@9:22 I am so glad I stayed for the wonderful interpretive hand dancing. Ben allows his creativity to take him places that are beautifully unfiltered and human.
Side note: I love the shit you make with Bent Knee. You guys all work so fluidly with each other musically. Individually, you all hold down a unique sound that-- when it comes together-- becomes a beautiful orgy of harmonious music. In other words, keep making good shit.
Thanks! We are on tour starting today until the end of September and then we're back on the road with Dillinger Escape Plan in October. I hope you can make it out! www.BentKneeMusic.com
Love how you go through all the thought process going on in your writing. Can't seem to find many channels that do this. Hope to see more of these soon!
Ben, guitarist here. When I go to bed I usually imagine musical orchestration. I start with a melody and just let the melody go where it wants to go using chromatic notes to allow it to change chords and emotion. At some point I intend to try to record some of these meanderings. This video is similar to what I imagine.
i saw a Guthrie govan video once where he was talking about composing with different methods and one of them was finding chords to build the progression by maintaining 2 or more notes of the previous one, it blew my mind at first and i started messing around with it. basically i was trying to find the tension and the relief of different combinations subconsciously, which is the same principle you followed in this video, also learning some bossa nova tunes i discovered this works great in that genre not sure about whats the point of this comment but as always i enjoyed the video and the visual entertainment cheers
Hi Ben, I just thought I'd drop by and say that I've loved the last 3 videos. Lot's of great insight to more creative methods of composition. I hope we'll see more of your train of thought regarding the subject, keep up the great videos!
I really appreciate that. I have been happy with them as well. I feel like I'm being more myself and "putting it on for UA-cam" less. I'll keep it up as best I can!
Hi. Cool video. Reminds me a little of some concepts in Paul hindemith's book "the craft of musical composition". In this book he classifies chords based on the intervals in the chords and then classifies these categories into different levels of dissonance/consonance. His idea is to come up with a theory to analyze tension/release without relating it back to a particular key. Wondering if you've checked this book out and what your thoughts on it would be.
I always struggle with making music like this - repetitive at it's core, but kept fresh, the formula of repetition being an anchor a welcome weight, keeping you in floating in a set space instead of sinking you into mundane darkness of deep sea.
***** So besically textures? It's supremely hard to achieve different sounds out of the same instrument when you're only hearing midi playback from musescore most of the time, I guess that's a big part of it. I can't wrap my head around electronic artists' techniques either when working with Reaper and vst plugins... I guess I should just pick up more instruments. Thanks for mentioning Nik Bartsch, I have not heard his stuff before, but from what I just found he seems to be making killer stuff.
I'd call it pedal point composing - very cool for looping - recording the pedal note for instance A (pedal meaning a note that sustains over a progression of chords, or indeed is played repeatedly as the chord/interval progression plays) then try playing chords around it - with the focus ben suggests - looking for tension and resolve.
I do many similar experiments and I think it's the key to writing creative, fresh chord progressions and melodies that stand out and not predictable. Good video if you're interested in writing fresh sounding music. Duke Ellington and thelonious were great dissonance writers. Come Sunday by Duke Ellington?(Ken Burns jazz versión)
Maybe someone in the comment section or even Ben himself can answer a point of curiosity that I've been thinking about for a while now... Is it necessary to stick to the appropriate chords that are assigned to each note within a particular scale when composing a song? In other words, how does one know when their chord choices no longer make theoretical sense and when they should consider a more conservative approach? I look at artists like Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan, who have both managed to popularize fairly complex music, and wonder how it is that they were able to transform such harmonically complex ideas into such accessible and enjoyable forms of music. Obviously my lack of knowledge would be impossible to answer in just a few sentences, but I'm wondering if anyone could provide some insight as to how they feel about composing and chord choice in general.
Ben Carney Ben Carney when you're making music you shouldn't really be thinking about what makes "theoretical sense." Instead, make the choices based on what you think sounds good. After all, music theory is basically just a compilation of the experience and trial and error of musicians before you.
Interestingly, there seems to be a trend throughout history where we see humans' ears (or more accurately, our brains) getting more and more accustomed to 'complex' sounds. If I'm not mistaken, the major 3rd was once thought of as a dissonant sounding interval (I think Adam Neely mentioned this in one of his Q&A videos). Sounds that were once thought of as dissonant and unpleasant are now being accepted into our musical vocabulary. Makes you wonder how music would sound like many years in the future.
