Q. I know how to play the piano and have lately wrote some lyrics. But, I need help. How do you transpose lyrics into a piano song. I have picked E Major as my key.
My chord progression is: E - G# - B - A
Could anyone help me, I'm stuck?
A. While there are no rules, there are premises, fundamental ideas on how it works best, which have been written about and are helpful.
Do yourself a very big favor, and purchase a Harvard dictionary of music and music terms, available in a low cost paperback edition. You are clearly working on your own, and if you looked up transpose, for example, you would find it does not at all apply to SETTING text to music.
Also look up Prosody, which is the subject best for you to learn something of if you are to set words to music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)
Since you are doing this so on your own, finding out what prosody is, as a general concept, will already be a great help in how to think about the problem in front of you.
I am certain there are either articles or books, or a chapter of a book, dedicated to Prosody as it relates to the craft of setting words to music. I leave it to you to research that.
For a good beginning, go through some exercise in setting text to a simple melodic line, without adding chords or any other kind of accompaniment. Setting both words and line in a manner closer to personal daily speech, with pauses (rests) and not trying to fit it into a metric verse format, while avoiding convential pop song formats, will give you that much better an understanding of how to effectively but it into the more conventional metric forms as used in popular song.
I suggest some nursery rhymes or short poems for children. If there is a tune associated with the nursery rhyme, as is often the case, take the text, forget the old tune, and write a new one for it. Setting prose, unrhymed and not metric text, is also a great and informative exercise. Again, concentrate only on words and musical line, without accompaniment.
The direct experiences will give you a much better idea how it works, the exercises should be short, which allows your beginning and ending it quickly so you can go to another for further practice.
Since your project is likely to come out less well and / or take much longer unless you have some prior experience, that series of short exercises is a good preliminary work prior your directly attempting a moderate length pop song, the practice giving you a much better chance for 'success' when you start to work on your song.
At least Prosody will give you some very worthwhile 'generalities,' and help you in understanding how to think about the problem (In one regard, making art is solving problems you have set up for yourself.)
With little or no background or experience, other generalities from the most well-intended contributor will offer you very little in the way of concrete guidance.
Best regards.
Can all chord progressions be expressed in terms of scales/modes and modulations?
Q. For example the typical popular four chord song is I-V-vi-IV in terms of any major scale.
Please supply evidence with answer, thanks.
A. No, it can not. For example, a great deal of 20th century composers sought to challenge typical modality, and relied more heavily on ideas like serialism and a greater respect for symmetry (of which the vast majority of diatonic modes do not contain). For example, check out a recording of Milton Babbitt's "Three Compositions for Piano". Even listening to it you can tell that there is never a moment when classical theory would work in analysis. To broaden the scope of analysis, Allen Forte developed a new system that could truly cover all music set in the twelve different pitches (however complex it may be). This is vastly different from the approach Classical theory analysis will give you.
Some composers broke the bounds of Western music even further through the use of quarter tones (see Charles Ives' "Quarter-Tone Pieces").
Can someone help me understand tritones on the piano?
Q. I know you use tritones or fill in chords in between the original chord progression but how do you know which tritone or fill in chord to use in that key or chord progression? And how do I play the right tritone for a passing chord or any chord for that matter?
A. if you're looking to add more passing chords between the original changes of a piece, there are lots of ways of going about it. adding a secondary dominant chord or a secondary II V are popular method.
let's say the original progression is a bar each of Cmaj7 Fmaj7 G7, for extra passing chords, one could add secondary dominant chords (Cmaj7 C7 Fmaj7 D7 G7) or secondary II V progressions (Cmaj7 Gmi7 C7 Fmaj7 Ami7 D7 G7) but the real dictating factor in what you can get away with is whether the melody works over the new chords though, one can add extensions/augmentations to chords to help the melody fit. A tritone substitution is another popular way to alter progressions. wherever there is a dominant chord a tritone substition can be made, assuming the melody can be accomodated. the most important two notes in a dominant chord (aka the V chord) are the 3rd and 7th (in G7, B and F) because they move by semitone (considered a strong resolution) to the 3rd and 1st of the Key Centre. if you use the dominant chord a tritone away, you maintain those strong semitone resolutions, except the bass movement is now also a semitone resolution. In C Major, the V chord (G7) can be substituted with Db7, because it also has F and B as it's 3rd and 7th and the Db resolving to C adds and extra bit of chromatic resolution which can be tasty in the right circumstances. The Berklee Press Makes some great books about this stuff, there is really an endless amount of ways to reharmonize in, it's an exciting topic to delve into and to hear well executed.
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Title : How to transcribe lyrics to the piano?
Description : Q. I know how to play the piano and have lately wrote some lyrics. But, I need help. How do you transpose lyrics into a piano song. I have ...