Interesting Chords - Ben Levin
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- A method for quickly writing interesting chord progressions, plus an example of further development.
Check out my Patreon! - / benlevin
You can hear my music here:
www.BenLevinGro...
www.BentKnee.Ba...
"Sometimes cleverness will just getchya killed" Bens the man
I couldn't resist. I had to use that line: soundcloud.com/schwa_iska/ben-levins-clever-chords-will-you-get-you-killed
^Made with Ben's permission
Honestly i related to that so much. Sometimes trying to be too “aha! Bet you didn’t expect this” just junks up a song so bad I bail on it. But...SOMETIMES...it’s great.
I dig your world man
Glad to be in yours :)
Not Right Music exactly! He‘s so relatable
"you might get something that sounds bad like..." plays some dope spread voicings
"Am I gonna try to be clever or am I just gonna go with the flow? Sometimes cleverness will just get ya killed" Ben on his taoist shit, I dig it
"id ont know, everything sounds good to me today" I know right? As a musician, you get at that point of life where you just understand and appreciate everything
peter wurst i think I have these days too. Some days everything sound nice and musical and other days everything I wrote sound like crap doesn't matter how hard I try do compose.
The day I realised that even the ugliest sounding chords can be made to sound beautiful was one of the most important musical points of my life.
although admittedly he was playing a lot of pretty consonant stuff in my opinion
Sounds like hot trash to me
J the only thing that makes a note or chord wrong, is what comes before it and what goes after it.
If you can take it to a resolution, it’s all good!
You're teaching me how to be creative again, instead of relying on music theory :D
i hope you scheduled the doctor and got your plane tickets ben
I still haven't done those things :(
Oh my gosh, I definitely thought that was a calendar appointment I had given myself but I had no idea why...
I'm glad I'm not the only one that records myself singing gibberish to make up vocal melodies! Then I write the lyrics later. The random rhythm of the gibberish usually inspires the lyrics.
Chris Edwards
Absophukkinlutely!! Of course whatever works for the individual. I most often, though not every instance, will gibberish to assist an enticing melody line. There are times where a lyrical line already sparks and prompts me to build upon that with already a melodic influence is there.
GIBBERISH=GOOD!!
LOL!
It's a tried and true method. Sia does it!
Haha that's how she ends up with such uninspired lyrics. She is no poet
i actually learned how to sing by just humming chord progressions while im playing guitar, i still suck at singing but im getting better at the actual techniques used to sing, i can hum something while playing and itll sound pretty good, but once i start trying to sing actual lyrics it gets nasally and sounds like a cat dying.
That's how Steve Vai wrote "For The Love Of God"
I love your none-standardized approach to music! As Stokowski (1882 - 1977) would instruct his orchestra, "Each one of you must be a poet as well as a great player of your instrument, and through your poetic feeling, you can express every kind of music. Do not permit yourselves to become, as is the tendency in the world today, standardized, so that you all think and feel the same way. Do not be alike. Be different as you really are in nature. No two violins are alike. No two bows are alike. No two hands are alike. No two nervous systems are alike. No two minds are alike. No two emotional characters are alike. You are all different. Be different! Don’t standardize yourself. And put all those differences, all that richness of different coloring of personality into the music." This is what I appreciate about your musicianship.
(I would add, know that we are the Sameness expressed as infinite differences and let that be the muse of our creations.)
The relationship you have with music is enviable. Love the very down to earth and mellowness of your approach.
Ben managed to writ in like 45 seconds what is quite possibly my favorite melody/vocal line of all time.
4:43- "Any of this stuff could work, depending on how we arrange it." - Fact. That is all.
Youre so relatable! „Be clever or go with the flow?“ this is so me.
this is actually almost exactly how i do it already, that's really cool
liquid prozac i
The 1st chord reminds me of that little thing from the ps1 startup screen.
Nice, I hope that brings back good memories.
I like your way of doing that kind of things. Not thibking too Much, just throwin ideas, without worrying too write the perfect chord progression.
Yeah, the thinking comes in, but not until I'm on a roll.
What is that gamelan sounding patch? Holy cow!
Love your approaches Ben. You've influenced me a lot in my own writing. Thank you
Love how you give us this close look on your process.
7:34 Take that adam neely xD xD
Ben you are a solid and beautiful musician with all the bases covered
I haven't slept in about a day. I dozed off while watching and Ben's singing scared me half to death
I love that you're so transparent about your process.
I'm a really sad person and this makes me happy. Hope you feel good about that. THanks.
That sounded like it could have turned into a trap beat for some reason. That light snare roll thing I think was part of it, the use of ascending arpeggios, and the sparseness/the gap between the very low end and high end of the frequency spectrum. It was fun to think about even if that wasn't where it was going. Very cool chords.
