#93

Right on. From the outside, without that knowledge, looked identical to all-too-common bs that is intended to silence women in electronic arts.

Someone without that knowledge (like me!) would then easily think that this forum is a place that tolerates that sort of thing or that well-formed posts by educated women are not appreciated. As a result, other well-educated women may feel disinclined to share their expertise with all of us.

3 Likes
#94

thinking in this vein - watched a video on the 4ms smr thing this morning and made this little generative bit using bandpass filters, delays, and water sounds in ableton

12 Likes
#95

But also by this analogy, language is learnt aurally, and even complex language need not necessarily be learnt through written language. Musical language is even moreso an aural language. The wider you listen the broader your own sense of expressionusing that language will become, regardless of understanding formality.

2 Likes
#96

Most interested melodies that I’ve created was a result of improvisation/random play with 960 sequencer of creating melodies by bricks drawing in ableton. No theory, no mechanical memories of scales/patterns.

If you need some basic hints how to play on keyboard: just use only white keys on keyboard - it’s C-maj and A-mol scale. Just use transpose/frequency knob to modify it from C/A to different major/minor scale.

2 Likes
#97

If you’re going to stick to the white keys, I’d recommend exploring what it sounds like if you start from / hang around somewhere other than C or A. Modes are heaps of fun.

3 Likes
#98

Oh man. Be prepared to get sucked into a very large YouTube rabbit hole!!!

CHORDS OF ORION does a really good job of teaching and demonstrating ambient guitar techniques.

ANDY OTHLING has an “ambient guitar tips” series that is really useful.

There are lots of others too. I loooove big washy guitar sounds. Feels like a perfect fit for interplay with modular synths.

2 Likes
#99

I enjoy these artists. But their work only supports my assertion that “ambient” does not have a generally agreed upon definition.

3 Likes
#100

This is also ridiculously helpful:

https://randscullard.com/CircleOfFifths/

I just leave it constantly open in the background while recording.

(Read the user guide.)

2 Likes
#101

Yay. I have a plastic one. I like the touchy feelyness of it. Very useful device though.

#102

Can’t agree more that listening is one of the biggest things you should be doing to really develop a sense of what works, what sounds you like, how sounds work together, etc. It took me a long time to jump back into making music after my punk rock guitar days pre-family. But it seemed a lot easier for me to put things together, due to the amount of listening I do via my work running a record shop, once I jumped into the synth world.

2 Likes
#103

it was just an advice to start for novice.
In my case I needed almost 15 years to refresh my interest in playing on keys after classical training :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#104

Yup, you don’t actually have to learn it, but even the things you learn all alone are theory. And it’s easier to learn it formally than to learn it by ear. You have to listen wider, but it helps to learn wider too. Jazz theory, for example, is a mess to understand by yourself. It’s just easier to have the written rules to make your ears understand what happens more easily. The more complex forms of music or languages require a lot of work to learn, when you want to go out of the simple rythms or basic chord changes.

1 Like
#105

ok, so i just randomly stumbled across a video analyzing the donkey kong country soundtrack, of all things, but it actually provides one of the most informative lessons on concepts behind ambient composition that i’ve ever seen. for the folks in here like me who have no formal theory training, i actually found this still very easy to follow along with.

Youtube Link

19 Likes
#106

This was really lovely, thanks for the link!! I also loved his take on Chrono Trigger’s nonfunctional harmony—the intro of a younger him going “whaaaaaat this is wrooooooong” in response to strange chord progressions is something I definitely have felt myself too :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
#107

Thanks for posting this. Aquatic Ambience is one of my favorite video game tracks; I used to put DK in the corner of that level and stop playing just to listen to it.

4 Likes
#108

Now I just desperately want to play Chrono Trigger. …

6 Likes
#109

Works for me if I let Flash run in Chrome:

3 Likes
#110

I built a computer for David Wise many years ago. Kinda didn’t really appreciate who he was at the time. It had been a long time since he had done anything at the peak of his powers to be fair. Hindsight makes me feel like I could have got a lot more out of the encounters we had together though.

1 Like
#111

I finished it for the first time 2 nights ago – such a good game!

2 Likes
#112

The user guide on that is super helpful. Thank you for the link.

1 Like