swagpipes
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under a rock

The biggest thing that has gotten in the way for me trying to compose with my instrument is that I don't understand music theory. My instrument doesn't use music theory, but you need a grasp of it to write with it. I don't understand beats in a bar and all that, and how all of it works. I can read sheet music no problem, but if someone asks me how to explain why something sounds the way it does, I wouldn't be able to. And that's again in part because of the sheet music for my instrument being read differently from sheet music for other instruments.

Could someone give me a guide for music theory as it relates to composition, specifically for 2/4, 6/8, and common time? I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

license
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Warshington

What's your instrument? I don't know much theory at all (intervals and major/minor triads, that's about it) and I just wing it.

swagpipes
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under a rock
license wrote:

What's your instrument? I don't know much theory at all (intervals and major/minor triads, that's about it) and I just wing it.

Bagpipes. I just need to know how to know when to switch bars pretty much, I have no idea how to get it from my head onto paper.

I don't know what intervals and major/minor triads are.

Last edited by swagpipes (January 6, 2016 3:12 pm)

torgruva
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Hopefully musictheory.net is what you're looking for to lear the basics of music theory.. there's also an iOS app. Has quick rundowns of theory, with exercises and some helpful tools thrown in.

Sir Bunting
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Orlando, FL

I'll dump what I can here. Hopefully it makes some sense.

2/4 time means each measure contains two quarter notes.
6/8 time means each measure contains six eighth notes.



To my knowledge, bagpipes cannot play chords. However, each "bar" should mainly use notes from a chord, one chord at a time, and certain chords move into other chords more naturally than others. That is why there are categories for the chords: "tonic" "tonic extension" "sub dominant" "dominant" to help get the order right.

"Tonic" contains: I
"Tonic extension" contains: III
"Sub-domianant" contains: II and IV and VI
"Dominant" contains: V and VII

pick one or more from each list and move down the lists, but you cannot move one chord value down; like III into II is wrong, and VII into VI is wrong.
Some examples are I - III - IV - VII or I - II - IV - V
You can also skip a category, usually tonic extension. You can skip sub dominant. Don't skip tonic or dominant - they are the foundation for music to work.
Some more examples are I - IV - V - or I - V - I - VII

A chord contains three or more notes. Begin on the note of the scale that the Roman numeral says (like the first note for I, the second note for II), then choose every other note in the scale to build up. Like C would have C E G, because you skip D and F.

Do this for all seven chords of your scale to figure out which notes are in them.


Intervals are the number of semitones between two notes, and a semitone is the smallest distance between two notes. For example, C and C# are one semitone apart. The names of the intervals are in this order: m2 (minor second), M2 (major second), m3 (minor third), M3 (Major third), P4 (perfect fourth), P5 (perfect fifth), m6 (minor sixth), M6 (major sixth), m7 (minor seventh), M7 (major seventh)

a triad is a type of chord made up of two "thirds", because the notes in the chord are three or four semitones from each other. A major triad has M3 then m3, while a minor triad has m3 then M3.

Last edited by Sir Bunting (January 12, 2016 6:11 pm)

fc
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Melbourne, Australia

Bagpipes are what are called "drone" instruments - they produce a fundamental pitch that is constant and can move notes above that. OP, I find it very hard to believe you can read music but not understand an interval or rhythm/time division.

When you're talking about "music theory" (blech...) what people generally mean is "harmony": the placing of two or more notes together. There are a bunch of names and functions for the type of harmony known as "common practice" (stemming from the period from Bach to Wagner, and appropriated into Jazz), but what you NEED to know if you know nothing is that there are two or more notes sounding at the same time to produce harmony. Usually three (hence the term triad) or four (a tetrad) notes in a chord. What the notes are doesn't matter for all intents and purposes, but if you want to deal with functional common-practice harmony, then it does - this is where intervals come in. An interval is the distance between two notes, and Brackleforth outlines the basis of all that more than adequately so I won't bother.

You mentioned rhythm/time before. Rhythm is simple the division of musical time into segments. For example, a segment that is ONE bar long in 4/4 time at a crotchet tempo of 60 equates to four seconds of time. Two bars equals eight seconds, and so on. So you can think of that period of TIME as being divided in a tree.

8 Seconds (4/4 time, crotchet = 60)

Divide by two = 2 x 4 second chunks of time

Then you divide each of those chunks of time into a parent rhythmic value (the numerator of the time signature: the top 4 of 4/4), in this case you're dividing each 4 second chunk into four even rhythms - crotchets (or quarter notes - you can look up rhythmic division for terminology somewhere else), giving you four even rhythmic impulses over four seconds, or four "beats" per bar, each worth approximately one second of produced sound.

You can then divide each of those parent "beats" into other, smaller chunks, and so on.

It is important to note two things: 1) that dividing that 8 seconds into 2 lots of 4 was arbitrary, you can divide anything in almost any way you can imagine, all that will change is the duration of the produced rhythm; and 2) the values of things changes depending on the speed (tempo) through which it all moves. If you had a crotchet tempo of 120bpm, then that eight seconds of time would produce twice as many bars of 4/4 once divided.

I hope that helps.

fc
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Melbourne, Australia

In fact, reading back over the thread (and my post) again, it's probably simplest to think like this: music is made up fundamentally of SOUND placed in TIME. Rhythm is a property of TIME. A melody is made by placing different notes in TIME, which is what bagpipes do. Any time you CHANGE a note you're doing so in a rhythm. All the stuff people talk about as "music theory" is just a bunch of paradigms established coming from the European music of the 16-1900s. You do NOT need to know this to compose music.

Sir Bunting
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Orlando, FL

What vinpous says is true - you do not need to learn traditional music theory in order to compose music. It enables you to write in numerous styles, but there are other styles available to you that you may find more accessible.