Thanks! Feel free to sample the audio and make your trap beat come to life if you'd like.
Yooooo... I might have to now :)
Just pledged on your Patreon :)
Thank you so much! I messaged you on Patreon about something, you rule!
The trap remix happened. Check my reply on Patreon.
"Cmajor and Cminor world" how can you not dig that
what did he mean by that?
@@caronava2629 The chord has both the major and minor 3rd of C in it depending on how you analyze it (E and Eb).
The chord has a chromatic cluster in it aside from not being voiced as such (D-Eb-E-F), so I don't think conventional analysis will be of much use.
I'd like to think of it as a #9 chord (E natural and D#), but there's already a D natural as well so uh-oh. Not to mention voicing a #9 with the #9 in the bass makes it sound as though that same bass note is actually the tonic - that is, if you voice a C7#9 chord well and then play the same upper part over the "Eb" (D# when regarded from C7#9's point of view), then it sounds a lot like an Eb7b9 (the "E natural" functioning as an Fb). Things get weird.
Writing with a plan was a great series, but I'm definitely happy that we're back to your usual content for a change. Cool and inspiring video, I should try this out on my keyboard as well. But what exactly did you use for percussion?
Yeah, I'm glad to be back too. The thing about Let's Write is that it can take an unlimited amount of time for me to actually finish the piece, so it ends up being an epically long series. It's probably the most useful thing I do on this channel though because I'm not aware of anyone else doing it. Anyway, thanks for watching! I used Battery 3 small percussion kit for the sounds on this one.
Fantastic idea and very inspirational.
Love watching the right brain at work. Letting go of conscious control from the left and jumping in. That's where I find my favourite chordal voicings on the guitar when I'm searching for a new song. Have you read the book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'?
Dawg the minute you started singing WTF . It was GAME OVER. HOW are you so fucking good.
With the percussion, it reminded me of Kaada/Patton's stuff!
I seriously love your videos, Ben! I'm inspired to try and stasrt learning music theory, and these videos have been a magnetic north to head for. Keep up the great work!
What a bass.
i looooove this progression
I love watching you write cause it’s very similar to how I write and I was able to predict the direction you was going. Except the drum line. You got me there lol
looove the vibe of this song
Thanks!
Fantastic. Inspiring.
Watching your process is always interesting and helpful for me.
Excellent, thanks for telling me!
I like the nonidiom he made up just like that. Very freeing! Thank you.
very interesting. Fascinating watching the creative process at work
That second chord and its accompaniment are freaking awesome! Cmaj Cmin stuff!
Interesting idea. Another idea. Put the numbers 1-88 into a random list generator. (1-88 referring to the keys on a piano) use the first 5 numbers to make a chord (could be any number just arbitrarily going with 5). Keep regenerating lists and making the first 5 numbers of each list a chord. So if you did the list say ten times you would have ten 5 note chords. Solves the problem of hand shape and hand size determining the chord you pick. You could do any amount of numbers depending on the register you
Want to use. Could be 20-50 if you wanted. Register could change between chords. Your video gave me this idea.
List could just be 0-11 and you could decide yourself what octave each note should be in.
With 0-11 there's more potential for smooth voice leading I think if you want voiceleading.
This has me subbed. If the rest of your content is half as groovy as this, you've got a fan for life
The second chord sounds a good bit like Pelog from gamelan music, expecially since the music box sort of sound you're using sounds like a saron. I really like where this is going!
The middle 'mushy' one at 2:56 was awesome
Bro. I doreally love your mindset with music, you have a veeery nice touch. When I say that music nowadays is very advanced and we should experiment with it a lot more, I think a lot of you because Iknow that you understand what it means, music is just bunch of infinite possibilities and im glad that people like you is just nailing it! cheers from Venezuela, pal
This is has something special. Did that musical idea make it to an album? I like the feel of it, and the instrumentation works too, especially the initial keyboard part, vocal and sax. It has depth.
sweet concept
Must make a full track out of that !
man that video is gold, i really like composing this way
continue this song it sounds so good
First chord is a C-11. Chord scale is C Dorian.
Second chord is a D- (omit 5) over Cmaj (omit 5) with a pedal Eb. [a hybrid polychord]. E Phrygian with a Eb pedal.
Third chord is a Gsus4 (b9). Chord scale is the 4th mode of the Pentatonic with a b9 (it's a real Japanese feel)
Forth chord is a Bbmaj over Abmaj (omit 5). [a polychord] Chord scale is Ab Mixolydian.
Other chord scales are available, but those are my picks.
Huh, I was viewing the third chord as some sort of Ab maj/lydian tonality
Have you heard Dhafer Youseff? He's an awesome Jazz oud player/singer. The chords and vocals reminded me of him.
