ClassyCo17 Outro (music)

[TheYoungMathProf 11]

I am working on creating a custom outro for ClassyCo17 (who you should totally check out btw!). It is going great, but since I don't have any knowledge in music theory...I could use some advice as to how I should proceed. The composition is in F Major, and I was thinking about transitioning into the relative minor (D minor) for the next part. I would like to know some information about how these transitions should be used in music. I am attaching what I have so far. Advice greatly appreciated! (Notation on the sheet music might be a bit messy... )

 

Outro.wavOutro.pdf

Edited January 6, 2014 by TheYoungMathProf

[Billy-Rex 54]

I actually cannot access the attachments Oo

[TheYoungMathProf 11]

Curious...when I get back on my laptop, I shall post the music on soundcloud. I wonder if it is the forum's fault, since it recently went down...

@@Billy-Rex
K, here is the current state of my composition. I might just keep it in F major though, or switch to another major key. I am still kinda drafting it all in my head...but any suggestion will be considered! (I was actually thinking of transitioning into a Winter Wrap Up melody.)
https://soundcloud.com/theyoungmathprof/outro

[Antismurf9001 1,271]

Alright, don't worry, modulations to the relative minor aren't terribly difficult since the key signatures are the same.  The most important part is performing a cadence in the new key, which is typically a V (five) chord followed by a i (one) chord, or a V-i progression.  (Since this is a minor pitch class, the i is lower-case to indicate that it is a minor chord.  If it were major, it would be notated as I.  V is left upper-case because that chord ends up being major, even in a minor pitch class, but I'm getting way off topic here.)  In your case, you're looking for an A major chord (the chord based off of the fifth scale degree of D minor) followed by a D minor chord.  You can start by moving away from the note F, with an emphasis on D.  When you really want the listener to know that you've changed keys, you do the V-i progression and that should solidify it.  Just be careful, in the V chord, you have to remember to raise the 7th scale degree a half step (in this case, a C# instead of a C natural).  Otherwise it ends up being modal instead of minor.

 

Let me know if you want me to explain anything further.  I may have gotten a bit too technical...  Hope that this helps!

 

EDIT: PS - I'm slightly over halfway through analyzing Blitz.  Expect a response on it before the week's end.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Antismurf9001

[TheYoungMathProf 11]

Alright, don't worry, modulations to the relative minor aren't terribly difficult since the key signatures are the same.  The most important part is performing a cadence in the new key, which is typically a V (five) chord followed by a i (one) chord, or a V-i progression.  (Since this is a minor pitch class, the i is lower-case to indicate that it is a minor chord.  If it were major, it would be notated as I.  V is left upper-case because that chord ends up being major, even in a minor pitch class, but I'm getting way off topic here.)  In your case, you're looking for an A major chord (the chord based off of the fifth scale degree of D minor) followed by a D minor chord.  You can start by moving away from the note F, with an emphasis on D.  When you really want the listener to know that you've changed keys, you do the V-i progression and that should solidify it.  Just be careful, in the V chord, you have to remember to raise the 7th scale degree a half step (in this case, a C# instead of a C natural).  Otherwise it ends up being modal instead of minor.

 

Let me know if you want me to explain anything further.  I may have gotten a bit too technical...  Hope that this helps!

 

EDIT: PS - I'm slightly over halfway through analyzing Blitz.  Expect a response on it before the week's end.

 

Thanks! I found a really good sight that explains all these little nuances pretty well. (http://www.musictheory.net/) In any case, I am kinda curious about the raised 7th though. I have read about how if it is a natural minor, it won't have a raised 7th. Does that mean all natural minors are modal, and all harmonic minors are "minor"? (And melodic minors kinda shift in and out of this definition...)

[Antismurf9001 1,271]

Thanks! I found a really good sight that explains all these little nuances pretty well. (http://www.musictheory.net/) In any case, I am kinda curious about the raised 7th though. I have read about how if it is a natural minor, it won't have a raised 7th. Does that mean all natural minors are modal, and all harmonic minors are "minor"? (And melodic minors kinda shift in and out of this definition...)

 

I guess you could say that that's true in a sense.  You see, I was actually never taught much about the different harmonic scales.  My teachers and professors made sure that we knew that they existed, but never explained their significance.  How I was taught was that the seventh scale degree (also called the leading tone) in a major scale has a very strong tendency to move to the tonic. (As an example, try playing/singing only the first seven notes of a scale.  It's fairly difficult to not try to mentally finish it.) However, if you change the interval between the leading tone and the tonic (as you would in a natural minor scale), then you lose this tendency to some degree, which also heavily affects how your authentic cadences (V-I progressions) work, most of their power comes from the leading tone (which happens to be the major third interval above the root of a V) moving to the tonic.  In order to recapture this power, the leading tone is almost always raised in minor (with some exceptions, but those exceptions are somewhat rare, such as the III chord).  Why exactly did they need to recapture this?  Because apparently historical composers were compelled to be needlessly complicated  I think that it's so that they could create something that was vastly different from the major scale, but had enough similarities that the audience would still enjoy it.  That's just my guess though.

 

So yeah, that's sort of an answer, at least as far as I understand it.  I don't think that I explained it very well...  I hope that it helps you though.