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Hack Music Theory
Canada
Приєднався 10 гру 2012
Taught by multi award-winning college lecturer Ray Harmony, who's made music with multiplatinum Grammy-winning artists. Co-taught by Kate, Ray's protégé and wife. *UPDATE* New tutorials are exclusively available on our website!
How to Write Sweeping Arpeggios
► Free PDF • hackmusictheory.com/album/2639559/sweeping-arpeggios
Do your arpeggios all sound rather similar? It’s a common problem for producers.
Arpeggios are when you play a chord one note at a time, and it’s one of the best techniques for making your progressions more interesting. And while it’s definitely more rare to hear arpeggios than “block” chords in popular music genres, most of the arpeggios you do hear are rather boring. Merely playing chords one note at a time is not a foolproof way of making progressions more creative. If you want better arpeggios, you need to write an internal melody within them. Want even better arpeggios? Write two internal melodies, or maybe even three!
What are we talking about when we talk about “internal melodies”? Well, the melodies need to be formed from notes within the arpeggios, as opposed to writing a melody over the top of them. There’s obviously nothing wrong with doing that, but it will be heard as a separate melody, not as part of the arpeggios.
While there’s an abundance of genius examples of this in classical music, there are sadly not many to be found in popular music genres. If you’re into the rock side of things, Muse has plenty of creative arpeggios. Examples are even rarer on the electronic side of things, though, but DAFT PUNK comes to the rescue with their song “Motherboard” (check out their new “Drumless Edition” of this song, as it’s easier to hear the arpeggios). At 28 seconds into this track, the most beautiful arpeggios begin to sweep up and down. Despite their fast pace (i.e. 1/16 notes), they’re thoroughly calming due to their smooth, sweeping motion. And it’s not just the fast pace that makes their arpeggios so creative, it’s also their choice of notes.
So, inspired by “Motherboard”, here’s our 5-step method for writing sweeping arpeggios, which are guaranteed to stand out from all those boring, clichéd arpeggios. But first… Tea!
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ABOUT
Learn how to make good music in a DAW (digital audio workstation). Taught by Ray Harmony, a multi award-winning college lecturer who's made music with multiplatinum Grammy-winning artists, and his protégé wife, Kate.
CREDITS
© 2024 Revolution Harmony
Footage by Billie Woods
Music by Ray Harmony
Do your arpeggios all sound rather similar? It’s a common problem for producers.
Arpeggios are when you play a chord one note at a time, and it’s one of the best techniques for making your progressions more interesting. And while it’s definitely more rare to hear arpeggios than “block” chords in popular music genres, most of the arpeggios you do hear are rather boring. Merely playing chords one note at a time is not a foolproof way of making progressions more creative. If you want better arpeggios, you need to write an internal melody within them. Want even better arpeggios? Write two internal melodies, or maybe even three!
What are we talking about when we talk about “internal melodies”? Well, the melodies need to be formed from notes within the arpeggios, as opposed to writing a melody over the top of them. There’s obviously nothing wrong with doing that, but it will be heard as a separate melody, not as part of the arpeggios.
While there’s an abundance of genius examples of this in classical music, there are sadly not many to be found in popular music genres. If you’re into the rock side of things, Muse has plenty of creative arpeggios. Examples are even rarer on the electronic side of things, though, but DAFT PUNK comes to the rescue with their song “Motherboard” (check out their new “Drumless Edition” of this song, as it’s easier to hear the arpeggios). At 28 seconds into this track, the most beautiful arpeggios begin to sweep up and down. Despite their fast pace (i.e. 1/16 notes), they’re thoroughly calming due to their smooth, sweeping motion. And it’s not just the fast pace that makes their arpeggios so creative, it’s also their choice of notes.
So, inspired by “Motherboard”, here’s our 5-step method for writing sweeping arpeggios, which are guaranteed to stand out from all those boring, clichéd arpeggios. But first… Tea!
---
ABOUT
Learn how to make good music in a DAW (digital audio workstation). Taught by Ray Harmony, a multi award-winning college lecturer who's made music with multiplatinum Grammy-winning artists, and his protégé wife, Kate.
CREDITS
© 2024 Revolution Harmony
Footage by Billie Woods
Music by Ray Harmony
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Відео
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GOD, I am an ameteaur game dev, and I was having such a bad time even starting with making music for my game because everything sounded the same, and this video came like the saviour I needed ! You guys are a god sent!
Great video from a geat channel! Using the third or the fifth of a chord in the bass, though, does raise the subject of inversions. It’s definitely not a topic that could have been covered in detail in a 7’37” video, but I feel it would have done no harm just to mention it for the record.
Thanx a lot! 👍💚
Hi Kate & Ray! That's something new and I'm going to try it, thank you :)
much obliged for the new upload. wondering if you're good at identifying instrument sounds, even if they are sampled sounds? i'm working on a soundfont using samples from a game, and i have trouble with identifying some of the sounds, because i want to get the samples properly named and organized by categories.
Good show, enjoying it over some coffee now and tea later.