Interesting ways to approach chord progressions! Gotta try this out sometime.
I have a question: how do you process your vocals? I don't know, might be the timbre of your voice but damn the vocal take sounds amazing on this one!
I have been practicing singing a ton, so that helps. I'm using a good deal of reverb and am enhancing the stereo image using a preset in Phasemistress called Stereoizer 3. Microshift can do the same thing.
A lesson on singing would be amazing Ben. Whatever it is that you been practicing, it's working fantastic!! Please share it with us.
Ben Levin Thank you!
seems like everyone has an artist this reminds them of. i thought it was very evocative of Arca's self titled LP, with maybe a bit of a James Blake structure to it. that chord construction method is basically how i would always improvise on the piano, since my training with it stopped so young and i never could really do much more than that.
Thanks Ben!
Finally, someone who speaks my language.
so damn good
So so cool, thanks for sharing
You're welcome!
Very interesting - nice work.
This is sick. Also the way you memorize each chord for going from the piano to the text document is something I do a lot, even the inflections are similar.
love this. love you ben
Yes, dude. This is what I needed. Thank you
that was really interesting, great trigger for ideas. thanks!
Excellent, may you write and be happy!
embrace failure shirt in background. as in lets paint tv?! as in john Kilduff?! Fuck yeah mate!!!!
Yeah! Let's Paint TV is awesome!
Ben, you’re so mellow... Brutal... 🤘
When you come to Oregon for your next big tour my family and I will be buying tickets.
Amazing method. Love your content.
Than you!
Ben Levin wow, you're also very humble! Thank you for replying!
This is where I usually leave it. I say "alright, that's a start, I'll continue tomorrow", and that never happens again. 😂
For some reason it's reminding me of SNES stuff. I'm getting major Chrono Trigger vibes.
That's cool!
The bell sort of tone reminds me of the creepy music from Secret of Mana
Really cool singing!
Awsome stuff
Man the chords were iffy until the baseline kicked in. I was like aww yea and the vocals move it along. The percussion were icing on the cake
Great video!
I watched this at double speed and that was a good decision on my part.
Didn’t know Ben played sax, pretty cool
Yeah, as you more or less pointed out, the 2nd chord should be reworked.
You could possibly reinforce the 4th more, but the resolution sounds good enough that you don't need to go full harmonious.
great video as always, ben!
Thank you Pedro!
HE'S BACK
I never left you pal!
this is great
This reminded me of a music from Nomade Orquestra, called Venus.. don't know exactly why ..
Pretty cool btw!!
I might be weird but I actually liked the chromatic thing going under the 2nd chord better than what you rolled with in the end. But it's cool either way, I should try this method if I ever get my hands on a keyboard-based instrument.
Super cool ideas! You should absolutely check out Inna Zhelannaya. She has a similar vibe in some of her songs. You would like it.
Let me know if you end up liking her stuff. It completely opened a new world of sound for me.
Super cool! I'm doin' it!
Do it!!
I would love to see you do this for an hip hop song
Just an idea
I'm going to make another hip hop album one of these days.
What's the name of the one you got? It's Grown Up in there?!
Gonçalo Marques yes! It’s called Life and Back and it’s on Bandcamp and Spotify Hope you enjoy!
Very cool, I love this kind of creative stuff. Can't say I much cared for the vocal part, but it's not done. But overall, this is an awesome way to kick start a song. BTW, Ben, you're in NYC right? Hope you and your friends are keeping safe with the stuff going on there today.
Confinement fsearched after 2112. Rock and roll
dope idea
Great channel, subbed!
I'm a little late to the video, but the finished song sounds like it could fit perfectly with the score of the anime Mushishi about Japanese folktales
2:28 That is exactly how I memorize sequences of notes haha
Nice!
Thanks!
Cheers dude
Simple dimple and beautiful!(: thank you Dr Levin.
You're welcome!
Björk is that you?
Great stuff! Thank you!
PS: schedule doctor, get plane tickets in 30 mins
;)
Great video! Like the kinda playful way of composing
By the way, the first two chords remind me a lot of Noctambulist by matryoshka, haha
you need to schedule doctor and get plane tickets in 30 min dont forget
Thank u for making the comment section worth my time
That's really funny, I've been wokring in a similar way for a bit now. Love your stuff man :)
Cool! It's a lot of fun!
I'm pretty sure that 7 chord you're having a problem with is the #9. Good stuff. By the way
i CANNOT believe you just invented arca
Bb over Ab in the bass is more like Ab lydian imo, especially with the way it resolves (i.e. not to Eb/G)
This reminds me of some of the music Claudio makes