This channel is not about performing music or basic theory. It is not about jazz riffs or guitar riffs. It is about creating music and the tools one needs to do so for mastery. I try to teach topics that are rarely if ever covered on RU-vid or in theory books. If a lot of the terms or concepts I talk about are confusing, this is most likely the wrong channel! I assume most watching will know this stuff. I also don't overly produce videos. This is purely an educational channel. I am not a native keyboard player!
So be warned, the topics are going to be more for advanced musicians looking to take things to the next level. If you wish to help keep me going on this endeavor, you can always donate! Here is the link. No obligations! Make great music! paypal.me/theunknownmusician
I agree with you 1200% when you say "Once you realize 90% of diatonic music is a known formula and you can relax and just use it." That's exactly how I felt. I'm all "Wow these famous people are just leveraging these templates?" Well that takes all the pressure off me. I can do that too! :) I don't have to look at a blank keyboard every time and build something from scratch, or reinvent the wheel....
I think people have to go through stages to realize this. The realization may take longer if people don't study music. One can be truly humbled by how people way before our time have tried pretty much everything. Purely diatonic harmony is really not difficult once you truly realize this.
Just purchased, I am pumped! Your Chromatic harmony is fantastic as well as all your content here on YT. Thank you for helping me take a big leap forward in my comprehension and application of harmony.
Thank you as well for being supportive. I know the type of content I put out is not stuff that will reach the masses as it is just not popular anymore to make music that has more than a few chords accept in smaller niches. But that being said, I don't want to sacrifice my love for masterworks, complex harmony, and things that go beyond what is popular. Thank you again!
Big love to you good sir! I feel my trajectory/fate is also to be a salmon upstream >>>>going down a Stravinksky rabbit hole as write this and being amazed at the interwoven melody and harmony on such a God level. I would guess, you have swam in his water?
I just bought your "Mastering Harmonic Minor" course. Its absolutely fantastic. Thank you for starting it so simple and building up slowly like this. i love the musical drills. i love the. i iv V unit and all your words of wisdom about how mastering the simple stuff first is so important. I couldn't help but skip ahead to see where you go later in the course and the examples are , as usual with your courses, sublime and brilliantly clever. Good God I'm so happy I found you as a teacher. Where were you all my life? Please keep making these courses. They are gold. I have to hold myself back a little cause I don't want to drink from the firehose by buying more than I can realistically study but I will do everything you teach. Really looking forward to you doing a modulation course that builds from the basics like this and has lots of examples. Also I'd cheekily suggest a deep dive on borrowed chords as being something I'd love to hear you expand on. Anyway Robert. Thanks so much. Your work is utterly brilliant. The Harmonic Minor course is extremely well laid out and put together. So excited to use this to build upon all the myriad new tricks and moves I've learnt after a year of diligently following your Chromatic Harmony course. I know I keep commenting on all of your youTube videos but I just can't thank you enough for what you've unlocked for me.. I can't believe how much better I've become.
The cool part is you can use what you learned with chromatic harmony and integrate it into harmonic minor. There are a few examples I believe where a supplemental chromatic move is used in that course.
Looking forward to this! Lines up with the independent work I've been doing - currently building slowing building out a big piece from a motif/theme set I worked shopped for several weeks!
OMG, those chord progressions at around 5:30 are absolutely sublime. I'm flabbergasted. These examples you come out with are astonishing. So inspired to keep trudging through the tedium of learning every bleedin key haha. Wow.
Still working daily on your Chromatic Modulation course and more recently the Modulation course too. You've changed my life with these courses. I hope you keep making them. I'm really looking forward to many more years of having my mind blown and expanded with your brilliant courses. I love the way there are so many examples in the Chromatic Harmony course , i move the examples into different keys and the concepts just click after a few keys and then I feel like I 'own' the progressions and can even use small parts of them in my own compositions...its brilliant..I must say I'm struggling a little to get into the Modulation one, though its still really good. I miss the comprehensive examples and still find modulation a bit intimidating. I haven't been at it so long though so fingers crossed. However I have followed your tip on learning basic moves in every key, in learning how to spell chords in all inversions etc and this is just helpful in general. If you did update or redo you modulation course , which I think you suggested you might, I'd have no problem in buying the updated version. I feel like you have given me so much . The best teacher I ever had in anything. I was lost for years as a wannabe composer but now I'm actually making music that I like (its all thanks to you). Big Love.
Hoping to have a better modulation course out soon that is formula based and easy to create modulations based on formulas. I am really upping my video game/visuals so I have been learning a lot of vid editing and it takes time. Thanks for the patience.
@@RobertDannyDavis Hey Robert, thank for your reply. I love the sound of the 'formulas based modulation' course you are working on. I know a lot about video editing (particularlly Premier Pro) so if there is ever anything I can help you with let me know. I'd be more than happy to help you and pass some expertise in the other direction.