I'm in love. Haven't been here in a while! ❤❤💯
Remove the "how to write" and "s" and then you'll be advertising honestly Edit: they literally just advertised, this is an ad
It's an ad for a FREE PDF, which is an in-depth, step-by-step tutorial that took us two weeks to make. We're working for free, and you're complaining about that? Can you please explain how this offends you?
Also, we've got over 200 FREE video tutorials here on UA-cam. The reason we're focusing on PDF tutorials now, is because there are too many distractions on UA-cam, it's not a good place to learn. Our community has told us that the PDF tutorials we're doing are far better for learning, because they're in-depth, and a lot of people print them out and work through them off-line. Why don't you try our free PDF before complaining about it?
@@HackMusicTheory I'm not exactly offended in the way you may think. The title as of right now is "how to write sweeping arpeggios". The video features _a_ sweeping arpeggio, but the video only contains an ad for where one could find out how to write a sweeping arpeggio. If the video contained a brief and non-descriptive tutorial to give just enough interest to how to make a sweeping arpeggio and then the ad, I'd believe it was a great video. And, I'm not complaining you're doing free work, (because this and the PDF being free is not the problem) the problem is the title implies that you explain how to make a sweeping arpeggio. It does not do that. If you retitled the video to something along the lines of "we've got a free PDF you should check out because you can find out how to make this cool arpeggio", it would be a good video because it would be accurate to the contents of the video.
@@HackMusicTheory I really appreciate your PDF tutorials. Thank you for making them available.
Right
Beautiful work!
► Free PDF • hackmusictheory.com/album/2639559/sweeping-arpeggios
Thank u very much 💯❤️
Thanks this helped a lot!
Which software / website are you using to make your music?
We use www.reaper.fm but there's lots of free Digital Audio Workstation's too, just search UA-cam for best free DAWs :)
I think it's more three issues. Very similar tone, mixing/fx, and songwriting. I think it sounds heavy, but if it's dynamically flat and samey the ear will tune out. You mix guitars tuned to e, in a well arranged song, it will bang! And I use tunings as low as drop e on 8s.
i swear to god i’ve heard that in hotline miami
Hello from belgium, on my way to watch a lot of your videos to improve my composing skills (still no idea what kind of music I make, but I love it)
Aw thanks my friend, I'm so happy to hear you're finding the videos helpful. Really appreciate you being here, and welcome to the Hack Music Theory community! Ray :)
I actually prefer your version. I can listen to the last seconds over and over. It sounds so melancholic...
so would it be a nice strategy to make a melody out of one-note rythm layout instead of making one and cheking it after?
Thank you!!! I find it so hard to make music in GarageBand. I already sort of knew the one-note rule, but I often get into the pitfall of it sounding way too even to be interesting, and sometimes avoiding things I shouldn't like rests or offbeats. I'm thankful for having been recommended such a helpful and straightforward video!
Interesting how Mikael Akerfeldt has the same approach in Opeth’s latest albums :)
the book is insane, it is litterally what i was looking for, a simple yet complete way to understand the therms and what the hell im suppose to look for x) and it is a great introduction, now i can research my shit and i finally understand what was blocking me for now months x) im not even paid to say this lol
im a beginner composer, and your vids help a lot! :)
humans hate predictability, suprise essential in good music
The Djend !
the single note melody is an amazing trick. Definitively Im using it from now on
Our brains get bored if there's too much repetition Minimalism 💀
0:45 since when did bunny walter white and eminem make a baby
Dubstep producer here and this is exactly how I write all of my basslines. Write the drums, lay down the bassline rhythm with a single note, then add variations to the notes. And that’s just the sub, then I’ll chop that midi clip up and start designing different synth patches for different segments of the midi and layering those over the sub.
Man your introduction sentence at 1:26 was just gold!! Loved the quote <3
The melody at the start sounded exactly how keyboard players write them. I heard these turned into lines by AI versions of known singers; I highly recommend this approach to see the staggering contrast between melody lines written by singers for the character of the singer, versus lines formulated by tip-tapping notes from a scale. My advice? Practice these rhythm hacks with your voice with whatever lyrics come to your lips.
T.
This is a great tip!
jesus christ loves you all!
is this why I tap along to the melody?
Thanks
What is the meshuggah song
Funny, I recognised the bassline from the 2013 track Pursuit by Gesaffelstein! Great video and good tips!
this video is sauce. ty
So cool! Thx 🎉😮!!
yoo this shit helps, thank you lots
Thanks! this is very useful, i always use 1/4 note pattern without off note
Djentriffication?
matpats next channel name
Real
It's crazy how this channel is still making videos despite not quite appeasing the algorithm Oh how I appreciate the existence of you two
pumpygt your here too??
i cant even play an instrument why is this in my recommended 💀💀💀 banger video tho
Is this the A-Minor that drake likes? Huh??
woah the outro goes hard
3:35 Aw it's in Drake's favorite key
Thank you soo much for this!!!
yeahh very good men... what is the name of the program whwre you create the music ?
Reaper :) www.reaper.fm
@@HackMusicTheory thanks