# Need more theory



## MusicMetalHead (Oct 15, 2010)

So as some of you may know I am building a perfect fourths website, but I need more theory. I already have a bunch of basic chords(some more exotic ones would be nice), arpeggios, and scales (once again some cool sounding ones would be nice). But I need more theory. No need to explain it but just post a reply with stuff I should look up. I at first was going to post the launch date as two weeks ( a month ago ) but then I started school so it got pushed to the side. So it will be as I go kind of thing. When I think its ready I will release it. any theory ideas to look up would be nice.


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## KrewZ (Oct 15, 2010)

www.musictheory.net


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## Holy Katana (Oct 15, 2010)

How exotic are we talking about for these chords? I can crank out a bunch of voicings without any trouble, but I'd like to know exactly how crunchy you want them to be.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 16, 2010)

Triads:
- Major
- Minor
- Diminished
- Augmented

Seventh chords:
- Major seventh
- Dominant seventh
- Minor seventh
- Half diminished (m7b5)
- Fully diminished
- Minor/major seventh

Ninth chords:
- Any of the seventh chords plus a major or minor ninth
- Dominant 7 #9

Eleventh chords:
- Any of the seventh or ninth chords plus a perfect or augmented eleventh

Thirteenth chords:
- Any of the seventh, ninth, or eleventh chords plus a major or minor thirteenth

Chords with added or substituted members:
- sus4
- sus2
- add6 (often abbreviated as "6", G6 for example)
- m6, or madd6
- 6/9 (This is a chord quality that's often voiced with a lot of perfect fourths, so it's good for the tuning. G6/9, in the fourths voicing, would be G B E A D, where G-B is a major third, and B-E, E-A, and A-D are all a perfect fourth apart.)


Scales - Standard stuff:
- Major
- Minor
- Diatonic modes (Dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, locrian)
- Harmonic minor
- Harmonic minor modes
- Melodic minor
- Melodic minor modes

Exotic stuff:
- Whole tone
- Octatonic
- Harmonic major
- Melodic major (mixolydian b6)
- Double harmonic minor
- Nine-tone augmented
- Augmented scale (alternating half steps and augmented seconds)
- Hirajoshi
- Pelog


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 16, 2010)

@SchectorWhore: Thank you very much. I already have some of these but some of the others I will have to start working on.

@Holy Katana: I don't need the actual chord blocks, just names or the formula based off the Major scale if you feel so inclined.

@KrewZ: Most of the things on there are intro stuff, inversions, basic chords etc; but the tone row tool is something I will most certainly investigate.


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## Holy Katana (Oct 16, 2010)

Alright. Some of my favorites are maj7#11, 13b9, 13#9, maj7#5, 7#5 (also called 7b13), 7b9#5, 7#9#5, mmaj9 (the chord at the end of the James Bond theme song!), mmaj7b5 (sometimes notated as a slash chord with a major triad over the b9; for example, C/Db), mmaj7b13... 

I also have favorite voicings for rather ordinary chords.


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## failshredder (Oct 16, 2010)

Don't you dare ever forget about secondary diminished chords, secondary dominants, and common-tone diminished chords. 

And the Neapolitan sixth.


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## Holy Katana (Oct 17, 2010)

failshredder said:


> Don't you dare ever forget about secondary diminished chords, secondary dominants, and common-tone diminished chords.
> 
> And the Neapolitan sixth.


Those are in context. He was asking for individual chords. Taken out of context, those are just diminished chords, dominant sevenths, and major triads.


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## failshredder (Oct 18, 2010)

But one can learn how to construct about fourteen different chords in ten minutes. Weird places to use them that's not just i-iiº-III-iv-V-VI-VII-i, on the other hand...


