How To UNLOCK Melody From HARMONY (modern musical composition concepts) 

I was at Soundtrack Cologne a few weeks back and I remember one of the composers for the game, Destiny 2 mentioning he was studying harmonic movement from your videos while composing the music for that game!

When I watch your videos, it feels like my brain is doing a software upgrade! Even if I probably understand around 25% of what you are talking about!

I love this!! Beautiful music!! Piano is sounding GREAT too 🙌

Oh yeah, lets do this. Youre videos help me to progress as a musican and to become my own producer. Thank you Rick

I'm a better musician because of Rick Beato.

Love your teaching, Rick i play piano and am thrilled you covered this material on the keyboard. Thanks so much. I’m 58 and have played since I was a kid, but never learned about modes prior to subscribing almost a year ago.

"Are you Rick Beato?" "Hi, I'm Rick Beato; welcome to this coffee shop"

Rick: as a guitarist, what would you recommend to other guitarists who want to improve their piano technique? I was very impressed with your playing (especially around 5:57) and am curious (1) how often you practice piano and (2) what you work on in your practicing.

I know enough about modes to be able to determine that the wind chime I bought for my wife is F Lydian, but not enough to fully make sense of all of Rick's videos. Still, love them and can't get enough, somehow.

Rick I want you to know that you're a huge inspiration to me and how I compose keep up the great work. Sick piece BTW

Rick, it’s breathtaking! Some of the “sounds” pass by so quickly. Mind blowing!

Hi Everyone. I want to emphasize to that in my opinion this video is like a masters class in the use of modes. If you just listen a few times and move on because you don't understand it you are going to miss some very valuable musical ideas. I'm watching it over and over again making notes on paper of the chords and voicings then going over to my piano to work them out slowly. It's like I have been painting with the pallet of primary colors (diatonic keys) and now a whole new world has been opened up. Thanks Rick -

I am simultaneously Godsmacked, inspired and flummoxed by Rick Beato’s RU-vid channel. It fills me with the desire to become a great musician. All good things. Yet it frustrate the heck out me by reminding me I’m not one.

Hey Rick, between this and my main channel, I have been along for the ride, right from the beginning. Can't believe I'd discovered you over something as simple as a viral video. With the exception of the last six months or so, I've seen most everything of what you have put out. In that time, I managed to progress from the concepts skimming over my head, to teaching some students on the Master's programme at one of my local universities. I feel that you made an enormous contribution to that, in keeping me sharp and my mind open when the plateaus were creeping up on me. As of last Monday, I am officially a professional composer, (whatever that means!), and I couldn't thank you enough for your efforts in putting this content out there. If ever you are in the UK, you will always have a good coffee spot and the hospitality waiting for you in the North East. Take care of yourself, Rick.

Rick...love your piano playing and instrumental compositions....uplifting...ethereal and complex.

Thank you Rick, I transcribed these chords and am arranging them for Chapman Stick (as well as your previous video on the minor 4). You're adding so much to my musical palette!

I don't really understand 80% of what you're saying, but in your videos you keep tossing me bits and pieces that are starting to stick, so even that 80% is an improvement over just a few months ago. It started innocently with a "What Makes This Song Great" video. Now, I'm messin' with chord inversions, buyin' Steely Dan albums, and tryin' to play Kid Charlemagne. Thanks for the inspiration. If my wife asks me what I want for Christmas this year, I'll say, "The Beato Book, honey." Thanks, Rick.

This is an awesome lesson, Rick! Worth watching again and again & fully absorbing - Thank you!!

Taking modal interchange to the next level. Loving the boldness I'm seeing in many places at the moment. Are audiences ready for it? I hope so. I certainly believe that the introversion of Covid means we are more headspace to hear it! It's all a fight for our attention....

Thanks for these videos on music theory Rick. You are doing a great job for music education. Here in the UK, music education in schools is very poor and getting worse so what you are doing unlocking the world of music for people is fantastic.

Absolutely beautiful music. Love your musical ideas. Always looking forward to new music from you.

Great Work Rick...This is the kind of super dense musical education that made me sub. I'm just through studying/exploring the very initial phase cycling d minor to e flat mixolydian cycling flat-ward through the keys one flat at a time, making super interesting structures. Loads to work with ...Thank You.

Wow, that was really gorgeous! Nice piano playing.

Aah so good! I am amazed at how you come up with these chord progressions. I guess like anything else, inspiration from who knows where.

i was stunned by this composition and the underlying skills because i mistook you for a gifted producer but this is so another level. instantly going for more theory vids by you. thx.

Way over my head. That's why I love Beato publications.

Beautiful lines Rick, really helps open up possibilities

Thank you again, Rick! Your music theory tutorials give me more in one video than all those years in school

Dude, you explain modes so well, thanks.

