# For Anyone Having Trouble With Cinematic Sounding Chord Progressions



## ed buller (Jul 14, 2015)

easy

e


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## Kralc (Jul 14, 2015)




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## SimonCharlesHanna (Jul 14, 2015)

Kralc said:


>



Brilliant.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 14, 2015)

I once had a dude corner me at a gig, and explain to me how he was developing a bunch of revolutionary new scales and modes on the guitar. He had named his favorites Trimolian and Demolian. This dude reminds me a little of that dude.


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## sleepy hollow (Jul 14, 2015)

Ian Dorsch said:


> He had named his favorites Trimolian and Demolian.


I just tried modulating between these two. The result was warm _and _punchy! Now I can do both!


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## reddognoyz (Jul 14, 2015)

Good news! I found that the vo is completely out of phase. If you knock the audio into mono it completely eliminates the vo and you can go ahead and just use the piano music. Movie?...scored!!! One Down!


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jul 14, 2015)

reddognoyz said:


> Good news! I found that the vo is completely out of phase. If you knock the audio into mono it completely eliminates the vo and you can go ahead and just use the piano music. Movie?...scored!!! One Down!



Pff. Preposterous. You think that's all it takes to write film music?

You make it sound mundane and act as if it didn't take any knowledge and ability. There's a lot more to it to make it sound like a real soundtrack.

It won't sound good without choosing the right patch and preset.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 14, 2015)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> It won't sound good without choosing the right patch and preset.



Or as I like to call them, "Synthstruments!"


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## KEnK (Jul 14, 2015)

To me contemporary film composition is more like this than not.
(sorry)
Any body know if the terminology is from EIS ?
A serious query.
From what I've read the orientation is 12 tone rather than 7

k


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## Christof (Jul 14, 2015)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> It won't sound good without choosing the right patch and preset.


Wrong.I needs more than choosing the right patches and presets.
Maybe a melody, a theme?
A rhythmical structure?


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jul 14, 2015)

Christof said:


> Wrong.I needs more than choosing the right patches and presets.
> Maybe a melody, a theme?
> A rhythmical structure?



Gnah, you get that automatically if you crack the right library and pick the right preset!


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 14, 2015)

This thread is the best


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## Christof (Jul 14, 2015)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Gnah, you get that automatically if you crack the right library and pick the right preset!


Ok, I will keep that in mind for my next projects


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## Kaufmanmoon (Jul 14, 2015)

I've been loving this forum since I found it a few months back and has been invaluable.
Don't like the tone of this thread though unless I'm reading the tone wrong?
I don't see a problem with the guys video at all. How great for a someone starting out to be shown how to get the sounds that they hear and love?
This is a perfect device to begin an idea.
If this leads them on to them transcribing and using their ear more and more that can only be a good thing.

I teach guitar to all ages and know students who would love to just sit and try this on guitar or piano.

Phoebe's "old lady" is all wrong by the way! (great clip)


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jul 14, 2015)

Kaufmanmoon said:


> Don't like the tone of this thread though.
> I don't see a problem with the guys video at all. How great for a someone starting out to be shown how to get the sounds that they hear and love?
> This is a perfect device to begin an idea.



I think I understand your point - but at least for me, it's all in good fun and not too serious. Especially as a VI/sample library user and enthusiast, IMO one shouldn't be all to adamant and draconic in their views anyway. There are people out there that would sneer at the whole idea of attempting to produce something that resembles "real music" with lifeless snapshots of isolated musical performances on a computer. Let's not forget that. In the end, as artists, aren't we all sometimes ridiculous in one way or the other? 

There's a certain beauty in conveying a striking emotion and vivid association with just two or three chords. I remember learning all the modes on guitar as a youngster when I thought that I wanted to be a real shredder. I memorized them as "the flamenco sounding one", "the happy mysterious" and the "dark mysterious one", the "Superman mode", the"indian sounding one" ... sure, those are clichés, but in the end it's what you make of it anyway.


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## ed buller (Jul 14, 2015)

what IS interesting is how often these progressions occur in the contexts he describes. He really HAS done his homework. Written a couple of great papers on the subject too. "transformational theory and the analysis of film music " and http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.06.12.2/mto.06.12.2.murphy.html......

His chart of neo riemannian movements is fun to play with too.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 14, 2015)

Yeah, definitely all in good fun.


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## Kaufmanmoon (Jul 14, 2015)

True that Jimmy, and good to hear it's fun.
That little video at the top of this thread is one of the best things i've seen shared on here in a while.
There's another thread on here where a guy is asking essentially how to be a musician as he wants to write the music for his game.
This video would be great for him.


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## ed buller (Jul 14, 2015)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I memorised them as "the flamenco sounding one", "the happy mysterious" and the "dark mysterious one", the "Superman mode", the"indian sounding one" ... sure, those are clichés, but in the end it's what you make of it anyway.


But the fact that they are cliches is very interesting. Because now we have association that can be put to good use. Maybe not the whole thing....just the flavour....it is after all a language and perhaps as media composers learning a few tricks that give us instant responses to certain types of emotions could prove to be very useful. especially if the recognition of these feelings is as widespread as it appears..

another useful source:


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## Living Fossil (Jul 16, 2015)

There is an ever better tutorial online, it explains nearly everything:


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## Farkle (Jul 16, 2015)

KEnK said:


> To me contemporary film composition is more like this than not.
> (sorry)
> Any body know if the terminology is from EIS ?
> A serious query.
> ...



