So, I understand this may seem like a dumb question but I will ask it anyway. Does house and most edm follow normal chord progression. For example if the melody is in A minor would my bass and other harmony's and synths be playing chord progressions of the A minor i.e 1-4-5 etc?
I know music theory fairly well, but am kind of confused on how to structure my tracks with melody's harmony's etc.
It depends.....
Some house music will sit in one or two chords the whole time and make use of pitch bending to make a melody. I am thinking mostly of Fidget here. Some of the nu-jazz house producers have very complicated chord progressions. Electro seems to generally follow very simple rules, you almost never hear complicated chords in electro.
Standard western music theory is still applicable to EDM. The main thing to remember is that synths produce very very rich harmonic content over their tones and really rich sounds make for very bad harmonies, 5ths seem to work sometimes, 4ths can work but shouldn't be over done, 3rds are a little better that 4s but not as good as 5ths. I would pretty much avoid 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, ect for this reason. It is the same reason you never hear jazz guitarists playing with heavy distortion, all that sound makes the tones hard to pick out.
Well, not sure if this is going to help, but you could just make up your own progressions and harmonies?
To start, pick a progression (if you have one in mind) and just put instruments on the different parts of the chords and see how it sounds. Then switch up the instruments. Then switch up the actual notes. Pretty much just play around till you get something you like I guess? That's what I do sometimes
music theory still applies but it's dance music, man, if it makes 'em dance and it sounds good, it's good.
How many guys like Afrojack, Luke, Samson, ect. do you guys think actually know chord progressions (like the op) and theory and what not? I think music can definitely be taught/learned through theory. BUT, when it comes to talent you either have it or you don't. And if you have the talent, I don't think you necessarily need theory.
No, there's no equivalent of the blues riff for EDM.
If afrojack would just stop producing music I think the world would be a better place
dooooOOOOOODOO DOO DOO DOO DO dooooWEEEWEE WEE WEE DOOO
I fully agree with this statement.Originally Posted by Hygro
I made lot's of hip-hop in the past years and making House I found myself being able to add more ''random'' noises or melodies to the tracks to make it ''pop'' a little more. Basically creating a dance atmosphere.
If you know your music, It should be obvious when something does not sit right in the song like in any genre and style of music. Fix it and try again.
There are "standard" lead/chord sequences though. "We Found Love" uses a really old 90's piano riff sequence, and tonnes of Trance producers rely on it.
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