AWESOME PIECE ! SHOULDN'T THERE BE SOME KIND OF AWARD FOR THIS ? GREAT STUDY VIDEO TOO ! WOW !

Lovely piece! Brings back some great memories of Keith Emerson. 👍

Rick......Just another Fantastic Lesson.....Nice Drumset

David again...OMG! Just listening to the piece that you just said you created today?!? You are an overwhelmingly talented man! I can't believe how beautiful itiss and how it literally touch my musical soul. I absolutely had to make a comment which I rarely ever do. I've seen so much of your stuff for the past approximately half a year since I fell upon your Channel but as I reached out to you in a previous comment, I would really love to be able to talk to you! If you would be so kind as to grant me 5 or 10 minutes of your time I would be very grateful just to speak with you. Thanks for putting content on RU-vid that is not mindless bullshit! David

Rick, your concept of giving us viewers actual chords on screen to toy around with is fantastic! Like your video on ear training, it may be interesting and beneficial for you to do a video solely on chords, where you play the orchestration and provide us with a lead sheet of sorts to play along with. Best regards, Jalen

Another awesome video, thanks Rick!

Rick love the channel man, the knowledge and skill is immense and your appreciation for music is acknowledged and definitely celebrated. Props. I'm just not sure I understand the path of the video, I misunderstood the title feeling that it would be more chord melody within a chord progression (diatonic or non diatonic) however when you said you can create melodies from these scales IN chords and vice versa then I said "OK, so got you now". You mentioned the Csus in strings and piano and that's cool but the composition (albeit really cool, intellectual and well crafted) seemed more about the strange modulations than melodies within harmonies. Did I miss something about there being no diatonic key or tonal centre? I'll watch again! I've always wondered why you choose to go for these specific key shifts. Thanks for the great (and free!!) info.

Another great video as usual Rick.

Wonderful composition. I must say that you are also a hell of a good pianist too.

You’re an amazing guitar player.. but an INCREDIBLE pianist.. (of course the best teacher/coach in the game, as we all know 😆) cheers ❤️ Ale

The 'E Major' at 4:19 had me laughing out loud. Something about it after all the complex scales is just gold.

brilliant dear Rick, as ever, inspirational & wonderful......................

This video is way over my head lol. I love it though. I understand everything you're saying but it still doesn't click on how it all pieces together. I'm going to have to break down and get the beato book.

The section on the Great Wall footage was super Keith Emerson. Great composing Rick!

Congrats on 505k. We've made a not so long journey , though. Onward to 1M!

This is absolutely beautiful!!!

Oh WOW! I love that composition!

Questions??? Where do I start?? :) great video, I really liked the explanation near the end about using 5 note patterns in each chord, it removed the confusion I had trying to follow along.

Beautiful composition, had me thinking about zappa at some point

I am smiling at the blatant use of clickbait headline, both because it (1) has almost nothing to do with the content of the video, and (2) delivers something so much better.

Very nice stuff. I'm also happy that you confirmed that my ears hadn't gone insane when you explained your use of the sus4 chords over the F Aeolian chord haha.

Hi Rick at 2:26, you wrote a Cb Lydian. Thank you for all your great videos!

Nice composition Rick! You da man!

Awesomeness - Thank you Rick!

rick!! Can you plz do more videos on how to play some of those piano riffs? Like, different patterns we can think about

Is there a video explaining this concept for Guitar? Beautiful music btw. You make it sound so easy... I've got a lot to learn.... Humble Thanks MW

No wonder jazz is so improvisational... Almost every chord has almost every note! ;-) Love the vids!

Rick, thank you so much. Elvis Costello and/or Squeeze please (Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford = great songs)

Wow Rick you are insanely skilled on the piano! Such an inspiration. Makes me want to not give up and continue working on my craft. Thanks for all you do!

so, if I´m playing in the chord progression C-G-Am-F, can I improvise in the C major scale while the c major chord is playing, on the G major scale when the G major chord is playing, and so on? I don´t really get it

These are a few of my favorite things!

Rick! Thank you so much 🙌

So it seems that there is no concept of being "in" a key or modality as a base starting point, into which different sounds are introduced via modulation, chord progression, cadence or unifying organization? Random arpeggiated chords from which you extrapolate certain pitches to create a melody that weaves throughout the selection of chords?

Brilliant! Thanks Rick!

Ricks composition was quite evocative.

wow, It's very beautiful , thank you sir.

Hi Rick, you should do a video talking about Serú Girán, it was an amazing Argentinian band. If you haven't heard of them you should check them out. Charly García, Pedro Aznar, David Lebón and Oscar Moro, outstanding musicians. They created the best latinoamerican Rock music, but since it was in spanish they didn't get very known at english-speaking countries. Love from Argentina, a fan.