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 18, 2010)

I think I have enough chords and scales to play around with for awhile. Thank you SchectorWhore and Holy Katana. But what I am really looking for is stuff beyond that. Chords are fine and dandy but you can go to a bunch of websites to find these. gootar thingy comes to mind. I'm looking for more of that "weird" stuff. Tone rows, atonal theory, modulation. (already have those by the way) I want to take as much of that stuff that is really helpful for creating unique sounds, and centralize it in one place so players (even those that don't use P4) can come to my site and find it instead of spending hours on six or seven different sites to find it. I'll do the footwork for them and they just have to come to my site to use it. Thats more of what I was looking for. Non-mainstream theory I guess you could call it.


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## bostjan (Oct 18, 2010)

A few cool scales to consider:

Enigmatic
Enigmatic Minor
Neapolitan
Neapolitan Minor
Spanish Gypsy/Ahaba Rabba
Hungarian Minor
Hungarian Major
Acoustic
Romanian Minor
Iwato (pentatonic)
Eight Note Spanish Scale

Also, to be specific, I believe the Octatonic that SchecterWhore mentioned is specifically the WH Diminished Scale a.k.a. Leading Whole Tone Diminished Scale and the HW Diminished Scale a.k.a. Leading Semitone Diminished Scale.

As far as chords, I think they have all been covered.


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 18, 2010)

what scales would I use for an egyptian sound?


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## bostjan (Oct 18, 2010)

MusicMetalHead said:


> what scales would I use for an egyptian sound?



Double Harmonic/Byzantine works well for Egyptian-flavoured jamming, IMO.

Or Egyptian Pentatonic. 1 2 4 5 b7


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 18, 2010)

Phrygian dominant, as well. 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7. I tend to agree that the double harmonic minor/byzantine scale has a more North African/Middle Eastern flair to it, though. Really, what you're looking for in those "Egyptian" sounding scales is the augmented second interval. Check this out:







In the phrygian dominant, there is an augmented second between b2 and 3. In double harmonic minor, it's between b2 and 3, as well, but between b6 and 7, additionally.

I should also point out that these scales are the fifth modes of harmonic minor and hungarian minor, respectively. Compare:


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 18, 2010)

Thanx guys. I've had an idea for an egyptianish metal intro but havn't been able to make it because I can't really get an egyptian sounding phrase from scratch. This should help. Going to make a page for my solo (ha) work once the site is up and running smooth. Still a long way off.


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## bostjan (Oct 19, 2010)

Check out Egypt off of Symphony X's V album. 

I have an old record from nearly 15 years ago where I was trying to generate and Egyptian sound. It's guitar over MIDI tracks, the tone is total crap and the playing is not very well executed, but the theory is okay, I think. Sometimes the line between Egyptian and Arabic music get a little blurry to me.

The Mummy


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 19, 2010)

ur right. the tone is crap  be better with some good tone. I really like the harmonics in 05 Heavy 19. The beetlejuice Cover was cool too.


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 22, 2010)

Finally got Neck Diagrams so that should speed things up a lot. I'm going to go ahead and say my goal is to have it up by Christmas. Wish me luck. Btw. Fretboard Color on the charts. What should it be? (Perhaps teal SchecterWhore )


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 22, 2010)

MusicMetalHead said:


> Btw. Fretboard Color on the charts. What should it be? (Perhaps teal SchecterWhore )





Some neutral color, probably. Nothing too dark, though. The beige default is nice.


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## MusicMetalHead (Oct 22, 2010)

SchecterWhore said:


> Some neutral color, probably. Nothing too dark, though. The beige default is nice.



....I had a thought........ never mind its gone. Slippery little bastards.  Yes beige is nice.


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## gibsonstokes (Oct 23, 2010)

KrewZ said:


> www.musictheory.net


 thank you for this website mother fucker!


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## ixlramp (Oct 23, 2010)

Lots of exotic modes HERE.

Scroll down to '12 tone modes'. Everything from 2 to 11 tone modes, lots of Ragas. The 'Mela' are South Indian modes.

Of course most exotic modes have frequencies that are between the frequencies of modern 12 equal temperament. The list of '12 tone modes' therefore shows the closest 12 equal temperament approximation of the exotic frequencies.


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