I don't know much of Steely Dan or Stevie Wonder's tunes but lets take a look at some standard jazz chord progressions. Fly me to the moon is (mostly) diatonic - as in, the chords belong to the same key. Joy Spring's B-section modulates 3? times, setting up the new key with its relative ii-V, but otherwise pretty straight forward. The ii-V-I progression is by the way extremely common in jazz music, and by extension, a lot of "modern" material. All the things you are is pretty funky in that the progression is similar in the different sections, but it is modulated each time. On the far end of functional harmony, Giant steps revolves around several keys a major 3rd apart, by using a heap of secondary dominants and ii-V progressions. Now you might not care for jazz at all and that's fine, but learning about jazz harmony, and different ways to use the different chords can open up a world of possibilities. Writing on my phone I can no longer see the original question, but the way I went about expanding my own harmonic toolbox is reharmonising, typically three- or four-chord songs with a strong melody. Now no one says the melody has to always be chord tones, so try to mix it up. Let's say the melody is the root note of the key - fine, but what if the harmony recontextualised that root note as a b13? So in the key of C, that Cmaj could now be E7#11b13. Probably not a great choice for the first chord in a song, but I think you get the point. Each chord has its leanings, different ways to progress and resolve tension. If you study jazz you will encounter many of these different leanings and contexts in which you can use them.
Kind of "radio-heady". I've tried a couple of similar techniques in search of muse. One that can be interesting is to take a melody you know and instead of playing the normal chords that go along with that melody, keep the melody note on top (or bottom, or ...) but use completely different chords that just happen to share that melody note. Not always musical but it can help you find sounds you would not normally jump to.
I should (finally) get some of the stuff I made about 20 years ago from DAT onto my Mac and share it with you. I think there's some degree of kindred spirit waiting for recognition.
+Ben Levin I'll keep you posted once I get to it :) Expecting my firstborn as well in a few weeks, so it's a period of inspiration (but also pretty busy overall).
Now pick 4 more single notes progressing from the first A note and write a separate chord progression for each and then join them. If a single melody over the top goes somewhere and flows, it will link the strayest sounding transitions and make them seem like they're meant for each other while writing a piece of music noone has heard before. The melody to link all the changing progressions is the hardest part and I don't really hear many vocally melodic catchiness in singers and songwriters anymore. John and Paul could do it to my liking and a few others, but a grain of sand on a beach compared to how many musicians and people holding microphones that can't and never will. Catchy vocal melodies over creative chord progressions. Not many i know of.
i was thinking a similar thing. The trickiest thing is to make things like this work in contexts that *aren't* cinema scores and in more "traditional" song structures/arrangements that have less patience or aesthetic tolerance built in. Few people do both well
Hi Doctor Levin, if you haven't heard of Staffpad check it out I just got it on my tablet it combines writing notation with a stylus and electronic input like Finale or Guitar Pro really cool stuff and great videos :D
The thing I zero in on,having no musical training whatsoever,is does this chord support the lyric or idea it's immediately under. For me,without that "task" a chord is given,a handful of things can work.
Hi Ben, what kind of program you have had used here to make the music on the PC? I see Reaper from Apple, or another one is possible? Thanks for your great films and the way you think about music. grtz Luc(Belgium)
Hi dear Ben , thanks for your reply and information! I am impressed of this vieuw of philosophy about music, thanks! A fan since years! regards from Belgium
Hey Ben, I really enjoy your videos -- there are so many aspects of music that it's easy to forget about, no matter how long you've been studying or writing music. I'm finding so much food for thought in these videos about the creative process. You mentioned in this video that it's not always convenient to write and experiment with music (e.g. if you're on the road, you're in a noisy environment, maybe you don't have an instrument handy). I've had this same thought, and it's led me down the path of creating a text-based music composition programming language to make it easier for me to type out musical ideas and hear them played back. You might be interested in checking it out, if you're into this kind of thing: github.com/alda-lang/alda
ben levin and adam neely are guys i think about when i hear the word musicians 😃
:)
i couldnt agree more......both of them have a really intuitive way of teaching and writing...i love their respective styles
"And now i'm just gonna do hand puppets" lmao
So now let’s watch some sunny bunnies.
the approach to theory was interesting and i'm def going to try it out but the handpuppets really sold me
Godspeed You! Ben Levin
@9:22 I am so glad I stayed for the wonderful interpretive hand dancing. Ben allows his creativity to take him places that are beautifully unfiltered and human.
Absolutely amazing. Musicians like you are what we need.
