Natural, Harmonic & Melodic Scales

2 questions...

1) How do you choose between the different scales? Do you just go back and forth until you end up with what you want or is there a particular way to know right off the bat, which scale you'll be using?

2) What is the best way you guys have managed to become good at playing scales and/or melodies? I feel like my bass and drum playing are both on point, now I'm trying to become a better producer by playing my own melodies and chords, instead of using samples.

My biggest problem is creating melodies that don't sound boring and mundane. How do you go about "spicing" up your melodies? Changing up the chord pattern, without throwing the listener off? I'm wanting to make chord patterns that give off a vibe similar to The Weeknd, newer Shlohmo and stuff like Flume - Left Alone

Do artists that give off a certain vibe, usually make music mostly within all the same key or corresponding keys?

So here's how the minor scales work.

The natural minor comes from the major scale. You just start on the 6th note of the scale, a minor third down from the first note of the major scale, and the use the same notes as in the major scale.
One important feature of the major scale is the leading tone. The seventh note of the scale is one half step below the note of the major key you're in. It wants to move up to this tonic note. In the harmony of a song, the development and progression of its chords and stuff, the end goal is getting back to tonic, the key that you're in. So the leading tone has a big harmonic function here.

Buuuut, the natural minor scale doesn't have this leading tone. The seventh note of the scale is a whole step down. So let's fix it, let's make the harmonic minor scale by raising this seventh note to make it a half step below the tonic.

That's good, but what if we have a melody that goes up by steps, going through notes 5, 6, 7, to 1 of the scale. If we use the harmonic scale, we get an interval of an augmented second between 6 and 7. Augmented intervals sound weird a lot of the time, so let's fix that. If we raise both the 6 and 7 notes of the scale, there are no augmented seconds, our melody works nicely, and we have the melodic minor scale. If our melody steps down from the tonic, then we don't need the leading tone, because we're not moving towards tonic, and so we don't need the raised 6 either, and it's like the harmonic scale.

Now, these are the rules that were followed when this sort of music theory was invented, centuries ago. Styles have changed, what sounds good now might not follow (and often doesn't) the rules established back then. So, you might keep in mind where these scales come from, but otherwise, just do what sounds good.

Hi,
Keep it simple buy the two books created by Nusong Productions LLC (digital download)
THe 16 pad scale manual by JFILT
And
Essential HipHop CHords by JFilt.

These books are worth it and only cost $5 each.

Other than that go the harder route.

I play music and connect a keyboard to the mpc. When I realized that ther was a book that broke down the scales I got it just to have it as another method. THat book is exactly what someone like you needs.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Verysickbeats

Cheers,
Ian

PS If JFilt is in this forum somewhere you did a good thing bro. HAts off.

wow you guys, sciguy and Mr. Canefire... dropping some knowledge over here. Bookmarked for a later time when I can understand it a little better haha and I'll definitely look into those books. Thanks to the both of you for the info.

I always wondered, when musicians wanted to give off a certain "vibe" (like eerie or dark)... was there a particular range of notes/scales they played.

Kind of like a color palette, how some colors are warm and others are cool. If you want a warm color, start with a red or orange or yellow. If you wanted cool, you'd go with blue or purple.

Like is there a go to set of scales that one would use to produce a certain type of sound. Whether it was bright, happy go lucky pop music like Katy Perry or dark and eerie like the early Weeknd stuff.

AmpleSoul wrote:I always wondered, when musicians wanted to give off a certain "vibe" (like eerie or dark)... was there a particular range of notes/scales they played.

generally, major scales sound more upbeat, 'happy', and minor scales sound darker, emotional. as for key, like a/c/f# etc - not really, it's all relative.

theres also blues scales which can be a little different and actually include less notes.

then there's also caveats like relative minors, for example C-major and a-minor are the same notes.

but really, i wouldn't put too much thought into that. just bang out the notes that sound how you want and dont worry about what scale its in. with a sampler this is even easier since you can tune things to just sound good to each other, western music theory be damned.