Author Topic: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?  (Read 1264 times)

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Offline Beryl1803

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ik this is kind of a weird questions - and depends on taste - but I still would like to know what SONGS (- after ANALYZING the notes and riffs and music - and everything- (how each note is related to others ) - basically understanding how that song is composed ) - can YIELD to being a better composer or being a much open minded and very creative artist... - what all songs do I sit down and analyze to help better me and make me more creative?

thanks  :heart

Offline The Walrus

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2018, 07:33:02 AM »
Creativity isn't a math problem - you can do this with literally any song you want. :) Pick some of your favorite songs or the ones you find most interesting and go at it. One song is not inherently 'better' for getting 'creative' unless you're looking for something very specific (a specific key or scale or usage of mode, a certain rhythmic pattern, etc.).

You get better just by practice and study, not by picking The Dance of Eternity over Surrounded :)
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Offline Renzo

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2018, 07:41:03 AM »
ik this is kind of a weird questions - and depends on taste - but I still would like to know what SONGS (- after ANALYZING the notes and riffs and music - and everything- (how each note is related to others ) - basically understanding how that song is composed ) - can YIELD to being a better composer or being a much open minded and very creative artist... - what all songs do I sit down and analyze to help better me and make me more creative?

thanks  :heart

As a classical composer my advice is: try to listen to various kinds of music to expand your influences and don't try to sound like your favourite band/composer. But practically: first of all, find a structure of your song/composition and then find all the stuff regarding the music (melody, harmony, rhytm, tempo, etc.) because the risk is that without a structure your composition may sound like there isn't any hook and more like an improvisation (surely you can improvise to find the inspiration to find the main theme of your new work). Remember, a main theme can be very short (like the main theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) or very long (like the main theme of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto). I hope this has been useful.

Offline Renzo

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2018, 07:42:26 AM »
ik this is kind of a weird questions - and depends on taste - but I still would like to know what SONGS (- after ANALYZING the notes and riffs and music - and everything- (how each note is related to others ) - basically understanding how that song is composed ) - can YIELD to being a better composer or being a much open minded and very creative artist... - what all songs do I sit down and analyze to help better me and make me more creative?

thanks  :heart

As a classical composer my advice is: try to listen to various kinds of music to expand your influences and don't try to sound like your favourite band/composer. But practically: first of all, find a structure of your song/composition and then find all the stuff regarding the music (melody, harmony, rhytm, tempo, etc.) because the risk is that without a structure your composition may sound like there isn't any hook and more like an improvisation (surely you can improvise to find the inspiration to find the main theme of your new work). Remember, a main theme can be very short (like the main theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) or very long (like the main theme of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto). I hope this has been useful.

(Sorry if I have used the phrase 'main theme' a LOT)

Offline erwinrafael

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2018, 09:36:51 AM »
Are you asking specifically for a Dream Theater song to analyze?

Offline Beryl1803

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2018, 12:24:39 AM »
well...I am kind of a 17-yo . So... :biggrin: Im sometimes find it difficult to be more creative - so I guess - I need help in analyzing and need help in identifying what songs to analyze . what songs can I analyze to be melodically creative then?

Offline Bertielee

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2018, 01:36:33 AM »
well...I am kind of a 17-yo . So... :biggrin: Im sometimes find it difficult to be more creative - so I guess - I need help in analyzing and need help in identifying what songs to analyze . what songs can I analyze to be melodically creative then?

I'm not a musician, but if you're looking for specific DT songs, there is a lot of their songs that are very "melodic". You can start by analyzing one of their "easy" songs like Wait for Sleep for instance.

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Offline Lonk

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #7 on: July 13, 2018, 05:35:31 AM »
Creativity doesn’t come from analyzing music. You might be better of improvising and seeing what comes out. Pick a song that’s easy to follow and improvise a melody over it.

Tip: If you are not good at improvising. Start off by picking 5 notes of the key/scale the song is written in. And then play around with those 5 notes only. Do that until you feel comfortable and add the full octave (do not go outside of this octave yet) play around that octave for a while and then keep expanding.

If you really want to analyze songs and see if they help you be more creative. Buy Dream Theater’s Keyboard Anthology (it’s easier and better to analyze the music in keyboard books than Guitar books). That book has plenty of interesting songs to analyze. It gave me a few years of entertaining. I would recommend analyzing metropolis part 1(see if you figure out what they do harmonically at the end), beyond this life, Learning to Live(and wait for sleep) and maybe Stream of consciousness. Those songs are pretty interesting to analyze.
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Offline Beryl1803

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2018, 04:40:58 AM »
now Ik that creativity might not be sparked from analyzing dt's songs, but their songs are obviously complex enough - for me to analyze and learn something new for sure. what songs do I start on, how do I analyze it, then to what songs do I move on to , and how do I analyze them? - ik they won't help me creatively , but at least start a spark in my head :)