Side note: I love the shit you make with Bent Knee. You guys all work so fluidly with each other musically. Individually, you all hold down a unique sound that-- when it comes together-- becomes a beautiful orgy of harmonious music.
In other words, keep making good shit.
Thanks! We are on tour starting today until the end of September and then we're back on the road with Dillinger Escape Plan in October. I hope you can make it out! www.BentKneeMusic.com
***** Thanks for the link, mate. I'll be sure to check you guys out in person next time you're in New York.
someone's in a thom yorke mood
Almost always.
I'm not a musician but man this stuff makes me think about how music sticks together, I love this Ben
Love how you go through all the thought process going on in your writing. Can't seem to find many channels that do this. Hope to see more of these soon!
Thanks, I am glad you found the videos!
One of the greatest improvisational artists I've seen/heard. Thank you; Jam on!
Ben, this is fantastic. I'm really glad I found your channel. Thank you.
Nice shirt! I love the idea of measuring consonance and dissonance. Happy hands!
I spot you my friend!
Thanks mWM!
This really explains tension and release in a way that’s easy for me to understand. Thanks, Ben!
I always dig watching ur vids Ben. Glad to see things are going well w/ you. Keep it up bud. ;D
Ben, guitarist here. When I go to bed I usually imagine musical orchestration. I start with a melody and just let the melody go where it wants to go using chromatic notes to allow it to change chords and emotion. At some point I intend to try to record some of these meanderings. This video is similar to what I imagine.
The hand puppets were.. amazing! Didnt think i could hear an A note for that long, kudos!
Thanks for sharing Ben. Your 'angles' of approach are refreshing. TY!
You have the most amazing composing-related videos I've come across.
i saw a Guthrie govan video once where he was talking about composing with different methods and one of them was finding chords to build the progression by maintaining 2 or more notes of the previous one, it blew my mind at first and i started messing around with it. basically i was trying to find the tension and the relief of different combinations subconsciously, which is the same principle you followed in this video, also learning some bossa nova tunes i discovered this works great in that genre
not sure about whats the point of this comment but as always i enjoyed the video and the visual entertainment
cheers
Sounds cool, do you have a link by any chance?
+Cal Davis i looked for it but i cant find it anymore, it didnt say much else tbh, the main concept was that one
That's a great approach.
+Ben Levin yep works really well :) keep up the good work man
The final piece is gorgeous! Also, diggin' the hand puppets
Bent Knee is my band of the year. Great videos too man. Love the work. Keep it up.
Hi Ben, I just thought I'd drop by and say that I've loved the last 3 videos. Lot's of great insight to more creative methods of composition. I hope we'll see more of your train of thought regarding the subject, keep up the great videos!
I really appreciate that. I have been happy with them as well. I feel like I'm being more myself and "putting it on for UA-cam" less. I'll keep it up as best I can!
Sensational, Mr. Levin. I mean, Dr. Levin. Loved the concept and the end results.
Ben, this was an excellent video. Those visuals at the end, 👌
That high A made it quite tense and unsettling! Great video Ben!
Awesome - I've been looking for new ways to think about composing chord progressions! This is helpful!
Ben levin? Ha! More like Ben legend amirite?
This is awesome and very inspiring. I'll try this method.
holy that prgression was so sick
Just thank you, man.
Thanks! You put some amazing stuff here!
Hi. Cool video. Reminds me a little of some concepts in Paul hindemith's book "the craft of musical composition". In this book he classifies chords based on the intervals in the chords and then classifies these categories into different levels of dissonance/consonance. His idea is to come up with a theory to analyze tension/release without relating it back to a particular key. Wondering if you've checked this book out and what your thoughts on it would be.
That makes sense a major triad that doesn't belong diatonically should often sound less dissonant than some sort of altered chord...
Great piece - sounded awesome. The theory and creativity are inspiring. The "puppet" stuff was...interesting.
yea definitely you are the best music teacher on UA-cam I like you alot.
really inspiring and intriguing! thanks!!
love the hand gestures, they really did elevate all of it. no irony. lol
Wow, you're such an amazing musician and a huge inspiration to me. Your production techniques are really interesting too!
This is cool! I'll definitely be trying this
I always struggle with making music like this - repetitive at it's core, but kept fresh, the formula of repetition being an anchor a welcome weight, keeping you in floating in a set space instead of sinking you into mundane darkness of deep sea.
Have you heard Nik Bartsch's projects (Ronin or Mobile)? It's all about that!