Another excellent Pigments sound set. Highly tweakable, good use of Random Modulation parameters. These presets are well thought out and exquisitely crafted - allowing for infinite customization. Well worth the modest price : Two Thumbs Up. Suggestions: - Video demonstrating your approach to sound design/creation - How you use Pigments to develop original presets. Not necessarily Pigments-How-To, rather Pigments features that facilitate your own sound design goals. - Do you start out with a Harmonic "intention' with preset creation: ie, preset should work within Mixolydian b6 context -for example, rather than random turning knobs, hoping for an interesting sound.
Quite a bit of theory has to go into certain presets for them to work over multiple scales. If it is a one scale mood, it is still planned first. That being said, I also think about "orchestration" techniques quite a lot and how it might be emulated with a synthetic patch and the limited amount of sample lanes. Hence a lot of the granular engine goes between many differently tuned samples at times to emulate sweeping chordal effects. So it is not just randomly turning knobs at all. I can't see creating patches like this and doing very well by being random. There is always an element of random "try this" but first there is a foundation. Kinda like music itself. You might try some random things, but in the end you want to know what you are doing. Thanks for the review!
Tonal obscurity is hard to expand upon in terms of explaining. I can only point out things to do because the amount of combinations of chord sequences in highly chromatic music(which is a part of modal interchange/borrowing) is nearly infinite. Add in 7ths, extensions, etc and this becomes even more infinite. This is where people must either try to make their own by literally "trying" things by creating charts of chords to borrow from other modes/keys, or study masterwork musicians like Wagner or his contemporaries(Debussy, Ravel, Ralph Vaughan WIlliams, etc) and just start stealing moves. Maybe a good exercise you can try is this. Take "one" chord and ask yourself, "what role can this play in major as a I? In minor/major as V, in Mixoldyain as bVII, in natural minor as a bVII, in melodic minor as a IV, in Dorian as the IV, etc etc until you have exhausted all answers that you can come up with. Make a chart of the chords you can figure out that may revolve and one chord and thus you have a huge array of directions you can take that "one" major chord. Thanks!
Unfortunately this is true. When people think of "cinematic" they automatically go to the big epic sci fi sound or fantasy in their heads. Meanwhile there are 100s of unrelated genres out there in movies/games/media that sound nothing like those genres.
This "Chromatic Harmony" course is a true game changer for every serious composer. Its made me a significantly better composer in the last year and a half. Thanks Robert.
What I really like about these banks from Fisound is the fact they have got rather large sample import components. This is very good because they are introducing new raw materials to work with. Not just with this bank but others too. As high as 200 - 300 Meg of sample data. Not just working with the factory raw waveforms etc but their own unique samples. This often results in much more interesting patches.
"The stronger your harmonic vocabulary becomes, you start seeing pivot chords where you never saw them before." - And if you have a huge bag of moves at your disposal to apply at any point then it is becomes composing freely real time aka improvising. The composing process becomes...Ok let's half cadence (HC). Playing on the keyboard.... V of V HC? Meh. It6+ to V HC? Getting better. How about the Fr6+ to V HC? Yeah I like that. Still needs something. Lets approach Fr6+ with a 1/2dim7 so that I can spice up the melody with some more chromatic notes. Now we are talking...! I have come across many courses and purchased several which ended up be a 1 hit wonder type of course. You get a little insight that only brings more unanswered questions. I bought the chromatic harmony bundle and the harmonic minor course. By far the best. Nothing else is even in the ballpark. Some knowledge of theory is required. If you ever had the thought "how the heck did [enter composer here] write [enter piece here]?". Robert not only gives you the answers of how but also a methodology to become proficient in application of those answers in your own composing. Just buy it and spend the time daily and before you know it, it snowballs into probably the most useful skill needed for composing. To be fair I had already decided that improvising was probably the best way to get better at composing and been slowly figuring out how to work secondary dominants, so there was some skill there before the course. But the course lays so many of the possibilities that I don't have to drudge through figuring out how to find them and get them to work. Now 1 week with the course and aug6, Neapolitan 6, half diminished 7 chords all coming out smooth and timed right. Not all 12 keys yet, but my favorites (C, G, D, F, Bb, Eb, Ab) are typically pretty smooth. I have not even started back at composing in stave yet, but it is amazing the ideas just continuous flow at the keyboard. It won't be soon before I fire up Dorico. I will still have lacking knowledge on how to implement given styles and was previously spending lots of time on orchestration... ROBERT can we get courses on Styles and Orchestration? Not so fun fact: When I first started composing, I knew basic theory, but never even heard of chromatic harmony. I wrote a little 4 part harmony that took me many hours to get the progression and all the voices correct according to what I heard in my head. The progression that I ended up with is exact to one of the examples in the Basic Chromatic Harmony course, 1,4,7,3,6,2,5,1 with 7th chords holding shared notes and proper voice leading. When I heard the example in the video, I smiled. The time to get it right would have been minutes instead of many painful trial and error hours.
