8 Top Tips For Creating Ambient Chords - Full Tutorial
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- Опубликовано: 22 июл 2024
- These tips demonstrate how to create 'spaceous' chords, how to use them to create variations in'one chord' ambient pieces, and how to use them to produce smooth chord progressions.
The Saddest, Most Poignant Chord In The World: • The Saddest, Most Poig...
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Axis of Awesome: 4 Chord live:
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Timeline
0:00 Intro
1:02 It helps if you know this
1:23 Vital for pads
1:56 Keyboard display
2:22 Chord voicing
3:30 Space out lower notes
4:38 Power chords
5:56 Suspended chords
7:54 Anchor the tonality in the bass
8:30 Resolving suspensions
10:13 Origin of 'suspended'
11:18 Sus 2
14:04 The 9th
16:53 Minor add 9
18:26 Varying a single chord
20:38 Sus 2 variations
21:44 Varying chord sequences
21:50 The Axis chord progression
26:13 Outro
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I am a 62 year old retired from stage musician (injury made it necessary). I have had college level theory, most of the less common points (chromatic mediants, parallel chords, what a quartal was, etc) had been forgotten years ago until I locked myself in my studio after leaving live performing. When I started composing again I realized that I needed to get back into it, and have spent the last 2-3 years really digging in again (biggest thanks to Rick Beato and Guy Michelmore!). Now that the introduction is out of the way, I was in a band with a singer/songwriter (3 of us wrote for the band, and it was AWESOME! We all had a little different flavor but it worked as a whole) that could not stand chords that didn't resolve! He would go absolutely mental! I had written an intro for a song we were working on that went from an Asus-D add 2, just by changing the root. He just couldn't abide it!! It was almost comical. Anyway, since we are no longer on stage together I am free to leave chords "hanging" as I see fit. I think that is one of the things that drew me to ambient music. Subtle changes that never really fully resolve if you don't want.
Ha! Ha! Super story, Jay 😄
The only 'rule' is that it sounds good to you. I guess we each have to find our own comfort level but at least you are free now not to resolve anything at all 😊
I'm an old novice transitioning a neglected hobby into something more fulfilling. I truly appreciate your videos. The educational content is filling in some of the holes in my knowledge. Much appreciated.
Very kind, thank you, so glad they are helpful 👍
That was a wonderful look at the "wiring under the board"!
Thank you. The quest for wires continues... 😊
Fantastic video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you very much. Hope you found it helpful 👍
This is great! Especially for an ambient head like me
Hey Bruno - good to hear, glad it was useful 👍
To find resolution, I usually fumble around until it sounds right. Maybe someday I'll know exactly which chord to go... and vids like this are a good start to learning that. I like ambient tracks to have a nice resolution at the end
Hi Mike - the circle if 5ths will help here 👍
Really enjoyed your video. So much fun to have with chords like the ones you demonstrated. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙏
Thank you. So glad you enjoyed it 👍
Thank you, so glad you found it useful 👍
Thank you Sir, very inspiring for somebody like me who struggles with music theory.
Good to know it helped, thank you 👍
Thank you Ian. Simply brilliant insight into creative use of chords to spice up your creations without going too deep into music theory which, as a matter of fact, regrettably put me off studying further when I was 7 years old. So now when I am almost 70
and all the other important bits in life have quietened down I can immerse myself in beauty of music ambience.
Hi Mark - Yes, music theory gets a bad rap 😢 Possibly because of the way it's taught and presented but , but also, alas, because of the many weird terms 😕
Chances are, if you make music you've already absorbed a lot of the basics 👍
This is great! Exactly what I needed. Thank you!
You are most welcome, so glad you found it useful 👍
Thank you for the video very much!
You are most welcome. Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Nicely explained, thanks a lot for your video! 👍😊
Thank you. So glad you found it useful 👍
Great Tutorial!
Thank you, Paul, greatly appreciate your support 👍
Great video. Thank you! 💖
Glad you liked it, thank you 👍
Thank you very much. Very well presented and very useful!
Thank you, Ralf. Happy you enjoyed it 👍
Stunning and helpful video. Thank you.
