Timbre

Timbre is defined as the color or tone quality of something. A guitar, flute and trumpet can all play the same note, but the timbre will sound very different. How does this relate to arranging? Well, not only is arranging about not making things sound disjointed and horrible, it is also about making things sound good and evoking moods. Different instruments can help you do that.

 Now I'm sure you're wondering how can I use this. One effective way this is used is by having melodies(or harmonies) doubled by different instruments. These instruments should have different qualities, so that the overall sound is enhanced.

As an example think of a kick drum and a guitar. The kick drum has a loud, percussive, powerful attack, but not tone to speak of and no sustain. A guitar has sustain and tone, but it's hard to get a lot of power out of a guitar. However when they are playing in unison they create a powerful attack that can rip your head off.

Another common example is doubling a tuba with a bass trombone. The tuba has a kind of "farting" sound that, although it is low doesn't contain a lot of power. The bass trombone has power, but it doesn't have the same low fullness. Combined together however the amount of brown notes will have audiences rushing the toilets. A good example of this recently was "The battle at the wall" during season 4 of game of thrones.

(Great low horn blast at 0:35)

Another common thing to do is to double a sustaining instrument without much attack with something percussive. The percussive insturment helps give the line punch and definition while the other insturment give it tone.

 (Check out the middle section where the guitar, synth, drums and xylophone double the same line)



One final example is the use of talk boxes. The earliest example I know of is Frampton cones alive . However don't be fooled into thinking that this is an old technique that nobody uses anymore. Grammy winners Daft Punk used it all over their last album.

One of the great things abound living in the year 2014 is the fact that you have cheap software synths everywhere and you can experiment endlessly with different timbres. Try combining different types of oscillators and even shifting their octaves until you find a sound that suits you. You can also mix acoustic with electronic elements to come up with all new sounds.

Don't be afraid to experiment with different combinations of instruments. They often lead to new and interesting textures and other times they can be great problem solvers. Often times of you want you melody to be more powerful, doubling it with something more percussive will work. The opposite also holds true. Doubling something with a flute(or another woodwind) will lighten it up. There is a whole world of sound out there for you to experiment with, so play around with different combinations and have fun.

Check out some of my songs and arrangements on the side of this page or at productiontrax and leave a comment below.

Part 1 - Thoughts on Arranging
Part 3 - Rhythmic clarity
Part 4 - Harmonic clarity
Part 5 - Seeing the big picture

Review of Kirk Hunter Diamond Symphony Orchestra

Recently there was/is a sale on most of Kirk Hunter's products. I already own a few, but the sale was so good I couldn't resist. I picked up Diamond which is a complete orchestra including woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion.

   First I'll talk about the sound. The sound of the strings are better than I expected, although as I said before I already have some string samples. The woodwinds are also good although there seems to be a problem with the flute. Everything else sounds good and responds well. One of the reasons I bought this library is because of the piccolo and it doesn't disappoint. The horns sound pretty good, but they are a little aggressive for my taste. Also the library includes reverb. but it isn't baked into the samples, so you can adjust it as needed or take it off completely. This can be good or bad depending on your perspective, but personally I prefer things this way.

  Second, the features. Most of the patches have TEVC programming which gives them the ability to use keyswitches for articulations and adjust certain parameters giving the patches much more flexibility. Unfortunately not all of the patches have updated programming(the bass trombone), but most do which makes them easy to work with.

Overall it's a great value and the fact that it was recorded dry let's you blend it with other libraries without too much trouble. Anyway, check out the short song I wrote with it below. Leave comments and questions below.

 

My music featured on Tunefruit blog

As I mentioned before recently I've been writing stock music for music libraries. One of the sites I've been using is Tunefruit. It's a great site and recently one of my songs was mentioned on their blog. Check it out at http://blog.tunefruit.com/loving-it-weekly-june-16th-playlist-with-guava-tunefruits-stock-music-specialist/ . It's the 1st track under the name Muteki music. I don't know if it was really the number 1 track, but I'm going to assume it is to help keep my self-esteem up. Anyway check it out and tell me what you think.

Common progressions in popular music

I thought I'd go over various chord progressions used in popular music with this post. Chord progressions are one of the fundamental aspects of western music and being familiar with chords and how move in progressions is very important. I know some people are thinking, why learn this or isn't better to just sit down with a keyboard/guitar and mess around until something interesting comes. Of course you can do that, but most of the time when people do that they end up reinventing the wheel needlessly. There is a reason why some chord progressions are popular. They sound good and bring about an emotion in people. A good reason to learn about chord progressions is that they allow you to invoke an emotion in people while still allowing you enough room to express yourself and be creative. For example Bob Marley's "No woman, no cry" and Journey's "Don't stop believing" use the same chord progression, but I doubt anyone would say they sound the same. Anyway, on to the good stuff.

I'm going to use Roman numerals for chords. For example I, ii, iii,IV, V, vi, viidim. In C this would be C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major A minor and B diminished. Uppercase numerals are major chords, lower case are minor and diminished chords are indicated by dim and augmented chords by aug. They might also have 7, 7(#9),sus, ect added to indicate any additions to the basic chord.

The Emotional Girl Chord progression(I-V-vi-IV)

I heard this progression called this once and although I don't agree completely it's as good a name as any. This chord progression is used in hundreds of pop, rock, and folk songs. In the key of C the chords would be C-G-A minor-F. For me the appeal of this progression is that it's a bit emotionally neutral. It can be happy without being too sweet and syrupy or cool without being sad and depressing. It's not as overpowering as some other progressions and can work in a variety of styles without sounding out of place.

