Big Bonker

sorry for the bonking. this is a sketch that i wrote on piano and in the process of transcribing it into something electronic it became weirder. the basic music theory is that it is based in the A natural minor scale (all the white notes of the keyboard). i can tell i was looking for some crunchy chords in the hypersynth, and that means adding intervals that are a whole-step or half-step into the triads. example: A minor triad (A-C-E) can be made crunchier by adding the minor 2 (A-B-C-E) or the minor 4 (A-C-D-E), but since i also added minor 7 (A-C-E-G) it really ends up being Amin9 (A-C-E-G-B) or Amin11 (A-C-E-G-D, in this case i did A-C-D-E-G). then you just play with the chord inversions which is easy to do in M8 because the first digit of the CRD command just shifts the notes by octaves so you can just play around with it until it sounds cool, and it has the effect of inner-voice leading, so it's not just one static sound.

the second half of the track uses what i would consider a sus chord (suspended), Gmaj7/A (A-G-B-D-F#) which has a kind of ambiguous unresolved quality, and i'm playing that shifted down by half steps, so it goes Gmaj7/A (A-G-B-D-F#), Gbmaj7/Ab (Ab-Gb-Bb-Db-F), Fmaj7/G (G-F-A-C-E). at the end of every two bars it also goes up to Abmaj7/Bb (Bb-Ab-C-Eb-G). as an aside the actual voicings are all inverted (A-D-F#-G-B) which puts the F# and G together to create crunchiness.

shifting the chords around chromatically (when you transpose the notes absolutely, instead of transposing "diatonically" or relatively by scale degrees) has the effect of destabilizing the key center slightly (non-functional harmony) so between the unresolved chords and unresolved key center it creates some harmonic tension. and then i just reused the same melody as the previous section.

hope that provides some insight, but let me know if you have any more questions!

thanks all! [quote=.exe]I have been bonked. I would be interested in hearing any music theory you used in this track if you have any tidbits.[/quote] sorry for the bonking. this is a sketch that i wrote on piano and in the process of transcribing it into something electronic it became weirder. the basic music theory is that it is based in the A natural minor scale (all the white notes of the keyboard). i can tell i was looking for some crunchy chords in the hypersynth, and that means adding intervals that are a whole-step or half-step into the triads. example: A minor triad (A-C-E) can be made crunchier by adding the minor 2 (A-B-C-E) or the minor 4 (A-C-D-E), but since i also added minor 7 (A-C-E-G) it really ends up being Amin9 (A-C-E-G-B) or Amin11 (A-C-E-G-D, in this case i did A-C-D-E-G). then you just play with the chord inversions which is easy to do in M8 because the first digit of the CRD command just shifts the notes by octaves so you can just play around with it until it sounds cool, and it has the effect of inner-voice leading, so it's not just one static sound. the second half of the track uses what i would consider a sus chord (suspended), Gmaj7/A (A-G-B-D-F#) which has a kind of ambiguous unresolved quality, and i'm playing that shifted down by half steps, so it goes Gmaj7/A (A-G-B-D-F#), Gbmaj7/Ab (Ab-Gb-Bb-Db-F), Fmaj7/G (G-F-A-C-E). at the end of every two bars it also goes up to Abmaj7/Bb (Bb-Ab-C-Eb-G). as an aside the actual voicings are all inverted (A-D-F#-G-B) which puts the F# and G together to create crunchiness. shifting the chords around chromatically (when you transpose the notes absolutely, instead of transposing "diatonically" or relatively by scale degrees) has the effect of destabilizing the key center slightly (non-functional harmony) so between the unresolved chords and unresolved key center it creates some harmonic tension. and then i just reused the same melody as the previous section. hope that provides some insight, but let me know if you have any more questions!

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