Glad you found it useful, thank you 👍
Excellent overview and tutorial. This is some of your finest work yet! Well done!!
Thank you, Matt, very kind. 😊
Excellent content!
Thank you, very much appreciated 👍
Great unpacking of the how's and why's of chords. This has opened up a new way for me to think about chord choices. Thanks Ian
Thank you, David - so glad you found it useful 👍
Thankyou for this ,very informative and helpful . I love ambient
Glad you enjoyed it, Chris 👍
Great video. Learned some good ideas. Thanks for taking the time to make it.
Glad you found it useful, thank you 👍
That was a brilliant lesson in these chord variations and how to string them together. Thank you.
Thank you very much, so glad you found it useful 👍
Great lesson thanks 🙏
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you 👍
This is brilliant! You explain it in such a way that is easy to understand and has helped me so much. Thank you Ian. 😊
Thank you, Sandy. So glad you enjoyed it and found it useful 👍
Excellent tutorial
Thank you, very much appreciate your comment 👍
what a great explanation and walk through, i play by ear, make music on the computer and im currently into making ambient and what you just went through has really helped me.
So glad you found it useful. Very happy that it helped 👍
Very useful video, and it couldn't have been more timely for the most recent little piece of music I put together. Thanks for this video and I actually found it to be more practical for me than many Rick Beato videos I watch. He just goes over my head! 😆
Ha! Ha! Thank yo👍Glad you found it useful 😊
Genius!
I wouldn't go that far 😊 but really appreciate the sentiment, thank you 👍
Brilliant
Subscribed
Thank you Ritchie, very much appreciated 👍
@@IanWaugh Your welcome Ian
@@rectify2003 👍😊
Hi Ian!!! I had a great time watching you teaching,man!!!!
So much fun 😁😁😁😁😁
Teachers must attend your classes to lern how to do their job!!!!!!!
Music is fun and deep feelings, brother!!!!
Be happy!
LABIS
Very kind, thank you. Some terrific pieces on your channel 👍
Thank you so much for this wonderful explanation! I already knew most of the theory behind this, but it didn't feel very useful and now I see it was because I was missing this "secret ingredient" you revealed here, namely how it all relates to ambient music. It's rather difficult to deconstruct these complex chords by ear. Thanks again, you are a truly great teacher! Oh, and bonus points for using Vital :) Subscribed and looking forward to more videos from you!
Thank you very much for the compliments, the bonus points and the subscription - all very much appreciated 😊 👍
Thank you for your smooth introduction into some music theory. Due to the lack of being a good keyboard performer (unfortunately) I try to do what I call "ambient" 😉. So your "lesson" gives some valuable hints how to improve my tryings. Please more of that (especially for those of us who are no more the youngest 😊).
Thank you kindly. I'll see what I can do 😊
9:40 in a gadda da vida......ha!
......And your happy face, brother! Full of life!!!!!
Had to look that one up 😊
Hi Ian. Having virtually no music theory, I just tend to mash notes together until I come up with something I like the sound of.
This is one of the most useful video tutorials I have seen. If you could do something that explains scales in a similar way it would be fantastic. I don't know if that is possible, but I live in hope 😊
Cheers ✌️
Thanks, David. It wasn't supposed to be a theory tutorial 😊
A few people said it was useful but I'm not sure how as I didn't really do any theory explanations 😕
@@IanWaugh maybe not, but you opened my eyes to mashing the notes together in a more holistic way 😀
Thanks for that!
Cheers ✌️
@@TheDavidPoole OK. Mashing is good 😊
Somehow this video of yours popped up in my feed today... I'm so grateful that it did. Getting back into music after being away from it for a long time, and wishing to explore the ambient genre for guided meditation background music, this video of yours is an especially valued exposition of how to being to approach ambient music. There are so many differing approaches on RUclips that I've allowed myself to become a bit overwhelmed. I guess at some point I would like to go back and analyze the main forms of approach for my own edification. However, in this video you've given me a wonderful point of origin for this exploration. Thank you so much! Cheers to you, Ian! New subscriber here as well.
