Do you always look at scales when composing?

[Tomás Mulcahy]

...there is that unknown/undefined dimension in music that means the juxtaposition of notes is a critical component of it, that this note(s) played with other note(s) just sounds 'right'

But it's not unknown. ET is a compromise. It's designed to minimise changes when you change key. It doesn't eliminate them, but it's better than what happens if you stayed with JT.

[BJG145]

I just remembered something called Hermode tuning...have you come across that Tomás...?

http://www.hermode.com/index_en.html

[RichardT]

Well music is an art not a science so it allows flexibility, that said it is the most scientific of the arts, for good reason, it can be a solitary or collective endeavour, so there has to be a universally agreed set of rules which everyone is bound by, otherwise it isn't music, it is noise.

What is beguiling about scales and keys is how the nature of a piece of music can change quite radically if played in another key, and by that I don't mean changing from major to minor, but one major key to another.

Additionally, what I do is I always avoid the 'always' paradox, one day you do this, and another day you do that - do you always not do something always? Seems a bit too restrictive to me, yes music is prescriptive by nature, but the rules are merely the compass we use when on our journey to the finished. Sometimes we might know our destination and sometimes, like Christopher Colombus, just set off and see where we end up

Even transposing a piece one semitone can make a huge difference.

[MOF]

I tend to start composing with a melody that I’ll sing into a recorder or DAW while the ideas are still there.
I don’t worry about what key it’s in, I just work out what chords work best for the supporting instruments and backing voices and don’t even think about if they’re using the scale notes of that key (assuming I did check what key it’s in).

[Tomás Mulcahy]

I just remembered something called Hermode tuning...have you come across that Tomás...?

http://www.hermode.com/index_en.html

I have not. Looks interesting. In return I'll refer you to "Beauty in the Beast" by Wendy Carlos. Incredible experiments in temperament using the Crumar GDS and a couple of Synergy synths. Changing temperament on the fly, and inventing some of her own, while also developing appropriate timbres in FM and additive synthesis. Harmonic harmonies! It's own sound world, nothing like it, I think it is quite beautiful and under-rated.

[adrian_k]

And then there’s the Jacob Collier trick of modulating into a whole new tuning by a quarter tone :

https://youtu.be/HUGoUHKAGAE

[merlyn]

Going down the keys route things get narrowed down pretty quickly.

Take one note. Let's say C. There are five keys C is not in. We've already narrowed it down to seven keys. Now take two notes. The number of keys any two notes can be in depends on the interval. If there is a tone between the two notes, that could be five keys. If the interval is a semitone then we've narrowed it down to two keys.

"Aww, dude, that's like so restrictive," you might say. You could look at it that way, or you could look at it that music theory is extremely easy.

[RichardT]

And then there’s the Jacob Collier trick of modulating into a whole new tuning by a quarter tone :

https://youtu.be/HUGoUHKAGAE

I really wish he wouldn’t - it makes me feel a bit queasy.

[adrian_k]

[ScottNL]

Same as you, FSW. Presently I am always starting from an already developed chord progression.. so I just pick which of the twelve notes I like for each (usually two) section(s). But then I will also check those 'same' notes using the fifth degree of the original scale as the root. And maybe use both sets.

Good topic.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

And then there’s the Jacob Collier trick of modulating into a whole new tuning by a quarter tone :

https://youtu.be/HUGoUHKAGAE

I really wish he wouldn’t - it makes me feel a bit queasy.

Same. He's incredibly clever, a natural musician but this piece sounds clunky to me, compared to Wendy Carlos's work.

Reminds me of doing a string arrangement with the client breathing down my neck. He latched on to doubling things in octaves. When he felt it was too much he'd ask for half an octave We figured it out in the end.

[adrian_k]

When he felt it was too much he'd ask for half an octave

Very good

Is what Collier does there music? Or a clever party trick? Or both. I lean toward it being a party trick.

[OneWorld]

When he felt it was too much he'd ask for half an octave

Very good

Is what Collier does there music? Or a clever party trick? Or both. I lean toward it being a party trick.

I tend to agree. Collier is an eminently competent musician, but there's nothing he plays that sticks with me - I listen, to whatever, and 5 minutes later it's gone and forgotten. I can't ever imagine him doing something like Smokestack Lightnin' by Howlin' Wolf

[tea for two]

Far easier to write stuff play stuff according to styles.

Ground work has already been laid out by famous persons untold persons composing in those styles so there's no need for us to faff about trying to reinvent the wheel.

We just copy them thereafter work out the scales.

This way stuff we do also sounds diverse.

::

I have some favourite scales I try to avoid else everything ends up sounding samey and I start swearing at my self lol for being hopeless.

So I write stuff according to styles this way they end up sounding diverse with different scales.