Oh, those beginning bell tones just lead you in and give you a false sense of security...until it all goes sideways around 1:05. Great ambience. Listened to it three times in a row.

I'd say your melodic sense is on point for this track! It all worked well. As far as a starting point for theory, I really like The Musician's Guide to Reading and Writing Music by Dave Stewart. It has a focus on written music, but it goes into a lot of depth as far as chord theory and how things are put together. Bonus: it has a good sense of humor, in a very British way.

For me, learning how chords related to each other in a key and how they were put together was huge for my songwriting. I had melodic ideas before, but finding them was a struggle. Understanding chords made it far less work to get there

Oh, those beginning bell tones just lead you in and give you a false sense of security...until it all goes sideways around 1:05. Great ambience. Listened to it three times in a row. I'd say your melodic sense is on point for this track! It all worked well. As far as a starting point for theory, I really like The Musician's Guide to Reading and Writing Music by Dave Stewart. It has a focus on written music, but it goes into a lot of depth as far as chord theory and how things are put together. Bonus: it has a good sense of humor, in a very British way. For me, learning how chords related to each other in a key and how they were put together was huge for my songwriting. I had melodic ideas before, but finding them was a struggle. Understanding chords made it far less work to get there :)

I think this sounds awesome. From a western functional harmony perspective, there's only really one spicy note in there (right at 1:50)... but in the creepy horror type genres you want lots of minor second intervals (half steps) because they just sound eerie, and you pretty much nailed that. 

I would recommend Andrew Huang's Learn Music Theory in Half an Hour as an absolute beginning staring place.  And for a deeper dive there is a Approaching Music Theory: Melodic Forms and Simple Harmony course from CalArts, available through Coursera if you want a deeper dive.  That course is great because it teaches theory through the context of actually relatable music.  And because it's on Coursera, you can take the whole course for free, you can't do any of the graded assignments or test when you audit a course for free... but you can still get all the lectures and reading materials... which is kind of the thing that matters. 

I think this sounds awesome. From a western functional harmony perspective, there's only really one spicy note in there (right at 1:50)... but in the creepy horror type genres you want lots of minor second intervals (half steps) because they just sound eerie, and you pretty much nailed that. I would recommend Andrew Huang's [url=https://youtu.be/rgaTLrZGlk0?si=hOl9Q_vQwuIFBrND]Learn Music Theory in Half an Hour[/url] as an absolute beginning staring place. And for a deeper dive there is a [url=https://www.coursera.org/learn/melodic-forms-simple-harmony]Approaching Music Theory: Melodic Forms and Simple Harmony[/url] course from CalArts, available through Coursera if you want a deeper dive. That course is great because it teaches theory through the context of actually relatable music. And because it's on Coursera, you can take the whole course for free, you can't do any of the graded assignments or test when you audit a course for free... but you can still get all the lectures and reading materials... which is kind of the thing that matters.

Oh wow, thank you! Also thanks heaps for the book recommendation, I will hunt a copy down.

Thank you, it's kind of funny, that last note (the half step) was the most deliberate of them all - everything else just didn't sound right.
And thank you for those recommendations, that is really cool about the Coursera classes.  Both will help a lot.

[quote=Paisleyfrog]Oh, those beginning bell tones just lead you in and give you a false sense of security...until it all goes sideways around 1:05. Great ambience. Listened to it three times in a row. I'd say your melodic sense is on point for this track! It all worked well. As far as a starting point for theory, I really like The Musician's Guide to Reading and Writing Music by Dave Stewart. It has a focus on written music, but it goes into a lot of depth as far as chord theory and how things are put together. Bonus: it has a good sense of humor, in a very British way. For me, learning how chords related to each other in a key and how they were put together was huge for my songwriting. I had melodic ideas before, but finding them was a struggle. Understanding chords made it far less work to get there :)[/quote] Oh wow, thank you! Also thanks heaps for the book recommendation, I will hunt a copy down. [quote=Napear]I think this sounds awesome. From a western functional harmony perspective, there's only really one spicy note in there (right at 1:50)... but in the creepy horror type genres you want lots of minor second intervals (half steps) because they just sound eerie, and you pretty much nailed that. I would recommend Andrew Huang's [url=https://youtu.be/rgaTLrZGlk0?si=hOl9Q_vQwuIFBrND]Learn Music Theory in Half an Hour[/url] as an absolute beginning staring place. And for a deeper dive there is a [url=https://www.coursera.org/learn/melodic-forms-simple-harmony]Approaching Music Theory: Melodic Forms and Simple Harmony[/url] course from CalArts, available through Coursera if you want a deeper dive. That course is great because it teaches theory through the context of actually relatable music. And because it's on Coursera, you can take the whole course for free, you can't do any of the graded assignments or test when you audit a course for free... but you can still get all the lectures and reading materials... which is kind of the thing that matters. [/quote] Thank you, it's kind of funny, that last note (the half step) was the most deliberate of them all - everything else just didn't sound right. And thank you for those recommendations, that is really cool about the Coursera classes. Both will help a lot.

I might be having deja vu or it's cuz i've been playing Little Nightmares I & II consecutively in the past few weeks but daaang this would fit right in to either of them or even the sequel coming out.  That opening bell theme sets the tone early on but then the bassiness lets us know not to get too comfortable cuz something wicked this way comes... Nice work!

I might be having deja vu or it's cuz i've been playing Little Nightmares I & II consecutively in the past few weeks but daaang this would fit right in to either of them or even the sequel coming out. That opening bell theme sets the tone early on but then the bassiness lets us know not to get too comfortable cuz something wicked this way comes... Nice work!

Quite a lovely mood to this as it's somewhat minimal yet with an element of unease.

Quite a lovely mood to this as it's somewhat minimal yet with an element of unease.

Very cinematic sounding to my ears. Never learned music theory but can say you can learn a lot by playing some notes and noticing which one sounds together. Write them down and your start noticing patterns. That's what I did when I was beginning. True baby stuff There's probably better ways to learn.

Very cinematic sounding to my ears. Never learned music theory but can say you can learn a lot by playing some notes and noticing which one sounds together. Write them down and your start noticing patterns. That's what I did when I was beginning. True baby stuff :P There's probably better ways to learn.