THE ABLETON COOKBOOK

Let me get technical with you:

Most music has a whole bunch of crap going on simultaneously.

Think about it. Even the most mickey-mouse, basic music has at least two melodies going at the same time, a drum beat, a bassline and some chords. It’s a mess.

And the human ear, as we’ve discussed in the past, is an idiot. It is difficult for us to hear all of these elements simultaneously, so we find it more enjoyable if one element is foregrounded in some way. Thus, we have to find ways to emphasize the most important element of an arrangement at any given time.

Haven’t thought about what part of the track is the most important yet? Haven’t figured out if that lead is supposed to be on top of the arp, or vice versa? Now would be the time to think about that.

Confession time. I love The-Dream. I really do. I love him because he is a master arranger.

Think about it, do his songs ever have “cool sounds”? No. “Interesting effects”? No. He basically uses what appear to be the presets on a Triton and still makes great jams that transcend pop&B gym-music (I call that stuff “gym-music” because that’s the only place that I hear it).

One of my favorites is his song Rockin That Thang, where he uses emphasis to guide your ear towards the most important part of the song at different points.

Rockin That Thang – The-Dream

The first, and probably most obvious way to add emphasis to a song is with volume. Since, like I said, our ears lack subtlety, we’ll gravitate towards the loudest element of a song. This means that, if you’d like a song element to have some presence and to figure into the listener’s profile of the track, you have to allow it some time when it is the most prominent sound. You can hear this at the beginning of Rock That Thang

The-Dream has an accompanying melodic element that he introduces during this intro. Coincidentally, it is basically the same notes as the chorus, something that we will discuss next post. Since he starts this element before the melody comes in, it is foregrounded and can play, quietly, through the rest of the song and mirror the melody. You can see here that the emphasized element doesn’t have to be loud, it just has to be “the loudest.”

The-Dream also emphasizes certain portions of the melody using two different techniques: volume and harmony.

In this little portion, The-Dream cuts out the other elements (accompanying melody, bass, drums) in order to let the vocals stand alone. This makes it the loudest, giving it the emphasis. He also doubles this melody with other, simultaneous vocals which sing different notes but in the same rhythm. This method of sudden harmonic doubling calls attention to the melody and makes it stick out from the rest of the track, which in turn highlights the drop back into the pre-chorus. Pretty awesome, huh!

I hope that this post has made you like The-Dream a little more. Let me know if it worked in the comments!

The title of this post might be a little grandiose, but it’s (somewhat) true. Last post, I made reference to a cheat sheet that I had dreamed up for yall and I neglected to explain how to use it!

What a jerk I am.

So, I thought I’d clue you in about how to use this nifty resource. The cheat sheet consists of three different sections: Keys, Chords and Chord Construction.

HERE’S THE LINK

Key

Click to Biggify

The columns of this section correspond to different notes of the scale, the rows correspond to different keys. All the black boxes represents notes that sound good in that key. So, if you’ve got a song in the key of D, you find D in the leftmost column and you check that row to see what notes will go well together. This series of notes that sound good together is called a scale.

F#? Yes. A#? Hell no. Pretty nifty, right?

Of course, you can do the opposite, as I’ve done in the last post, and figure out what key a melodic phrase is in by finding what key contains those notes. I like to do this when I just have a few notes in an idea.

Example: I hum a simple melody into my iPhone while in the car, let’s say A, G and F#. When I get home, I see which key contains those notes. Turns out it’s a few. From there I can get ideas about which key to use and which chords to use and, finally, where to put my Grammy when I write my next song for Travis Tritt (just kidding [the cheat sheet can’t give interior decorating advice]).

BONUS POINTS: Pick a row and play the notes corresponding to the black boxes, left to right. Make sure to start on the box/note that corresponds to the key. So, if you’re playing the notes of the D row, start with D (duh?). Now, play the same notes, but start 2 black boxes to the left. In the key of D, start with B. You should get a B minor scale. Thank me later.

Chords

Click to Biggify

As go the notes, so go the chords. Every key has a set of chords that goes with it whose roots correspond with the notes of the chords. A root is the note that a chord is named after and, usually, is the lowest note in the chord (D major’s root is, you guessed it, D [you’re so smart, I should tell you that more]).

The root is the easy part. The hard part is knowing whether each chord is a major or a minor chord or a diminished chord. The chart includes not only the root notes, but also whether each chord is a Major (M, Green), Minor (m, Red) or Diminished (dim, Blue). It should be said that, in a pinch, a minor chord can take the place of a diminished chord. We’re learning so much!