Offline YtseJamittaja

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2018, 06:09:56 AM »
Good replies here. IMO first you have to learn easy songs and then more complex ones. Remember to listen all kinds of music and not only DT or just heavy stuff. When you learn to play many songs, at the same time you have to learn the song structures. When you learn some funky songs, some heavy songs, some jazz songs, some pop songs, you have great selection of different kind of music styles and you can learn to be more productive and creative by combine music genres. DT has great variety of songs. Easy ones could be Wither, Silent Man, Hollow Years, I walk beside you and hardest ones could be their epics. But remember to listen all kinds of music. You can write the sections down from the harder songs, for example Octavarium like verse A, verse B, chorus, bridge... That could help to remember structures  :)
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Offline Beryl1803

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2018, 07:50:43 AM »
Ok now I kinda have encountered a huge problem. I'm really trying to understand or analyze their easiest song probably - which is wait for sleep - just a piano and strings piece- but Im really struggling to analyze .
Can anyone help me understand how to analyze and what shud I really look forward to , when listening to the songs, cuz I have listened to it more than 20 times, but Im not able to analyze - I get the music but Im unable to understand how to 'reverse engineer' it - if that makes sense
 :heart :heart

Offline The Walrus

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2018, 08:15:38 AM »
Ok now I kinda have encountered a huge problem. I'm really trying to understand or analyze their easiest song probably - which is wait for sleep - just a piano and strings piece- but Im really struggling to analyze .
Can anyone help me understand how to analyze and what shud I really look forward to , when listening to the songs, cuz I have listened to it more than 20 times, but Im not able to analyze - I get the music but Im unable to understand how to 'reverse engineer' it - if that makes sense
 :heart :heart

How much harmonic theory do you know? Serious question, I don't know what kind of musical knowledge you have. Start by breaking it down in easy to manage sections, first. Start with the rhythm. Can you sing the rhythm from memory, without playing the song? Write it down somehow, either with software or good ol' pencil and paper. Can you figure out the meter? Work it out and see if it matches the song and makes sense when you look at it. Then try to transcribe the piano and string parts - if you can do that, you're well on your way. Figure out what notes are being played at a given moment and try to figure out the chords it could make, and what key those chords fit under. Without giving it away, assuming you're new to harmonic theory, generally the first and last bars will give you an indication of what key the song is in.

The 'analysis' comes from what is written above - figuring out the notes, the chords, the voicings used, and understanding what the composer did to make those sounds. The composer likely did not sit down and think meticulously about the theory behind the music, rather, the analysis is just for understanding what makes the music sound the way it does.

Wait For Sleep is pretty simple, but Vacant might even be easier. Or Beneath The Surface, or sections of other songs like the beginning/ending to Surrounded, or Another Day, or the intro to The Count of Tuscany. Play around and have fun. :)
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Offline Beryl1803

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2018, 12:46:56 AM »
my knowledge in music theory is very little. I can try to read notes here and there but may often fail - Im not a quick reader either. I can understand theory though - IK what circle of fifths is , but never know how to use or how its used - neither can I completely identify it. I know how time signatures - kinda work , I can figure out the time signatures - I figured out dark eternal night's time signature and signature changes (took me some time but still). I only know surface level theory and not in depth.
I'd still like to get more help to analyze songs  :biggrin: :) whoever reads, do help me out analyzing songs nd sharing ur analysis with me

Offline TheCountOfNYC

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Re: What songs can help to make you more technical and creative?
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2018, 01:50:08 AM »
This is based on my experience with Dream Theater’s music and how it helped me become a better musician.

As far as technicality goes, any one of the band’s crazy instrumentals will work. Erotomania, The Dance of Eternity, and the middle section of Outcry are all masterclasses in virtuosic playing.

When it comes to being more creative, it depends on what aspect of music you’re looking to improve on to help make interesting and memorable songs. For melodies, I would go with their ballads. With simpler song structures and more steady rhythms, these songs require catchier melodies and chord progressions to hold the listener’s attention. Look at songs like Another Day, The Spirit Carries On, and Wither and listen to the way the melodies are shaped around the chords.

For rhythmic intricacies, you can’t go wrong with their mid length songs. Tracks like Take the Time, Just Let Me Breathe, and Panic Attack use polyrhythms, metric modulation, and various other rhythmic tricks to keep things fresh and interesting. Listen to these songs to help expand your rhythmic horizons.

For song structures, I would check out their mini-epics. With these songs being over 10 minutes in length, they can’t have a standard song structure otherwise they would lose the listener. Songs like Trial of Tears, Home, and Breaking All Illusions have various different sections intricately interwoven into each other while being connected by reoccurring musical themes and motifs. Figuring out what makes these songs work will almost certainly help you learn how to make unconventional song structures work which will allow for more musically complex compositions.

The band’s 20 plus minute epics are of course the perfect songs if you want to hear melody, technicality, rhythmic complexity, and intricate song structures all woven into one, but I feel that finding songs that allow you to focus on one of these ideas at a time will yield better results, as it will allow you to perfect one idea before moving on to the next. Their epics are simply a combination of everything that makes Dream Theater great.
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