Music Theory (Page 2 of 7)

This is wrong. What Protodome gave you is likely a reduction of the chords. These notes could appear at any time in any combination so long as it still feels like one chord is being played.

And here's my background - I'm about to get my degree in music composition and go to gradschool for it. So let me try to break this down since I have a lot of tracker experience as well as jazz composition and arranging experience.

Okay. This is where stuff starts to get wrong. Already. Omitting chord tones from your breakdown of each chord is unfair and shows a lack of care for the original composition (if there was one). If this was straight from, say, a Protodome track, these notes would be present across any of the voices (bass, pads, leads, embellishments and arp flourishes). Not condensed to one fat arp in Milkytracker or whatever. Some of these notes would be merely in passing at first glance, but the emphasis and/or repetition of them establishes that they are indeed part of the chord in a tune. Of course, this is still a chord progression you are wanting to pick apart, not a full easy-to-refer-to song.

As for the last chord, Bb11 (A#11 for those of you in tracker land) functioning as a Fm13/Bb (or A#), that is correct. You actually spelled it out for us. I'm gonna rearrange the pitch classes a bit in your breakdown here.

"(Bb11 is performing the role of an Fm13/Bb)." As said by Protodome in the previous thread.

Okay. Problem number 2. The whole western world is still using scale degrees and the Roman numeral system. It works just fine with trackers too. That's part of why using a transposition macro/effect works. The other part is the interpretation of pitch as interval sizes based on a given note (tonic). It's extremely common in atonal music and some music by living composers in the classical world. When you tried to break down the chord tones you assumed the voicing and intervals between the tones. Roman numerals and lead sheet style chords do not make such assumptions unless it's explicitly spelled, you often have to refer to the notated music itself to see if there's something funny going on. Fearofdark's breakdown in his post is great.

Here you assume that these few scales are the only ones that fit. In jazz, different scales can work with the same chord, acting as a sort of "best fit line", and even when the "line" doesn't quite "fit" you're still able to make a rad pattern across them that is uniquely yours based off of scales you (un)knowingly play. These happy accidents are why some young jazzers get their start, or folks can sit at a piano and slay it from a theory perspective.

Also, as you add notes in jazz, you can twist a chord into something it wasn't originally.
So, to deal with your breakdown above:

C major scale works in a C13 because the lowered 7th (Bb or A# to tracker folks) can easily be used in passing between A and B, or to go Bb -> B -> C. Also, the C major scale works because with C13 you can also omit the Bb/graze past it and rock the A natural minor scale since it shares the same pitch classes as C major. The A is often very present in the C13 in most situations, and if it isn't, throwing it in the bass can make your C13 some sort of Am13(and then some).

If you feel the need to dispute the functionality of pentatonic scales in a this chord, I think I know where the rest of this is going. The A and the D in the pentatonic scale are important because they fill the roles of a 13th (D) and the 3rd (A) in the Fmaj9#11 chord, even though one may naturally omit those notes. This gives extra room for enforcing the F major/aspect of it all, contrary to the raised 11. And that's just for this particular suggested scale.

C major and Bb Lydian work because they embody the pitches from the previous chord and generally stick to the "key" of the chord progression. They only differ from the Bb11's pitch collection by 1 or 2 accidentals. You really put yourself in a corner with saying F pentatonic minor doesn't fit. Tell me, which pitch classes are different? I'll even rearrange them for you.

All of the pitches in the F pentatonic minor scale are present in Bb11, but not all the pitches in the Bb11 chord are present in the F pentatonic minor scale.

Ah. We don't have to discuss this since you botched the understanding of it the first time. There's no great need to dissect this since Fm13 is the implied sort of value, but the chord is just Bb11.

Actually, out of the suggested scales he suggested all work. 14/14, 100% correct. Because he knows what he's talking about. Also, when you said he was 57.14% correct, does that account for every note in every chord versus the scale, or just your reductions? I'm trying to follow here, but every scale he listed works fine for the chord in an applied composition or performance.

Uh it works because the A# and D in the C13 chord are dissonant and somewhat removed from C, the F and A being less dissonant. The Gm7+9 can harmonically contain all of this "non-C" content, so omitting the A because it's whatever, you are left with the Gm7 chord, a dominant. This is why in jazz you see [TONIC PITCH CLASS HERE]13 used as a dominant. It's the easiest substitute - add the 5th if it isn't in the voicing, drop the tonic (which is implied throughout tonal music anyways since everything is measured intervalically from the tonic), and you have a true minor 7 chord.

I couldn't agree more. There are many perspectives to music, many backgrounds. You can't slap a few scales on a chord and say what does or doesn't line up. It's not about that, especially trying to apply classical analysis to jazz. It's not that you can't do it, but that it's not fair to either school of thought. In addition, check your own work. Keys are near-meaningless in tracker music - it's computed like atonal music is - arps are all relative to 0 (base note), sharps are always, flats are omitted, etc. Trying to force tracker format into the foundation for your argument about what scales fit what chord is baseless - it's not in a musical context at all, it's an abstraction or reduction.

Try playing an instrument, even your qwerty keyboard in something like Famitracker or Ableton, and noodle over some chord progressions. You don't have to be a musician to understand this. It's not about BEING a musician or a tracker guy or whatever. Understand that music is based on how things are related to each other. The possibilities for that are almost endless. You don't have to go to music school to figure it out, either. You could buy a toy piano, a busted trumpet, or actively listen to and transcribe music. But comparing scales to chords and trying to win an argument on the internet will not further your knowledge, just hold you back from it.

Gmin7 is G, A#, D, F bro

Then you're going to fail.

The good news is that it's okay to fail. You're asking a question that takes about two years of classes to be taught.

Maybe I should have gone to school to become a jazz doctor.

@spacetownsavior:

Your post at the top of this page was excellent and gave a very succinct and eloquent description of the function of music theory.

@protodome:

Thanks for taking the time to write that post.

I can see that jazz and classical thoughts on the subject are quite distinct.
Your post cleared up a lot of my queries and I think I will return to it in future to review some of the concepts that were outlined there. Dont take this the wrong way but personally I'm not really a big fan of jazz. Thanks for doing all that writing there, much appreciated.

I have one more question for you:

If I wanted my piece of music to be based around C harmonic minor, and wanted to write what was necessary to describe C harmonic minor into the key signature at the start of the sheet music, how would I do so?

My problem is that it has both a D and a D#, and also a G and a G# but as I only have one line each for D and G, if I write the sharp accidentals onto those lines then it indicates that all the Ds and Gs should be D#s and G#s. I'd imagine it probably it requires some flats.

C Harmonic minor - C, D, D#, F, G, G#, B

Homie it's not about whether or not you are a fan of jazz, you gotta understand it has a system that is nearly universally accepted. So work with it. That's what the whole thread has been about.

As for music notation and your other question - you may  use the key signature for C natural minor (3 flats). All pitch classes (note, regardless of octave) are assumed to have an accidental as marked in the key signature unless otherwise marked. So 3 flats - Bb, Eb, and Ab, would be marked. D# and G# are to be read as their enharmonic equivolents to minimize the use of accidentals. However, B natural will need to be compensated for by using an accidental for every instance of it due to the nature of how keysignatures work.

Last edited by MaxDolensky (Apr 25, 2016 10:06 pm)