The Blues chord progression(I7-IV7-I7-V7-IV7-I7-V7)

There are a million variations of this, but I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with the sound. The great thing about the blues is that it can be used is so many ways. It can be slow and sad or fast and raunchy. There is a whole genre of music based on this chord progression, enough said. This progression is also common in classic rock music. Every musician should know this by heart.

 

The Minor blues chord progression (i-iv-i-VI7-V7-i-V7)

As with the above, there are tons of variations on this progression. This is a sadder darker version of the normal blues progression. If you want something really sad and emotional, try this progression. For extra emotion try this with a  slow 12/8 time signature.

 

The Andalusian chord progression(i-bVII-bVI-V) or (i-bVII-bVI-bVII)
This is used in tons of hard rock songs. This is another minor chord progression, but it's not really that sad IMO, it's more aggressive and sometimes angry. This progression makes me want to walk down the street wearing a jean jacket and sunglasses. Lots of 80s hard rock and metal bands used this and often times instead of full chords they'll just use power chords. Many older songs use this also. It's extremely popular.

 

The Square chord progression (I-IV-V)

I'm calling this the square chord progression because it's old and not very hip. In fact it's a few hundred years old and is the basis for a lot of classical music. Despite it's age you still hear it quite often. It's a classic in a sense, so you'd be wise not to over look it. This is a very upbeat and happy progression that can work in a few different types of music.

 

The Reverse Square progression (V-IV-I)

 This is a little higher on the cool factor. This isn't too popular now, but it's quite common in classic rock. This progression sounds happy without being too sweet and weak sounding. It reminds me a bit of country music and gives this a "down home" sort of feel. Well it least that's what it makes me think of.

I hope that was useful and don't worry there is more to come. I'll be going over more progressions that I hope will help you make better music. As always leave some comments below and if you have an idea or something you want me to answer, feel free to ask.

part 2

New stuff coming soon.

I've been neglecting my YouTube channel a little and admittedly part of it is laziness. However another problem is that recently my tablet and phone both broke and since my wife is in America with my camera I can't record anything. When she returns I should finally be able to make more videos. I'm planning on adding some guitar lessons as well as a few other things. I'm going to try to be more consistent with my content. Also I plan on launching a new channel dedicated to my life in Japan and various things that happen here. Be on the look out for all of that and more. I also have more planned for this blog in the next few weeks, so subscribe to get make sure you don't miss any of the articles that will be coming soon.

Rhythmic arranging

I thought I'd talk about rhythm in this post. Luckily rhythm is much easier to deal with and there are less ways to mess it up, but if you aren't careful it can still happen. One simple thing that can cause problems is flams. If you're a drummer I'm sure you know what a flam is, but if not I'll explain. A flam is when one note(usually percussion) is played quickly before another and with a lower volume. You can check it out below.

On drums this is cool, when it happens by accident with 2 different instruments it's not. The one of the worst places this can happen is between a kick drum and a bass. If your kick drum and bass guitar aren't playing complimentary rhythms, you can get flaming that can sound like mistakes. The bass and kick don't have to play the exact same thing, they shouldn't be fighting each other. Of course this can happen with any instrument, but with instruments it seems to cause more problems for whatever reason. Here is an example.

Here is another one with piano that sounds a bit strange and definitely lacks a groove.

Luckily there are some simple fixes. One thing you can try is having everything play the same rhythm or at least similar rhythms. In this example nothing sounds wrong or out of place and I don't think it would sound terrible in a song. However there are some improvments that could be made to make it groove a bit harder.

 Now listen to the 2nd example. In the 2nd example the kick drum, bass and clavinet are playing similar rhythms, which gives this example more power.

Some people might like the 1st example better, but in certain situations and songs the 2nd idea works better. By having multiple instruments playing at the same time, you give those rhythms power.

Another thing that works well is what I call trading off. What I mean by that is when one instrument is holding a note another plays a lots of notes and vice versa. This is a fundamental arranging trick and you can hear it everywhere from pop to classical music. Here are some examples

Now here is a song I wrote a while back that uses the exact same technique through out.

I hope that gave you some ideas on how to go about putting together rhythms. Most of it is intuitive, but there are some techniques that help when you're at a lost. Also keep in mind that sometimes you might want things to sound chaotic and you can do the opposite of what I've suggested above. Below are some songs I believe are examples of good rhythmic arranging.

Listen to how all the instruments compliment each other and don't fight each other. Listen to the percussion on the left and right sides. Also take note of how at the end of each phrase he sings you can hear a guitar lick, horn stab or a string riff. During the keyboard solo listen to how all the instruments play together to create a powerful rhythm for the keyboard to solo over. This creates an interesting contrast to the light funky feel of the rest of the song.

I've been getting into Kill Paris recently. Here is an example of funkstep/glitch-hop which is simple but effective. If you listen to the bass during the drop it's playing a simple line that is locked in with the kick drum. Later another lead synth part comes in the plays the exact same thing as the bass just higher. On top of all of this notice how the synths drop out when the vocal sample come in which only makes their reappearance seem to hit even harder(which doesn't seem possible). The genius of this song is they found a good rhythm, had all the instruments follow it and then took it away before you got too tired of it. A simple idea, but when it comes together like this you can turn it into a whiplash inducing groove.

Listen to how the bass, kick, piano and guitar all lock in together into the same rhythm. This makes for a powerful arrangement and is present in most hard rock and heavy metal songs.

As always check out some of my songs and arrangements on the side of this page or at productiontrax and leave a comment below. I'll be back with more on arranging in a week or 2.

Part 1 - Thoughts on Arranging
Part 2 - Timbre
Part 4 - Harmonic clarity
Part 5 - Seeing the big picture