I recommend looking up a few pentatonic scales, which are scales with five notes instead of the traditional seven. It is very easy to produce consonant harmonies with pentatonic scales. A common one in many countries is C D E G A. Also try C Eb F G Bb for a soft, mellow sound.

EDIT: I forgot that I am working with "even tempered" instrument tuning. Because bagpipes are have a "just tempered" tuning, the pentatonic scales may not work depending on which note you start on. I do know there many scales from India that use a "just tempered" tuning - it is called Carnatic music. A common theme is the drone accompanied by a melody. Perhaps listening to it will provide inspiration and you can simply record yourself.

Last edited by Sir Bunting (January 7, 2016 4:23 am)

fc
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Melbourne, Australia

One addendum to this is that pentatonic scales are based in equal temperament, and it may well be (I don't know) that bagpipes are not equal tempered, so playing/learning most of this stuff on bagpipes may not actually work very well or might get lost in translation. YMMV etc.

Last edited by fc (January 7, 2016 4:02 am)

swagpipes
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under a rock

What do terms like 6/8 and 4/4 actually mean in terms of composing music? When I read music for the pipes, I look at the 6/8 and the 4/4 and I know how it affects the sound of the music in context, but I don't know what it actually means. How does it affect how many notes are in a bar and whatnot?

Devieus
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NL

It literally means what it is. 4/4, or four quarters, means a bar is comprised of four quarter notes, or at least the notes in the bar have to fill up to that number; it can also be filled by eight eighths, because two eights make one quarter and 8/2=4 quarters in the bar.

That's only half the story, 4/x specifically means that the bar has 4 beats, but x/4 means that a beat is a quarter note, so a 4/8 means a bar is made of four eighths, because an eighth is a beat and there's four beats in a bar. Naturally this means 6/8 means that a bar would need six eighths (there's also very little difference between a 3/4 and a 6/8).

By that token it's also possible to compose in 1/1, a bar has one beat, one beat is one whole note; it's uncommon to use it though, because for timekeeping sake it's easier to tap four times with your feet to make a bar as you play.

Finally, you'll possibly come across 5/4, 7/4 and my favorite, 3,5/4 (which some heathens call 7/8 because they claim you can't have fractures in the signature), these mean that there are 5 quarters in a bar, 7 quarters in a bar, and 3,5 quarters in a bar (3 quarters and an eighth) respectively; one example of 7/4 is 1.75 in C major, tap your feet to the beat and you'll notice it isn't 4/4, the bar seems to alternate between 3 beats and 4 beats; an example of 5/4 is the Gorillaz song 5/4, where it alternates between 2 beats and 3 beats

Sir Bunting
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Orlando, FL

Those are called time signatures.

The first number tells you how many beats are in the measure.
The second number is usually 2, 4, 8, or 16. It tells you the which note length to count as a beat. If the number is 4, then a quarter note is the "beat unit".

6/8 means there are 6 eighth notes.
4/4 means there are 4 quarter notes.

This denotes a total value of beat units for your measures, so there are a lot of combinations that add to that total.
Because 6/8 has 6 eighth notes total, a measure might have 3 quarter notes.

Or 1 quarter note and 4 eighth notes. It just needs to add up to the total as described in the time signature. The music will sound stronger if notes fall evenly with the beat units, and if there is a repeating pattern in the rhythm.

A few more examples...

2/4 means there are 2 quarter notes
3/4 means there are 3 quarter notes
9/8 means there are 9 eighth notes
12/16 means there are 12 sixteenth notes

Last edited by Sir Bunting (January 7, 2016 9:16 pm)

orangedrink
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Wisconsin, USA

If you are looking to invest some more time here are some resources that I would recommend, as I am learning music theory from the ground up as well!

Free music theory video lessons:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur

An incredible book/e-book that I purchased and am going through:
http://www.edly.com/mtfpp.html

fc
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Melbourne, Australia

Just a minor addendum to some of the above posts: there is a BIG difference between 6/8 and 3/4. 3/4 has 3x evenly spaced crotchet beats (and is thus a TRIPLE metre), 6/8 has TWO evenly spaced DOTTED CROTCHET beats, making it a DUPLE metre.

You count them like this (the capitals are the emphasis or "down" beat):

3/4 | ONE two three | ONE two three | ONE two three | ...

6/8 | ONE two three FOUR five six | ONE two three FOUR five six | ...

So from that perspective, 3/4 is actually more closely related to 9/8 than to 6/8, because 9/8 has THREE groups of (three) quavers per bar.

9/8 | ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine | ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine | ...

swagpipes
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under a rock

Awesome, thanks everyone! This helps a lot!

Devieus
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NL
vinpous wrote:

Just a minor addendum to some of the above posts: there is a BIG difference between 6/8 and 3/4. 3/4 has 3x evenly spaced crotchet beats (and is thus a TRIPLE metre), 6/8 has TWO evenly spaced DOTTED CROTCHET beats, making it a DUPLE metre.

You count them like this (the capitals are the emphasis or "down" beat):

3/4 | ONE two three | ONE two three | ONE two three | ...

6/8 | ONE two three FOUR five six | ONE two three FOUR five six | ...

So from that perspective, 3/4 is actually more closely related to 9/8 than to 6/8, because 9/8 has THREE groups of (three) quavers per bar.

9/8 | ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine | ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine | ...

That's just a technicality. Imagine splitting the bar in half and pretend it's 3/8, then double the note length and half the tempo, you get 3/4. There might be some arcane reason why things don't work that way, but in practice things tend to fall into place either way. One example of which would be a waltz, where every other bar is tapped differently, but still in 3/4.