Chord Construction

Click to Biggify

Now, you know what notes and chords to use with each key, but how on God’s green earth do you make a C# minor chord in Ableton?

No problemo, compadre.

The EZ Chord Construction area of the cheat sheet shows you how to make the three major chord types: Major, Minor and Diminished. Each row corresponds to the rows of Ableton’s piano roll. Now, all you have to do, is find the right root and then do a little counting. How to count will be covered in a different cheat sheet.

And if you are interested in learning more about music theory, why not sign up for the Ableton Cookbook Live Course? There’s a module just about music theory and its application in Ableton Live!

I hope that this comes in handy! Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions.

We continue today with our series, How To Remix With Ableton. Today we’re going to discuss how to figure out the key of a song by looking at the notes in the melody.

I’m assuming a worst-case scenario here: that you found an acapella on the ground (metaphorical ground) and that you have no idea of the key of the original. But even if you always get all of your clips nicely labeled and warped, this exercise will benefit you greatly!

Once you know the key of a song, you will be able to predict with much greater accuracy the notes that will fit. It will make much easier to make chord changes and write harmony lines, not to mention my favorite part: basslines. Basically, keys are the best.

Of course, this requires some music theory learnin’ that may take you some time to, erm, learn. For those of you who’ve already signed up for the Live Course, we’ll cover this stuff in depth. For everyone else, I’ve made up a handy dandy cheatsheet that includes all of the note, key and chord information that you’ll need for this and the next post. Thank me in your Grammy speech.

NOTE, KEY AND CHORD CHEAT SHEET

So, watch this video and see how I figure out the key of this acapella and next post we’ll talk about how to build new chord changes around this vocal track!

Text below the video

[...]

When I was studying jazz bass, I had a teacher named Cristoph who gave me a homework assignment that I never forgot. And I’m convinced that it was responsible for the most important musical skill I’ve ever learned.

All he asked me to do each week was to transcribe 32 bars of the bassline to a jazz song of my choosing. I had my doubts about this process. “I want to learn to play the bass, not to listen to the bass,” I thought as I loaded up my bass into my car after my first lesson, after not having played a single note.

When I showed up the next week, I played through the section of On Green Dolphin Street that I had transcribed. Christoph pointed out mistakes and suggested taking things up and down an octave. Once I was done, he asked me tell him the chord changes based on the bassline. After a few missteps, I was able to identify the chord changes and after that, I was able to improvise my own bassline for the same song!

Ahmad Jamal-On Green Dolphin Street

Most people think of ear training, the ability to reverse engineer a song from listening to it, as something that you are either born with or not. I am here to tell you that this is definitely not true. I went into Cristoph’s lessons with no better ears than anyone else and I still, to this day, I can fairly quickly pick out a melody that I hear on the radio or in someone else’s track. Of any real musical skill, I have to say that this is the most crucial (for me) and also the most irreplaceable with technology.

Good ear training allows me to listen to a sound or track that inspire me and pinpoint the melody and chord changes EXACTLY. It also lets me go from a line that I hummed into my iPhone while driving to a finished melody in Ableton with a minimum amount of fuss. It’s basically the most important thing in the world, ever (hyperbole alert).

Basic Ear Training

Here are a few ideas to get you started with your ear training. You can start right now even if you have no idea about scales, chords, etc.

1) Put Your Instrument Away. The most important thing that I learned is that you have to sing or at least hum. I am no brain genius, but there is something about the process of listening to something, humming it and, only then, trying to play it on a keyboard, guitar, etc. Part of this, I’m sure, is that singing or humming makes you isolate the different melodic phrases in a piece of music. While we experience music all at once (polyphonically), we can only sing one note at a time (monophonically). I also think that melodic phrases are easier to retain if you sing them. My opinion is that this is because of magic.

2) Switch Parts. It is probably more important for you to transcribe (or at least play) multiple different “parts” within the same 30 seconds than it is to try to play back an entire song. So, once you’ve got the melody down, try the bassline. This will do two things for you. It will make you appreciate the complexity of any piece of music, no matter how Lady Gaga-esque. It will also give you more information for number 3.

3) Learn Music Theory. Or at least the basics of chords and scales. In reality, this whole process of reverse engineering a song, is more of a process of deduction than anything. And the more you learn about Music Theory, the more you’ll realize that in, most musical situations, there are really only 4 options. Once you know some Music Theory, how a song is put together starts to resemble chess. From the outside, the options look infinite, but they are actually very finite. If you don’t want to lose, that is.