Hi Jim - thank you so much for your kind remarks and it is gratifying that it provided a little slice of inspiration 😊
There are many ways of approaching Ambient music and, indeed, it has been incorporated into many genres. I think some of the ideas here are a good start for relaxation and I hope you find them useful 👍
@@IanWaugh I'll be going back through this video a couple more times to take some notes. Thanks again, Ian!
@@jimrogers7425 Thanks, Jim. Hope you find some good ideas 👍
This would be the best video I have come across about ambient music so far and well explained thank you but we need more on about the making of ambient music Pleeeeeaaaase and what would you say which BPM would be the best for ambient music
Hi Paul - very kind of you to say so, thank you 👍
The term 'ambient' has crept into many genres and has many aspects so not so easy to cover all the bases
For 'floaty' ambient, the typical bpm is often between 70 - 90 bpm. Hope this helps.
That is an excellent video, interesting and well presented - cheers for that mate 😊 I usually shy away from music theory stuff, but the way you presented this kept my interest and I’ll certainly be trying some of these things. One of these days I might have to bite the bullet and learn to read music but at 63 I’m not sure I’ll be able to achieve this!
Thank you very much, that's greatly appreciated. 😊
You can learn scales and chords without learning notation Although it's not terribly difficult inless you want to sight read 😄You can do it but having fun is more important 👍
@@IanWaugh I have always loved keyboards ever since I was a kid. I remember being totally obsessed with organs and the sounds they made and then I heard Popcorn which blew me away... I was hearing different sounds to what I'd heard before. I think then seeing Kraftwerk on Tomorrow's World and hearing the synth sounds on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album made me obsess about these machines which I knew I'd never be able to afford :) When I was about 11 I had one of those very small Bontempi style organs and played it constantly. It wasn't a Bontempi as they were too expensive but it was similar.
So I now own too many synths and still the sounds I can make with them make me feel good. Whenever I have sat down and tried to learn scales and chords, I've started off with good intentions but then I make a sound and think "oooo that sound like such and such" and away I go into messing around again !! I do know what notes sound good together and I've always been able to pick tunes out on one finger on a keyboard and guitar so I get by doing that.
Hope you don't mind my waffle but it hopefully gives a bit of background about why I still haven't learned all the theory. But I really do want to. So I think if I set my Montage to a piano voice and just use that for this sort of thing then I won't get distracted by the synth sounds.
@@666JGNotts Ah, Bontempi (ruclips.net/video/8NaYlzGyvpA/видео.html)
You probably know more music theory than you think. I certainly find it helpful but the goal is to enjoy what you do and have fun. If you can put notes and sounds together that sound good- that's what it's about 👍
Similar story here, although I'm not old enough to remember times before Popcorn. But I always liked otherworldly sounds so I also find piano practice difficult because I quickly start tinkering with patches. Theory was easier though because I could learn it without sitting in front of a synth. And practicing has been easier lately, probably because I started using those "boring" piano patches more ;) I think they used to be boring to me because I couldn't play properly, but the more I learn the more I can appreciate the plain piano sound.
@@tuesss I remember Popcorn 😱
My desert island keyboard would be an acoustic piano. I really like the sound of a piano although good sampled pianos aren't easy (ruclips.net/video/6XAipBQTWe0/видео.html)
Ambient was also reintroduced in the late 80s and 90s.
Alex Patterson and Jimmy Cauty formed the Orb and DJ ed in the VIP are of Paul Okenfold’s Spectrum/The Trip nights at Heaven. Arguably they kicked off the Ambient reintroduction to pop culture.
Cue Mixmaster Morris, Peter Kuhlmann/Namlook, R+S records, Fat Cat record shop in nine dials London, The Black Dog Productions, Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series etc.
All these and many more all helped bring about a resurgence in ‘ambient’ music bringing it to a new young audience. 👍🏼
I still make ambient music but haven’t done any for a couple of years as I’ve been slowly kitting out my studio…
I remember some of those 😊
Ambient in one form or another seems to be present in most genres now
Great times. ‘I think therefore I am bient…’
‘You’re going home in an ambience’ ‘Chill Out’ etc etc
😅
The term chill out inspired one of the best albums in the genre made by two master pranksters with no classical training whatsoever.
That’s what good music is all about. Feeling and passion.