***** So besically textures? It's supremely hard to achieve different sounds out of the same instrument when you're only hearing midi playback from musescore most of the time, I guess that's a big part of it. I can't wrap my head around electronic artists' techniques either when working with Reaper and vst plugins... I guess I should just pick up more instruments.
Thanks for mentioning Nik Bartsch, I have not heard his stuff before, but from what I just found he seems to be making killer stuff.
that's so beautiful
Glad you dig it.
I'd call it pedal point composing - very cool for looping - recording the pedal note for instance A (pedal meaning a note that sustains over a progression of chords, or indeed is played repeatedly as the chord/interval progression plays) then try playing chords around it - with the focus ben suggests - looking for tension and resolve.
I like this method!
this is a really cool idea!
I like a lot the final composition.
I do many similar experiments and I think it's the key to writing creative, fresh chord progressions and melodies that stand out and not predictable. Good video if you're interested in writing fresh sounding music. Duke Ellington and thelonious were great dissonance writers. Come Sunday by Duke Ellington?(Ken Burns jazz versión)
All your videos are freaking awesome Ben. Marry me please
Me first.
Me 2nd
I'm nice to watch, but I'm a horrible spouse. Thank you!
Ben Levin tell that to jessica
Love the sound & hand puppets... (I wondered if they were going to start some Steve Reich clapping) And a cool way to write as well...:-)))
oh wow, i really heard that C#M as a point of arrival
So inspiring, man.
Maybe someone in the comment section or even Ben himself can answer a point of curiosity that I've been thinking about for a while now...
Is it necessary to stick to the appropriate chords that are assigned to each note within a particular scale when composing a song? In other words, how does one know when their chord choices no longer make theoretical sense and when they should consider a more conservative approach?
I look at artists like Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan, who have both managed to popularize fairly complex music, and wonder how it is that they were able to transform such harmonically complex ideas into such accessible and enjoyable forms of music. Obviously my lack of knowledge would be impossible to answer in just a few sentences, but I'm wondering if anyone could provide some insight as to how they feel about composing and chord choice in general.
Ben Carney Ben Carney when you're making music you shouldn't really be thinking about what makes "theoretical sense." Instead, make the choices based on what you think sounds good. After all, music theory is basically just a compilation of the experience and trial and error of musicians before you.
Interestingly, there seems to be a trend throughout history where we see humans' ears (or more accurately, our brains) getting more and more accustomed to 'complex' sounds.
If I'm not mistaken, the major 3rd was once thought of as a dissonant sounding interval (I think Adam Neely mentioned this in one of his Q&A videos). Sounds that were once thought of as dissonant and unpleasant are now being accepted into our musical vocabulary.
Makes you wonder how music would sound like many years in the future.
I don't know much of Steely Dan or Stevie Wonder's tunes but lets take a look at some standard jazz chord progressions.
Fly me to the moon is (mostly) diatonic - as in, the chords belong to the same key. Joy Spring's B-section modulates 3? times, setting up the new key with its relative ii-V, but otherwise pretty straight forward. The ii-V-I progression is by the way extremely common in jazz music, and by extension, a lot of "modern" material. All the things you are is pretty funky in that the progression is similar in the different sections, but it is modulated each time. On the far end of functional harmony, Giant steps revolves around several keys a major 3rd apart, by using a heap of secondary dominants and ii-V progressions.
Now you might not care for jazz at all and that's fine, but learning about jazz harmony, and different ways to use the different chords can open up a world of possibilities.
Writing on my phone I can no longer see the original question, but the way I went about expanding my own harmonic toolbox is reharmonising, typically three- or four-chord songs with a strong melody.
Now no one says the melody has to always be chord tones, so try to mix it up. Let's say the melody is the root note of the key - fine, but what if the harmony recontextualised that root note as a b13? So in the key of C, that Cmaj could now be E7#11b13. Probably not a great choice for the first chord in a song, but I think you get the point.
Each chord has its leanings, different ways to progress and resolve tension. If you study jazz you will encounter many of these different leanings and contexts in which you can use them.
Kind of "radio-heady". I've tried a couple of similar techniques in search of muse. One that can be interesting is to take a melody you know and instead of playing the normal chords that go along with that melody, keep the melody note on top (or bottom, or ...) but use completely different chords that just happen to share that melody note. Not always musical but it can help you find sounds you would not normally jump to.
fun video. I was thinking about walking through a haunted house or trying to solve a puzzle listening to that piece put together towards the end.
Great job, this would be awesome bacground music for the next Alien movie.But, they would totally have right in a part for the hand pupets.