Do any of you have any experience transcibing music or doing ear training? Let me know if ye olde comments!

I’ve had a few questions come hurtling at me through the intertubes about something called “3 Time.” What is this mythical beast and what in the sam hell does all this music theory have to do with producing in Ableton?

To be honest, there is no such as thing as “3 Time.” What this name refers to is a group of time signatures that have, as their base, groups of 3. Most time signatures have 2, or a multiple of 2, as their base.

Usually, when people are interested in incorporating 3 Time in their music, they are referring to one of 3 things: 3/4, 6/8 or the use of triplets. They are each a little different, but share the fact that they incorporate mulitples of 3, as opposed to the more common multiple of 2. Confused yet? GREAT!

3/4 Time

3/4 time or three-quarter time is characterized by the fact that each bar has three quarter notes. If you change the time signature of a clip in Ableton, you’ll notice the difference on the time grid of the piano roll.

This is all fine and dandy, but what does this mean for you? Well, almost as important as the number of quarter notes in a bar is where the stress falls in a bar. While almost no one mentions this when discussing time signatures, the reality is that the conventional stress placement is what makes certain time signatures sound like “themselves.” The most characteristic stresses in contemporary music is the stress on the 2 and 4 (also referred to as a backbeat).

In a bar of ¾, the stress falls, weirdly enough, on beats 3 and 4. I illustrate this in the above video, where the stresses are shown with either snares or sidesticks. Listening to this, one can hear the “waltz” quality that the beat takes on. This time signature lends itself to either 1) plodding, downbeat-heavy music or 2) lilting, delicate music. Since there is not that much room between the stressed beats, there is not much room for upbeats or syncopation (think of the upbeat hi-hats that characterize many dance beats).

6/8 Time

6/8 is the total package. This is because, while it has a base of 3 (usually manifesting itself in the eighth notes in the hi-hat, as in the above video), it can also have a backbeat. This is because it is possible to have a kick on the 1 and a snare hit on the 4th 8th note in the bar. This gives the time signture a familiar “kick-snare” feel. For this reason, 6/8 tends to be the most palatable of “3 Time.”

Listen to the example in the above video and you can hear how the three pattern is held in the hi-hat, but that the kick-snare pattern is basically the same as a 4/4 beat (the time signature that we spend most of our time in).

Triplets

So, where do triplets fit into this scheme? The main difference is that, while the above time signatures form the basis of a beat, triplets are usually used as a form of variation. A true triplet is experienced as a somewhat unexpected deviation in an otherwise conventional 4/4 beat. This creates a tension that can give rise to some really rad “swing” effects, as well as some cool, surprising fills. In fact, what we refer to as “swing” is often somewhere between a true triplet and a new time signature like 6/8. EVERYTHING in a 6/8 beat is using a base of 3, so it is not surprising.

Think about it this way: When Björk dressed like a weirdo, it was surprising and refreshing. Now, it’s 2012 and every mediocre pop star dresses in meat dresses and crazy clothes, so what was once surprising is now formulaic and stale. Björk’s swan dress was a triplet, Nicki Minaj’s pink wig is 6/8.

Holy metaphor, Batman.

Now, substantially, you can accomplish the exact same things using either 6/8 (or it’s bigger brother 12/8) and triplets. It is mostly a matter of how often you want to change the beat grid, haha.

P.S. If you are interested in getting more useful electronic music theory learnin’, why not check out the Ableton Cookbook Live Course? It has a whole module dedicated to Music Theory! Plus, you get a 25% discount for being an email list subscriber! Holy discount!

One of the most important chord changes you will ever learn is called the V-I (the five-one). Why not call it something cool like the “zinger”? Why refer to it with numbers? The reason is that chord changes aren’t based on actual notes, but on the intervals between these notes. This is good news, because it means that, once you’ve learned this chord change, you can use it with any notes, in any key. Pretty neat, huh?

The Basic V-I Chord Change

The numbers in a chord change refer to the notes in a major scale. This means that a “V-I” is a change from a chord based on the fifth note of the major scale to a chord based on the first note in the major scale. So, let’s review the notes of the C major scale.

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

Thus, a V-I chord change will go from a G to a C chord.

Go ahead and play these a few times. Sound good, right? Sounds familiar.

What is lacking, though, is a strong resolution. What this means is that, when you are playing that G, you don’t really feel like you HAVE to move to a C. You could stay or you could go. It’s kind of “meh.”