@@RoofLight00 It is indeed 👍
"that's where the suspended term comes from" - it's this kind of insights that are very valuable to me. I know what a sus chord is and how it sounds, but didn't know how I should look at it. What is also mystical to me (as a very rudimentary keyboard player) is the chords and progressions the loopops and starsky carrs use when they are reviewing gear. It all sounds so great when they do it, but it's just a bit over my head to understand what and why they are doing. So maybe you can shed some light in a next video "how to impress (yourself) with a few interesting chords". Keep up the good work, thanks !
Thank you, so glad you found it useful 👍 I'll see what I can come up with for a future video.
For chords, these aren't what you might call exciting but the 4 usual suspects are good for messing around with and always sound good together: C F G Am
@@IanWaugh I have this free synth app "Synth One" on my iphone and it let's me hold (or latch) each key separately so I can build up chords and then take one note away and place another one and thus step wise progress in all kinds of beautiful progressions. For instance D add9 sus4 -> C add9 -> G6 sus2 -> G sus2 sus4 (which should be a C6 sus2 at the same time). Unfortunately it doesn't tell me what the name of the chords is, so it is hard work to count it out each time. 🙂 🎹🎶
@@soletey832 Sounds cool. I think many people start composing just by playing notes and seeing what sound good. At the end of the day it's about having fun and enjoying what you're doing 👍
That's a fantastic idea indeed! Although my guess is that they simply have a lot of practice playing various songs so they can quickly come up with short snippets which sound good with a given patch. Probably no magic formula there. I'd love to be proven wrong, though!
I started learning piano recently (not the first time in my life, but this time seriously practicing almost every day) so hopefully I will find out sooner or later ;)
@@tuesss I don't think there are any magic formulas, but maybe there are formulas that have stood the test of time 😊
The chord sequence for With Or Without You was made famous by who...? XD
Good vid
Thank you 👍
Maybe I should have said made infamous 😊
how, that was refreshing :) thank you ian !
So glad you enjoyed it 😊
@@IanWaugh i do have some questions if you wouldn't mind helping out :) imagine Im a white-key player but want to explore more lush and aethereal moods... If we use the usual structure 1-4-5 and their relative minors, which chords can replace which chords ? Can I use sus and sus2 to replace any of the minor and major chords ? Like in C, can any of the SUS be used to replace each of the diatonal chords (afaik CFGade) ? Also, when playing with modes (don't know if you have a video on modes), if I'm in C Dorian (I guess DEFGABC naturals), which chords can be used to "center" it around D? I read this all the time but fail to understand :) thank you so much. Your video was so clear on the ambient side that I would really appreciate it if you had some words on this :)
@@eurotium That part of the video was to show a way of keeping major and minor chord progressions should you want to play a tune or sequences over it, but to use sus chords to give a more open feeling while still mainttaining the harmonic progression.
To that end you could try substituting a power chord, a sus 4, sus 2, add 9 for any og the majors or minors. Hope that helps a bit
Haven't done anything on modes.
Minor add 9 sounds like Dire Straits Brothers in Arms
I dunno - my ears aren't that good... 🤔
😎👍👍👍
Thank you kindly 😊
Sus 2/4
Yes indeed...
Very interesting.
Even though most of it went Whooosh....over my head 😧
I love music, well most types, but it all seems SOO complicated when the dreaded THEORY raises it's ugly head 😥
So anyway...THANK YOU for showing me what is going on. 👍😀
Hi David - I was trying to avoid the theory stuff 😱 but I guess it helps to know a little bit...😊
don't let the idea of "theory" scare you. It is just some guidelines to help explain "why". You will learn little bits at a time, and as you apply them it gets less intimidating. And you may even find you are using theory without even realizing it!
@@jayneubauer3401 Excellent, well put, thank you Jay 👍
it's simple really: all you have to do is to learn all six basic "Triads" (chords with 3 notes).
Major, Minor, Suspended 2 and 4, Diminished and Augmented.
chords with more than 3 notes are just the basic triads with one or more notes added.
the Power Chord is not really considered a chord, because it only has 2 notes.
@@moontan91 Easy peasy 😊