Amazing hand puppets
That was some badass handpuppetery
Thank you, I'm still tired from it.
thanks so much, youre helping me a lot
Brilliant lesson!!
Thanks a lot!
I should (finally) get some of the stuff I made about 20 years ago from DAT onto my Mac and share it with you. I think there's some degree of kindred spirit waiting for recognition.
That would be great!
+Ben Levin I'll keep you posted once I get to it :) Expecting my firstborn as well in a few weeks, so it's a period of inspiration (but also pretty busy overall).
Very nice! Sounds kind of like Steven Wilson's production. That's a huge compliment.
Dude! That was great, and then you cranked up the Reaper...now WE KNOW!!!
Reaper!!
+Ben Levin RR!!!!!
Now pick 4 more single notes progressing from the first A note and write a separate chord progression for each and then join them. If a single melody over the top goes somewhere and flows, it will link the strayest sounding transitions and make them seem like they're meant for each other while writing a piece of music noone has heard before. The melody to link all the changing progressions is the hardest part and I don't really hear many vocally melodic catchiness in singers and songwriters anymore. John and Paul could do it to my liking and a few others, but a grain of sand on a beach compared to how many musicians and people holding microphones that can't and never will. Catchy vocal melodies over creative chord progressions. Not many i know of.
i was thinking a similar thing. The trickiest thing is to make things like this work in contexts that *aren't* cinema scores and in more "traditional" song structures/arrangements that have less patience or aesthetic tolerance built in. Few people do both well
3:25 - Fallout 4 intro
Isn’t this just pitch axis theory? Or at least derived from it?
Love the track at the end, awesome textures!
LMAO at the hand visualizations near the end.
"and if you don't know........." 10:56
Who else fell into a trance?
Hi Doctor Levin, if you haven't heard of Staffpad check it out I just got it on my tablet it combines writing notation with a stylus and electronic input like Finale or Guitar Pro really cool stuff and great videos :D
mannnnnnnnnnnn this is gold!
thank you very much.
It has a Radiohead vibe. Great vid!
Please do some Radiohead deconstruction videos.
great idea!
Thanks!
The thing I zero in on,having no musical training whatsoever,is does this chord support the lyric or idea it's immediately under. For me,without that "task" a chord is given,a handful of things can work.
Hi Ben, what kind of program you have had used here to make the music on the PC? I see Reaper from Apple, or another one is possible? Thanks for your great films and the way you think about music. grtz Luc(Belgium)
Hey there! Yeah I'm running Reaper on a MacBook Pro. I use SoundToys Effects, Komplete 8, a bunch of iZotope effects, and a midi controller.
Hi dear Ben , thanks for your reply and information! I am impressed of this vieuw of philosophy about music, thanks! A fan since years! regards from Belgium
Hand puppets were cool liked!
Thanks man, cost me a fortune though.
Thanks for the homework assignment. lol
You should read Persichetti 20th century harmony.
Yeah I really want to.
"Make weird music" written on his shirt, kinda sum that up, lol.
Have you ever looked into Neo-Riemannian music theory?
No, where should I start?
I have yet to see a video of yours where I didn't spend several minutes afterwards just nodding and saying "cool" really slowly.
In my opinion you'd be very good at providing scores for film.
Thank you, I love to score films.
He's the next John Mackey!
Both handy and dandy
im moving my hands but i dont hear anything!!!!!!!!!!??????????
9:24
"Water.
Earth.
Fire.
Air..."
please bring back metal Monday and want Wednesday?
Hey Ben, I really enjoy your videos -- there are so many aspects of music that it's easy to forget about, no matter how long you've been studying or writing music. I'm finding so much food for thought in these videos about the creative process.
You mentioned in this video that it's not always convenient to write and experiment with music (e.g. if you're on the road, you're in a noisy environment, maybe you don't have an instrument handy). I've had this same thought, and it's led me down the path of creating a text-based music composition programming language to make it easier for me to type out musical ideas and hear them played back. You might be interested in checking it out, if you're into this kind of thing: github.com/alda-lang/alda
MWM t-shirt....want :{}
Dude way too sick. Really sounds like a Hans Zimmer composition
like the music, but as soundtrack for the end of the world...
Let me know when that happens and I'll set up a show.
They said it'll be around noon.
"Now ya know." ; |
ahhhahahahaaajajajajaja
hand puppets..
Truth.
have you ever done drugs?
u dont look like uve been thinking about what ur doing. just sayin.
most boring episode. No disrespect. Peace
Ok, results are actually quite interesting
What a journey...