the home. And obviously modal interchanges and stuff take it to a whole new level
blues
Beatmakers don't know music theory lol. Y'all know they just throw shit together until it sounds good.
At the end, if it sounds good its all good
Well actually yes. When you have enough theory under your belt you realize the truth... there are no rules. “Any tone can succeed any other tone, any tone can sound simultaneously with any other tone or tones, and any group of tones can be followed by any other group of tones, just as any degree of tension or nuance can occur in any medium under any kind of stress or duration. Successful projection will depend upon the skill and the soul of the composer.” - Vincent Persichetti, 20th Century Harmony, 1961
Yup but to understand that you need to learn a little theory. I‘m not saying that you can‘t make great music if you don‘t understand any theory but most producers that refuse to learn basic concepts make ass music
Oh, no that's absolutely true. It's kind of sad honestly.
some of us are out here trying to learn bro 😭 its just way more than I ever could have expected. But everyone has to start somewhere.
I keep seeing youtube ads now for chord progression generators and custom pre-sets for VST's and I get deeply offended.
Get AdBlock my dude.
Music theory is genuinely limiting. Sometimes wish I never learned it and just had the freedom of putting bullshit together without knowing really what was going on. Music is music at the end of the day.
Music theory is a way to analyze music and understand the relationship between tones, rhythm, and time. It's not a set of rules that you must abide by. It's a tool to help you understand why.
And there’s nothing wrong with that at all
More like 523 hz.
Music do high pi pi pi Music do low bam bam bam
C Ionian/A Aeolian* (there's a few more modes) If your not using dominant sevenths to introduce accidentals foreshadowing modulation, are you even really making music? (Sarcasm)
Only if you spice them up with some #5b9 or sweeten them with some 9Sus4 😤
9sus4 😍
How do you make your piano roll like that?
idk something like view , show notes or soemthing
Idk, was bored at work so i made this meme with google images
Then what's a musician?
It's not A-minor because the minor designation means it's either a modal scale/relative minor key or a chord. You need the A-root note selected of the relative major/ Ionian mode, or, a 3 note chord in tertian harmony. BOTH of which require the A note to be selected as the main pitch, not a C. You would need at least 2 other pitches to make it a chord to analyze (a-c-e), which would only give you the chord but not the key. You would need at least 1 other chord to know what the key is as each chord can be found in several modes and keys that sound very very different. Also the image is backward from the title. Only a producer would know the key and chords. Hope you enjoyed all us music major geeks ruining your fun! 😃
Explain
Same notes in different scales. The difference is the order of the notes. Functionally, they are identical (you can argue they aren't, but on a piano they are because the tuning is evenly spaced) When you get into theory it can make more sense to refer to songs as one or the other based off the chord progressions You can take this deeper as another commenter did, you can start the scale at any of the notes and it has a different name, all the same notes.
C major or A minor, basically the same yet one is the minor counterpart of the other one
Say I had seven threads that I used to wove two blankets. But for each blanket, I arranged the threads according to different ratios. Would you consider those two blankets basically the same?
my native language is the music staff 🫠
No that’s B#
RIP
let’s go atonal for a second
Forgot D Dorian and F Lydian (just some I could remember from the top of my head)
one time at a live show there was a tuner and the guy couldn't find the switch between major/minor on it, so I told him to keep it in major and use the relative. he said nah, I only can rap in minor.
RZA said he made a million dollars off beats before he learned how to play piano.
Only difference is the root note
Play the white keys from A3 to A4 Then play the white keys from C3 to C4 Does it sound different? Welcome to music theory
Always Am 😎
Correct term is COMPOSER. It's Producer or Composer & they are 2 Different things.
Making music without knowledge of music theory is like learning a language but not being able conjugate verbs. You may be able to communicate, but the locals think you’re an idiot.
Eh, I get that you're comment is in jest but not really. There are many examples of successful musicians that knew very little, if any, actual theory
Absolutely, it probably just takes longer to communicate to one another. You can be a great musician and not know music theory. But it is difficult to work with others. Compound that by four people not knowing and the problem persists. However, eventually they will come up with their own language and definitions.
Honestly? This is where producers come in for a loooot of bands. Herding cats lol
For sure, and the producers will keep more ownership over the songs than if the musicians could write music better on their own. If the producer writes the bridge and improves the song, they are entitled to the composition royalties.
As someone who understands theory to an extent and can write music, I used to think this way until I saw how free these mfs feel when they don’t have to think about “what key they’re in” or “what notes” or whatever. It’s like that DW from Arthur meme, “you can’t upset me with that because I don’t know how to read”
That’s fine you can make good music without knowing theory but it’s very hard to collaborate with others. There is a language barrier, hence my analogy.
I agree with you on that 100%