Hello!

The terminology is not from EIS, but the style of counting semi-tones is very similar to how EIS thinks about harmonic motion. For example, in EIS, if I move from a C major Triad to an E Major Triad (four semi-tones away), I call that an E4 (or 4 Equal Interval) harmonic shift.

However, EIS doesn't think about things in a diatonic fashion, but in an "equal interval" fashion, so the orientation involves all 12 notes equally as options for composition. 

FWIW, I think this is a very cool vid that Scott has put together. Ron Jones always talks about putting a notebook of "scales, Chords, and Meanings" together as a composer, so you have a bag of tools to use when needed. Scott has done exactly this, and it's super useful when under the gun. I'm copying this chart right now into my notebook. Good stuff! 

Mike


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## KEnK (Jul 16, 2015)

Farkle said:


> The terminology is not from EIS, but the style of counting semi-tones is very similar to how EIS thinks about harmonic motion.


Thanks Farkle-

I've been curious about EIS but have been unable to find much info at all about it.
Maybe the front page has been revamped since the last time I checked.
Seems like you have to join the course to even find out what it is.

k


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## wolf (Jul 16, 2015)

Living Fossil said:


> There is an ever better tutorial online, it explains nearly everything:




this is awesome! I too feel sad for Neef. And I’m so happy I finally learned about the Louding Technique and the Quantization Audio Spectrum techniques. I’ll be sounding more contemporary from this day forward.



on a more serious note: i agree with Kaufmanmoon.


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## ThomasL (Jul 16, 2015)

Oh, that just cracked me up! Wonderful


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## Farkle (Jul 16, 2015)

KEnK said:


> Thanks Farkle-
> 
> I've been curious about EIS but have been unable to find much info at all about it.
> Maybe the front page has been revamped since the last time I checked.
> ...



I know that there used to be an EIS "overview" PDF, I can't find it on the site right now, but here's my box link to it:

https://app.box.com/s/3zoorww072ai9rp4cnaldkuboag9ii0a

This document is public, it's kind of an overview of what you can do with EIS. One core aspect of it is that it views all intervals as having equal "weight", allowing you to function within, or outside of, diatonic harmony. A semi-tone is considered an Equal Interval 1 (E1), and larger intervals are additions of that, so a tri-tone (C to F#) is considered an E6 range.

Well, you do have to join the course, but not because it's a cult. It's because, by lesson 5 or 6, you've been taught new names, terminology, and viewpoints for scales, chord progressions, and chord voicing, so you're basically re-languaging all the music theory you've known. That kind of thing can't really be put into a short document. Ugh, I'm sorry, KenK. 

I don't want to derail this thread, but I'll say this; I'm not being braggadocio, but I have 3 degrees in music (2 in composition), and I would have done none of those degrees (Well, I would have done NYU, it was great!), in exchange for EIS. It truly opened me up as a composer, and as a music creator. I feel like any genre, any style, is now open to me to compose in. I've done Film Noir, Americana, bebop jazz, contemporary jazz, atonal texture cues, all using EIS. I'm truly a thumbs up proponent of it.

Mike


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## KEnK (Jul 16, 2015)

Thanks Farkle- I've downloaded and will look at the doc tomorrow.
People do speak highly of EIS, so I think there's no question of it's usefulness.
I think though that's it's very likely that I instinctively know that approach,
having already studied 12 tone music, polytonality and a variety of such devices
long ago in a 20th century composition class.

Not to say I wouldn't learn something-
just that I'd like to see a more specific nuts and bolt overview.
Maybe the brochure is exactly that. :D

thanks again

k

p.s. Just listened to the pieces on your site
lovely voicings sir! a pleasure to listen to.


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## Farkle (Jul 17, 2015)

KEnK said:


> Thanks Farkle- I've downloaded and will look at the doc tomorrow.
> People do speak highly of EIS, so I think there's no question of it's usefulness.
> I think though that's it's very likely that I instinctively know that approach,
> having already studied 12 tone music, polytonality and a variety of such devices
> ...



Hi, KenK!

Thank you for the kind words, I am glad you like those cues! 

I do like both those cues up on my site. My site doesn't have a lot of music now, 'cause I'm in the middle of redoing the whole site, and mixing new cues for the site. Hope to have it done by end of August... fitting it around all this other stuff. 

Those cues were me getting in the DNA of a couple of composers (Ron Jones and Elmer Bernstein) and both of them came directly out of materials from Books 2 and Books 3 of EIS.

Regarding your background, yes, if you've studied 12 tone, polytonality (especially polytonality), then much, if not all, of what you'll see will be familiar. For me, it just codified all that into a universal approach to composing, using any and all of the tools you stated above. It was very unblocking, if that makes sense. 

Again, thank you for the kind words!

Mike


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## NoamL (Jul 20, 2015)

*"m11M: Dramatic sound popular in the early 21st century"*


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## Will Blackburn (Jul 6, 2016)

Living Fossil said:


> There is an ever better tutorial online, it explains nearly everything:




Haha


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## BigImpactSound (Jul 7, 2016)

Ian Dorsch said:


> I once had a dude corner me at a gig, and explain to me how he was developing a bunch of revolutionary new scales and modes on the guitar. He had named his favorites Trimolian and Demolian. This dude reminds me a little of that dude.


Really?


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