Yea improv can help a lot especially with development of timing and practicing harmony. The thing I like about notation is that it opens up a different layer of thinking that I simply cannot do at keyboard. Motif development, counterpoint(IE unisons in different voices are not possible on a keyboard) and many other things. Keyboard, with a plain piano sound, is very percussive and forces one to play in a percussive way, so many writing techniques are not possible like a long sustain over chord changes. Interestingly. I actually did the opposite. I learned to use notation first and was terrible at the keyboard as it is not my main instrument. It was only in the last 5 or so years that I started to use it more and this was mostly for teaching, but I did notice that once I memorized a ton of things on it, the theoretic part and moving freely came pretty quick because it was already in my head. Good to hear you are discovering new ways. Thanks for the reply and conversation. I truly appreciate the feedback(PS I am not overly into Film music either, it is just what is most popular these days when it comes to "Symphonic" music). I also have had to emulate the styles a lot for sample library demos. But I would rather do other styles of music for personal things.
I like it. Very rich. Very romantic! Full of moves. VSTs? BTW: Anxiously waiting to buy the Advanced Chromatic Harmony course when it comes out. Food for thought: I would buy a course on implementing styles. Something like from Beethoven to Bartok. I imagine something like you taught on Korsakov's orchestration book. Or even purchase that if it was available...!
Thanks for the response. You also asked(but removed the comment) on what a piece was a bit back. It was a piano duet. Anyway. I use VSL exclusively for symphonic mockups. To me it is the closest one get's to realism in terms of articulations. I also like to build the orchestra from the ground "up" and have every group(winds brass) capable of lone, duet, 3 players, and 4 players. Strings can be divided realistically, etc. This is why I don't choose many other libraries. Having worked in the sample lib industry they have only one focus. How to sound as Film Score as possible. Thus most are terrible on this aspect and sound way too big for certain orchestrations. Beethoven is a big harmonic remove from Bartok!. I love both but to simplify things, Beethoven was basically using the same harmony as Mozart(actually Mozart can be much more chromatic), the only difference is Beethoven was one of the first composers to create the "long drawn out dramatic build up" which triggered the Romantic era. I hope the chromatic harmony course helps!
@@RobertDannyDavis Agreed! I originally bought SF BBC Orchestra and it was utter garbage for non-film score music. I now have several of the VSL Synchron string libraries and the Synchron brass and woodwinds. I won't go with anything else now. Like you, I am not really interesting in composing film music. I do enjoy the good works of film composers, but my passion is Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and the likes but I love them all. When it gets to atonal I start to lose interest, but hey, atonality bore fruit in the form of action sequences. The comments on a course of Beethoven to Bartok were about styles. Styles meaning rhythmic implementation and orchestration. See my latest comment on the other video. The course is tremendous!
@@RobertDannyDavis Piano Duet. Yeah the except was sweet. After watching the video I figured it was something you did in the video speed up. Love to hear the whole piece. This just out from VSL. Sounds promising... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pGVEIIA0Xys.html
@@amotkram99 Atonality I think grows on people over time. I don't know how to explain it. I didn't like highly dissonant music when I was younger. But now I love it. I think a lot of it has to do with the evolution of the ear. You start getting to a point to where you can predict things in a lot of music. So when you reach that stage you may start looking for other things. However, the funny part is that when you really like super dissonant music, you start to become even more accepting of simplicity as well. I am OK with I/IV/V, but I am also OK with Polytonality or such. Interesting topic to me.
Great stuff! The G-F motive in the viio7 > 1 is repeated with the D-C in V7add9 of V > V And in your integration you altered the motive and then did the same echo of the motive in the same half cadence spot. So Nice!
Bought this yesterday evening on "Behind The Score". WAs always curious and intimidated by the idea of modulation. I never really got it in my fingers (though I understood the concept kinda)....Within an hour of watching this video though, I was laughing at how I was modulating with such ease. I'm so grateful for such a brilliant teacher. Its a joy to follow your courses. Thanks Robert.
Thanks. I am hoping to come up with an in depth pivot modulation course in the future. This one is very old and just uses tricks to get people moving around with sequential patterns mostly. I would definitely re-do this course for sure as it is old:)
@@RobertDannyDavisthat’s fine by me Robert. I’ll buy the new one as well. The pivot move is indeed the most interesting one to my ears so an in depth masterclass like your recent courses would be very welcome. Still enjoying the heck out of this purchase and looking forward to seeing what you come up with next. Thanks.