Add Some Resolution

When we refer to the resolution of a chord change, we are referring to a release of tension. If these is tension, or a small dissonance, in a particular chord, the Western ear (I have no idea how this works in Gamelan music or Middle-Eastern music) wants the dissonance to go away. And this play of tension and release gives you stronger, more satisfying chord changes.

So, how do you add more tension to your chords and thus, make your resolutions more satisfying? Sevenths.

While the backbone of a chord is a triad, there is another optional note that is called a seventh. It is, guess what, the seventh note in the scale. You probably noticed by now that you can form a chord simply by simultaneoulsy playing every other note of the scale. What could be easier to remember!?

Try playing the V-I change again with the sevenths included, G (G+B+D+F) and then C (C+D+E+G+B). Do you feel the difference? The C chord now sounds necessary. Now we have a resolution!

What do you think of the V-I with the seventh? Too standard, too “jazzy” or just right?

Timing is everything…in life and in electronic music. That is why I decided, in this video, to take a moment and explain how time signatures work in Ableton Live. I tried to make this explanation as quick and painless as humanly possible, since the subject gets pretty hairy pretty quickly.

In order to do this, I corralled all of my meager powerpoint abilities in lieu of a normal screencast. Please don’t laugh!

First I explain what a time signature even is and why it is important to electronic music.

Then, I explain how time is kept in Ableton and how this relates to the interface.

While this seems prosaic, it is extremely important. It will help you a long ways towards understanding many things, such as the many effects that sync with Ableton’s time signature, follow actions and, of course, the length of Clips.

I hope you like this presentation, since I included a couple of them in my new Clip module. Let me know what you think in the comments! Try to keep the cuss words to a minimum. This is a family joint, haha.

P.S. If you’d like to be notified as soon as the Clip module is available, make sure to sign up for the email list!

HERE

I see a lot of posts around the interwebs about how to create a techno bassline, or how to create a dubstep bassline, or how to create a rockabilly bassline. But could it be that there are a few rules that underpin all successful basslines?

Good news: there are.

In these videos (divided into 2 for your viewing pleasure), I will explain how to use the music theory from our last few posts to create a bassline that is unstoppable.

The first video deals with deciding which notes to play and the second video shows a cool trick for deciding when to play them. Check ‘em out!

When deciding which notes to play in your bassline, I would recommend that you stick to the notes of the triad. These are a can’t miss way to make a bassline that is dead-on, keywise. The first choice would be to start with the root note, but you can get fancy and start with another tone if you’d like. After you’ve assembled some notes that sound good, you can add some passing tones, taken from the scales that we wrote about in our last music theory post. You did read that, didn’t you?

When figuring out the rhythm of your bassline, it pays to pay attention to the kick drum pattern. This is the rhythm that plays the biggest role in determining whether your bassline is good or not. To get this right, I would recommend copy and pasting the kick pattern from the MIDI clip on your Drum Rack into a MIDI clip that plays your bassline. This way, you can have the rhythm of the kick right in your bassline clip, as a reference.

If you are interested in learning more about Music Theory, especially as it applies to producing Electronic Music, sign up for the Ableton Cookbook Live Course. Email list members get a 25% discount!

Click Here to Check it Out

So, a chord is a group of notes played simultaneously.

A triad is the three defining notes of a chord. A triad is what sets that chord apart from all the other chords in the universe.

So, what are these scale things that I keep hearing about?

A scale is a group of notes played in series. Every chord has a corresponding scale. Knowing which scales go with which chords will allow you to think of new melodies and basslines to go with any given chord. Let’s talk about the scale that accompanies the major triad.

[...]

The human ear is kind of gullible. Suggest something to it and it goes off and jumps to all kinds of conclusions.

A perfect example of this is the chord. Now, a chord can be any old group of notes, but the most common number is three and these three fundamental notes are usually referred to as a “triad” (not the Chinese gang). We’ll discuss these three little guys in a second.

The real purpose of a chord is to provide your ear with a suggestion, from which it will infer a complete scale, key, everything. Just one triad will imply which melody notes will fit and which basslines will be satisfying or not. I’m sure that all of you have heard about how an iceberg is 90% below water, the remaining 10% being above water. A really good way to think about this is that the triad is the tip of an iceberg, suggesting all of the possible notes combinations that go with it, far above and beyond the three notes played. Pretty useful, huh?

So how does one make a triad? Well, certainly not just by clanging three random notes at the same time, although that works from time to time.

I’ll explain how to assemble a triad in this video. The text version is below, as well.

[...]