I really value the content of your videos. I will DEFINITELY be buying the Beato Book. Any advice on the best way to have it printed and bound?

I just love Jazz classical hybrid music. It’s complex and interesting and beautiful.

That was beautiful!

Rick! Love the channel and I’ve learned a ton from my short time viewing your stuff! If there’s any way we could get a WMTSG featuring Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin, or Sevendust that would be fantastic! Keep up the great content as always!

My professor sent me here. And I see why. Just subscribed 👌🏻

Brilliant composition!

Hi Rick, nice video. Wanted to ask about ideas for putting together interesting chord progressions. Right now I'm experimenting with different major and minor triads over bass notes, and also putting together chords that share a tone, no matter if there's a mode that contains them both. Any method to go about looking for chord progressions would be appreciated

You killed it with that piano line there

That progression at the end would make such an epic track... Melody and chords.. Just wow! Do you mean if we use them to make a track?

You are ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT...your piano composition/playing is so OTHER-WORLDLY AMAZING...it was MIND-BENDING...in a really, really good way...thank you so much, Rick...I LOVE your channel...and that was a fab Live Stream a few minutes ago!!! 💗💗💗

EXCELLENT! Thanks very much.

Brilliant Rick!!

Beautiful. If you sold a recording of this piece on iTunes, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Very well played!

Wow! Amazing again.

4:45 tell me what you hear. you sneaky man Beato.

Thanks for the info!

Hey Rick I've just realized you always explain modes and scales and other aspects of melody, can you do some videos on rhythm next? For something different, and another part of music that I believe is just as important or more important than melody.

Dude that song was amazing. Gave me some serious Allan and Aydin vibes. Incredible piano skills. (Did Allan and Aydin ever play together? )

From the bottom of my *deepest* musical ignorance, being the naive person that I sure am, I cannot refrain from asking myself why something has been written/arranged/composed in such or such way. "Why" not in the sense "why does this all work together?". I am totally sure that there is plenty of formal rules and reasons that justify the connection between those chords, the further connections between the chords and the upper melody, why this sounds more consonant than that because of beatings between frequencies and overtones which then fork out into why this is maybe so in our temperament but may sound totally chaotic for ears trained to maybe microtonal scales. This "why" is fascinating. My work leads me to investigate the structure of Nature and, as humbly as I can try to do that, this involves theorems and formulae and precise statements. Then, you can immagine how I love theory in music, not only the abysmally small part that I can understand and that I (pretend to) use in my amateur music "career", but all those sort of concepts buried in the "black grimoires" of theory that once looked to me as Arabic translated to Hindi and now maybe only look like Arabic. This is all fine and dandy. But. I listened carefully to the piece you composed, with all those nice timelapse and drone views. It's nice. I listened to it three times in a row, trying first to "understand" - but I can't. My theory level is way too low to understand what is going on there, even after you explain it - as simple as that. Call me dumb, no problem :) Then, however, came that "why". Why this piece, what is it telling me? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the "it's all in the attitude", "expressiveness vs. technique" or other mumbo jumbos. And again, I can even suppose that this piece was written "technically", to illustrate a concept or two maybe. Complex stuff, you even say it in the clip. But I also think that every kind of music, even a bunch of random notes played by my daughter on my keyboard, tells us something. I must confess, the images that this piece of music bring to my eyes are those of huge boulders falling down and shattering to pieces. Heavy boulders of notes shattering to their tiniest shards. I tend to realize that lately most of the "theoretical" compositions I listen here (not only, but also here) bring the very same images to me. So I got to wonder: Why do you write this kind of music? What in your mind is the feeling it should convey? What are you trying to tell? I accept it, this may be kind of a lame question, rhetorical if you wish. But I also think that it may be a interesting topic, maybe someday.

Awesome piece

Beautiful!

Ab so lutely Great lesson, thank-you Rick

That piano sounds soo good oh my

Sounds like a neo Keith Emerson, really loved it.

Your Ab Lydian chord is in the bass clef but using treble clef notes.

Thank you Rick. 🙂

Rick Beato wisdom!

Heya Rick, great video. What are the chords with a 'Q' next to the letter? I haven't seen that notation before. Quartal or quintal stacks?

What is CQ/F on 4:01? Is it a typo or a chord built on fourths?

Sir. Would u mind letting us know what VST that first strings (Cmaj7) was?

How do you voice lead from chord to with as much freedom as you do? Cause non of this chords have ever made it to my I V VI IV. Please enlighten me on this. :)

Holy cow, Rick is a virtuoso piano player as well, until now I always thougth he had his piano parts played by that guy who made the opening music. Scales are relatively easy on guitar but on piano ouch at this speed?! so loosely,, Beato should be tested by a university for his memorizing skills , it is beyond comprehension, I want everything, his diet, hisbloodwork, drug use and so forth!

i have to learn piano now... this is so good