This looks great - honestly the chord scheme drills alone are worth it to me, which are something that I feel the vast majority of theory & composition courses and books lack - they teach you the compositional techniques and harmonic analysis, but offer no exercises or suggestions of how to get it under your fingers so you can explore it yourself through improvisation as well as really get it into your muscle memory. I compose best when I am able to recall these sounds and techniques with improvisational ease and fluency at the piano. I also appreciate that it's not focused on guitar-style shredding but *composition*! So thank you for a brilliant no nonsense approach, I look forward to digging in!
Thank you. I agree music theory books in general are lacking. I don't think they ever prepare people for reality. I use the keyboard a lot for teaching but for me personally I don't write much with it:) I use Dorico most of the time now or Notion(I think notion has a faster input method for me personally).
@@RobertDannyDavis I had one theory book which is sadly out of print but it has a no nonsense approach, called Music Theory in Concept & Practice by Allen Forte - what I liked about it is from chapter 1 it has you doing basic keyboard & singing drills of common chord schemes and cadences. Even if not you're not much of a pianist or singer there's incredible real-world value to that kind of prep work - and most everyday composition involves that sort of thing over shredding. So I definitely appreciate seeing a similar practical approach with your courses. Bought the bundles from your site, I'm excited to dig in. Cheers!
I like when he says "I'm not a keyboard player", and yet plays and improvises better than 90+% of the composers out there who can barely play a chord...
It depends on what your definition of a keyboard player is. I don't use it to compose, just to teach, since it is universal in most people's studios. I also use it to give a "possible" sound of what a sequence may sound like otherwise we just have a jumble of chords running into each other, which is not very musical. I cannot pull off a Chopin piece or such. That is for performers(whom I consider good keyboard players), and is way beyond my playing skill. It also takes too much practice and time away from creating. I also often say this so people don't get all caught up in keyboard skills and focus more on the potential sound and memorize moves they can use in creation. People tend to assume that if someone has decent, OK, or great keyboard skill this will automatically make them great at composing when it actually has no bearing whatsoever on creation skill. However, the opposite can be true. If you develop a good sense of timing both with form/melody, a great ear, study a lot of music, and have studied harmony to the point to where it is second nature, it becomes much easier to improvise on a keyboard because there is way less guess work and you are now in a situation to where you know where to go, how to approach cadences, what pivot chords can modulate where, what harmonic move may go here, what to use for a specific feel, etc etc. The guesswork is often removed and you have freedom from it. In reality, all my keyboard ability came from composing, studying composers, and endless harmonic drills, not by practicing like a keyboard player.
Genius teacher. I’m a different musician and I’m only in the middle of one of his video courses. Answer to my prayers as a formerly stuck musician. now my fingers seem to have a mind of their own after doing his “tedious drills”. Thanks Robert. Hands down best composing/music teacher I’ve ever come across in all my many years of searching.
I am really glad it is working out for you. I try my hardest to give out information that is not "out there" and that I had to figure out on my own regardless of how much theory I had. I found that a lot of the problem with theory books(especially today) is they are written by either pure theory people, or people who have experience only in one style of music(mostly popular styles). It becomes a limiting factor. Thank you for the support!
Hey man. I bought your chromatic harmony course and can follow along but still feel like I need to master my basics. How is the functional harmony course coming along?
This is a much broader topic so it is taking a bit of time. I don't just want to be another theory book that leaves people in the cold when they are done. I want to show the "whys" and use a different approach that is more friendly and also that I have learned by teaching others. One gains a whole new perspective on how to teach by teaching. I think all theory book writers should be forced to teach first before they write the theory book:)
Thank you. For the most part I have stopped doing that. RU-vid is built for popular/repetitive things and flashy videos. I don't do either. So I started created courses instead. I appreciate the comment. However in the future I will not upload much info on topics like this and most likely make a more in depth course with written out examples.
It's almost june, which means it wont be long until I'll have some time to finally start and dig in with your courses. Gonna start with Basic Chromatic Harmony and work my way up from there. Again, can't emphasize enough how refreshing your videos and lessons are, such a different and effective perspective. It helps that your improvising is always so beautifully musical. I could listen to you improvise for hours 😂
A lot of drilling is done via moves you learn. The chromatic harmony course focuses on all possible common in key chromatic moves with about a 150 free to use progressions ranging from simple triads to full extensions. If I was to drill on a move(like augmented chord resolutions which I have in chromatic harmony), I would create an exercise around it and write it out in all keys as well as play it out in all keys at the keyboard.. Then I would create endless variations. This way when you spot something, the likely hood of solving it becomes like second nature.
Just found your channel and my goodness what a gold mine of information. Helped me make a ton of connections and opened a bunch of new doors. Thank you!
Dude, serious thanks for your work here. I have purchased 4 things from your site and am working through them. It seems like you have a clarity of understanding and a gift for communicating musical ideas. Legit respect. Cheering you on!
