Music Theory For Electronic Music Producers

Have you ever had musical ideas in your head but didn’t have the knowledge to actually write the music?

The ability to write your own music isn’t as hard as you might think. In this 3 hour course you will discover the fundamentals of music theory and learn how to turn just a few chords and a simple melody into a full track.

This 2 part video not only comes with the knowledge of music theory and how to use it in an actual track, but we also included a section on how to practice these techniques.

Music Theory – What you need to know

If you’re looking to get into music, then you better start learning a bit about notes, chords and scales.

Film Composer Norman Henry Mamey will take you into the world of music theory in Part 1 of this tutorial. He will cover everything you need to know from piano to music theory and how to practice this knowledge so it sticks with you for life. What you will learn:

Introduction To The Piano:

• Basic understanding of white and black keys
• Learn how to sing a note, find it on the keyboard, then build a major or minor triad from there.

Major and Minor Chords

• Notes in the scale
• Modes
• How to build a major or minor chord
• How to write chords and how to build a melody around the chords

Chord Inversions and modes

Building a chord progression can be fun. But at some point you’re going to want to make your chords sound more interesting to the ear.

The way you can do this is with chord inversions. Learn about the importance of inversions and how they are used in some of the most popular songs of our time.

• The different types of inversions and why they sound the way they sound.
• Scales and modes for both major and minor keys

Building a Track from a few simple chords

In part 2 of this video Kid Zero will take the knowledge we gained from part 1 (music theory) and turn a few chords and a simple melody into a full fledged progressive house track.

The TRACK

• Intro
• 2 Breakdown/Build-ups
• 2 Different lead sections
• 2 Drops with variation

The STRUCTURE

• Learn about song structure and why it’s so important
• We are going to talk a bit about the different types of song structure for different styles of music
• How to use song structure to help inspire you in the writing process

How will we use the knowledge in part 1 in part 2?

• We will use the knowledge of major and minor chords to create inversions.
• We will use the 1, 3 and 5 in our chord to create a simple but catchy melody
• We will show you how to use these tools in the actual writing process
• We will also show you how you can take 4 simple chords and expand them over an entire track

The Mix and Master

• We will do a very basic mix as we go and master the track at the end. The focus is about music theory and using it in the writing process

Why is this important?

If you’re going to take your music career seriously, you should probably learn a bit about music.

Why waste your time working hard enough to get in the door with top producers just to get caught not actually knowing anything about music?

• Get the knowledge and the skills you need to work with real pros. Don’t get caught in a session and not knowing what notes are in the C major scale or why major chords sound the way they do.
• Learn about chords and the emotions they evoke. Learn why some sound sad, happy, evil and mysterious and how to identify them in any scale.
• Understand how to use music theory to write any style of music
• Practice makes perfect. Learn how to actually practice what you learn.
• Understand modes and how changing up your mode can make the key of your song more interesting to the listener
• Every second of this tutorial is educational. We try not to waste anytime on anything that isn’t going to strengthen your ability as an artist/writer/producer

What comes with the tutorial?

This tutorial’s main focus is music theory and using a few chords and melodies to create a full length track.

We will be using Massive for all our melodic sounds, but this is not a course on sound design (you can use any synth to apply the knowledge you learn).

With this download you will get the following:

• All massive patches for the melodic instruments
• All drum and FX samples in Audio
• All midi for melodic instruments
• Wav files for both the track mixed and mastered
• The Abelton Live 9 session (only works with 9)