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Looper's Delight
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Since we're talking live looping here (and not music theory) I'd like to mention parallel transposition. In live looping this technique is super easy to achieve: just loop a chord and then speed/rate shift it. Minor vs major chords will of course imply totally different scales when transformed, but that's what makes this so creative. A more general tip is to avoid laying down thirds into loops. Then you leave the music open to imply the thirds in your playing, thus keeping instant control over the major vs minor aspect of the key. About the counterpoint thing: When you listen to any combination of notes, or just sounds, you often hear a melody in your imagination. These "instinctual" inner melodies are often of a counterpoint character, so if you take the time to analyze how it relates to the trigger sound heard you get "the tools". Again, since we're talking live-looping traditional compositional theory won't do, as live-looping means you have to be able to come up with the counterpoint theme as you are playing it and creating the music, so that's why I suggested to rather start by investigating ones own default musical instincts. A simpler example: any rubato part played relates to counterpoint in the way that your brain goes into a "split-vision / multitasking" mode. This mental mode is the attitude to grasp counterpoint on the fly. Another example: Often when you listen a melody your imagination plays up fitting chord changes in your mind. Now, imagine listening to a melody and working your mind to come up with a fitting OTHER melody (instead of the default chord experience). There you go... I've noticed when playing with you, Rick, that you are extremely good at all this inside the tempo domain. A known fact, in rock n roll vocal teaching, is that the rhythm is what it is all about. Teachers even advice students to not even try to sing in tune, just concentrating on nailing the rhythm and its accents. "Musical" notes will follow by automatique, that's just how we humans work. The power of attitude is king! Remember the Miles Davis trick to play in a different key than the music and stick with it, forcing your musical instinct to survive in a partly hostile harmonic territory. Another exercice to train one's brain for counterpoint hearing. Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.perboysen.com http://www.youtube.com/perboysen On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Ed Durbrow <edurbrow@sea.plala.or.jp> wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2012, at 9:10 AM, Rick Walker wrote: > > What are some tricks or strategies that you use to create either more > complex harmony > (as opposed to purely modal or diatonic harmony) in melodic songwriting? > > > Either or … ? > Use common tones to modulate. For example take the A in an F chord and > use > it as the 7th in a B chord to modulate to E. > To get away from model writing, try counterpoint, particularly chromatic. > > So how could you do any of this with a looper?